It's In the Way That You Use It

I am a slow reader. I started Eric Clapton's autobiography last month in the airport and last night came across a nugget worth thinking about.

He is discussing his tour after his son's death and the MTV Unplugged album. He relates that he originally performed the song "Tears in Heaven" as the opening song of the act, but did not feel the song was successful there; after all, there were 20+ thousand people in the audience all excited and ready to see and hear him. On top of that, he felt he lacked sufficient stagecraft to properly convey the message of the song that early, and he felt he only only getting by as a musician given recent events in his life. After a few stops, he solved the dilemma by moving the set of acoustic songs to the middle of the show, where they were accepted by the crowd that had spent some of its energy built up by anticipation.

So what does this have to do with public speaking? In order to be effective, you need a) a message; b) to know your audience; c) to know your limitations; d) to be flexible; and e) to know how to put it all together.

After all, like Clapton sings, "It's In the Way That You Use It."