The deadly sins of public speaking can completely wreck your best efforts to give a good speech. I think it’s important to be aware of them so that we can eradicate them from our speaking. Infobesity is the second deadly sin in my series.

Gluttony or infobesity tends to manifest itself in speakers saying too much and often brings with it an unintended side effect of speaking too fast.

Infobesity and saying too much

When you know a lot about something or you’re really passionate about a subject, it is tempting to want to share everything you know with your audience. But think about how long it has taken you to develop your enthusiasm and accumulate all your knowledge … Months? Years? Now compare that with the length of your speech … 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour?  You cannot realistically hope to share with an audience everything you know about a subject in such a short space of time and expect them to take it all in. It’s just too much information!

What can you do about saying too much?

The speaker’s responsibility is to define a clear goal or message and only include information that serves that purpose.  If it doesn’t support your message, remove it.

Develop a mantra – Less is Always More!

Infobesity and speaking too fast

An unfortunate bi-product of having too much to say and being nervous is that we tend to gabble and speak far too quickly. We forget to breathe. We’re afraid of silence. Public speaking is not a conversation with a few mates. While a conversational style can be very appealing, giving a successful speech needs us to slow down and speak clearly.

What can you do about speaking too fast?

Slow down!

As a rough guide, I, personally, aim for about 90-100 words a minute.  There seems to be little agreement about average numbers of words per minute in conversation, but the range is generally around 130 to about 225 words per minute. We have the ability to listen at a faster rate than we can speak – some say 500-600 words per minute – but can you really absorb what is being said at that rate … and would you want to?

By slowing down, you achieve three important goals:

• You have time to draw breath and pause. This helps you relax as a speaker and gives your audience to consider their own experience of what you are saying
• It gives your audience time to absorb and reflect on the meaning of your words
• You have time to strengthen the delivery of your message with powerful body language and interesting vocal variety.