Now that the good weather has arrived I have been thinking about gardening and speeches, and I have realized that they have many things in common … and not only that both are hard work …

Do you have gardening? If so, you are probably eager to receive the seed catalog, study them carefully, and decide what to put in your garden: flowers or vegetables, what types, how many. You can read books on perennial planting or container gardening. Talk to other gardeners for advice on the best flowers or vegetables to plant in your soil, and maybe get pictures of your garden so you know what you’re looking for. You may want to attract hummingbirds or other birds to your backyard and therefore seek information on what types of shrubs to plant. Then you have to decide where your garden will be, how big, will you have a path, what will be your focus. You need to make sure you have different colors and plants throughout the garden and not just group them in one place. You may want to put a path for people to walk quietly through your garden. Perhaps you have a bench where they can sit and pause while viewing your garden, perhaps near your piece de resistance: the most beautiful flower or amazing vegetable plants.

If you are a Toastmasters International member speaker, each month you receive a Toastmasters magazine with many articles and speech suggestions. You also read your manuals deciding what kind of speech you will give (you do, right ???) and if you belong to more than one club, to which club you will give it. You can save a file folder from funny stories you have found or from your personal experience. You talk to other Toastmasters and ask for advice on how to craft your speech, what to put in it, and what to skip. So you decide on a plan. What will you use to attract the attention of the audience? What colorful words or alliterations can be used to attract people? Then think about the body of your speech. You will need to move at a smooth pace so that everyone can understand what you are saying. You will need to add pauses for particular points (your best flowers) so that people can appreciate what you said.

You’ll want to complete the body of the speech, just as you would the garden – some points here, some beyond, gently guiding the audience down the garden path of your speech to the conclusion where you give them their best shot. parting tip.

I’m sure you can see clearly now how writing a speech is like planting a garden. By following this “speech gardening plan,” you’ll be sure to create great speeches. Just remember the following:

Just as a garden needs a variety of colors, a speech needs colorful words to draw on the mind of the audience.

A garden contains many different types of flowers and / or vegetables. A speech needs many points of interest or stories.

A garden needs a path to guide the viewer. A speech should be linked with words and phrases to guide the audience from opening to conclusion.

People often want to “stop and smell the roses.” The audience needs time to pause and reflect on a particularly powerful statement. The speech should be pleasantly paced and not rushed.

In a garden it is important not to put everything together, but to distribute it so that people can enjoy it. In a speech it is important not to rush or put all the information in the first paragraph or the last paragraph.

Oh yeah, one more thing. A gardener has to work in his garden and weed regularly to keep the garden beautiful and a speaker must read and weed his speech to eliminate superfluous words to suit the time required. picture.