"77 Steps to Success??"

"Get your pens out and start writing, because in the next few minutes you’ll have 77 steps to success."  How stupid! Yet, haven’t you heard speakers speak on a subject that’s impossible to cover in the time they’re allotted?

So how do you speak on a complex subject in that brief time span, and make it effective and helpful?

In one of my seminars on Values I use this story to help the audience decide on a personal mission statement:

A group of volunteer college students was being paid for a week long experiment. They would be placed in a room for seven days. Food, water and necessities would be provided. Their assignment was to fill a wheelbarrow with whatever they wanted in that room for a week—books, CDs, DVDs, weights, etc.

At the appointed time the college students showed up with wheelbarrows piled high with stuff. Then they were told the rules had changed and they could only take ten items into the room for the week.

After much grumbling they took out lots of stuff and had their ten items. As they prepared to go into the room they were told another change had occurred—they could only take three items. Moans and groans followed until each had just three.

Then a final change—as you guessed, now it was only one item that could be taken in. After a near riot they each had the one item in hand. At that point the facilitator paid the students for the week and sent them home. Experiment over.

What the researchers wanted to know was what was “the most important” item those college students owned. Some took a book, others an iPod, laptop, or exercise equipment.

The researchers knew that just asking what was their number one possession was almost impossible, but by narrowing choices from unlimited, to ten, to three, they could get to that number one item.

So what’s the point here? The point is you need to take the same process with your next complex talk on Success, How To Get Rich, How To Be Fit, or How To Speak Better and boil it down to “the most important point or points.”

If you have 77 steps to success, list all 77. Put them in your wheelbarrow and then reduce them to ten—to three—to one. In a typical short speech, you can’t say a lot, so why not focus on the important things?

“My message today is about what I learned selling my home myself. Actually I learned 17 things. Three of those 17 are the most valuable. What you’ll hear is how you can take just one of those big three and save yourself lots of stress, time, effort and energy. First, here’s my list of 17 . . .”

Read them quickly and keep them short and snappy—two or three words. Then end with your big three, and focus on them.

Forget the 77 Steps to Success. Just give your audience the most important one!