Welcome to 2024. To me, the 2020s were supposed to be the stuff of science fiction, a world beyond what I expected to know.  I should be taking regular shuttles to the moon, now, to help the President there prepare her annual State of the Moon speech and thinking no more of it than a shuttle to New York.

But alas, the 2020s seem to be shaping up pretty much like the past decade, only a little worse in terms of what we have not yet done to save our planet and resolve our differences.  So, apparently, we still have to keep doing the work, improving our craft, creating interesting conversations in person and online, and eating our spinach.

Accordingly, here are five simple, fundamental ideas to help you have a successful 2024 as a public speaker, given that the world will keep on spinning in the predictable ways.

Practice, practice, practice.  If you’re not sure yet when your next speech will happen, don’t use that as an excuse to coast.  You can practice, like Demosthenes apparently did, strolling up and down the seashore, putting pebbles in his mouth so that it would be easier to talk once he took them out.  All you need is a room, and a pet, or a cooperating spouse, if you don’t have a beach nearby.  You don’t need an invitation to speak from the White House.  If you want to get out of your own house, go to Toastmasters and practice there.

Do the hard things in practice so that the speaking becomes easy.  Focus on the parts of your speech that trip you up – start there rather than leaving them until last.  Bring your best energy to your challenges.  Volunteer your services (appropriately) to a local school.  If you can keep the attention of groggy high school students or over-sugared middle school students, then adults will seem relatively easy.

Work on something new.  This idea is important, especially for successful speakers who give roughly the same speech regularly.  You need to keep challenging yourself with new material and new techniques. Get comfortable with speaking technology if you haven’t already – conduct a poll, learn to use Prezi and glam up your slides – whatever is new for you that is challenging or even a little scary.

Add something vulnerable.  If you haven’t already, make 2024 the year you add a vulnerable moment, or story, or way to connect with the audience.  I held off for years talking about my relationship with my father and our communications because it felt too raw and risky.  Now, when I share pieces of that story, I can see the audience pay deep attention in a way that leaving them more comfortable (and me less vulnerable) doesn’t reach.  If you are not telling powerful, relevant, personal stories, then set a marker to add at least one to your speech this year.  As I was telling a client the other day, when Jim Collins was talking about Good to Great in the early 2000s, it would have seemed strange if he had told us about some personal trauma.  Now, in 2024, it would be strange if he didn’t.

Schedule time off.  One of the biggest mistakes speakers make because of the nature of the business is that they develop a constitutional inability to say ‘no’. They say ‘yes’ to speeches they shouldn’t give, audiences they shouldn’t talk to, and topics they shouldn’t touch.  Because you want to be sure there is always a next gig, after all.  But you have to trust in the universe and your competence and walk away from the podium from time to time.

Here’s to a productive, healthy, fun 2024 for all!