Speech Topics

Here are some preliminary thoughts about speech topics.

I've decided NOT to give my speeches an overarching theme. I did toy with the idea, though, and it might have been easier to put the whole list together if they had all been about, say, Shakespeare. I'm shelving that idea for the moment.

Another problem I hit was whether some topics would be suitable for audiences in different countries. I've made a deliberate effort to avoid controversy - I don't plan to talk about politics, identity, religion or war. But I still have practical issues. Would talks on UK tax, for example, be relatable for anyone outside the UK? (Frankly I get this problem when I talk to UK audiences about it too.) On the other hand, that topic might be particularly suitable for speeches which are about research or about presenting an audience with unfamiliar material

Anyway, I've got, broadly, two areas of specialist knowledge, which I plan to draw on as much as I reasonably can:

• In my day job I am a lawyer, with a specialisation in inheritance tax planning. I trawled through the powerpoints on my computer to see if any talks I had given to colleagues or client groups might be suitable to use in this pathway: and some of them were.
• I know a lot about the works of William Shakespeare.

Some ideas are suggested by the project. Indeed some, mostly the level 2 speeches, require specific subject matter.

Then beyond that there are a few favourite speeches that I particularly wanted to include (e.g. The Limerick Toastmasters Club) and I've already established that one of the rules of my speedrun is that there is no rule that any individual speech is original, nor that it is exclusive to this path. However I want to rely on that really rather sparingly. I need to feel that this path is genuinely earned, not just a repetition of existing speeches done at speed as a kind of gimmick. 

In a similar vein, I've given a speech on Henry V before which, while not the same in terms of its other content, used the same three extracts from the play as I am this time. Not only am I doing it because I'm especially passionate about it, but also because it gives a context to my very different take on the subject matter in the new speech called Harfleur.

Next, some of the challenges I face in life, or specific ones that I face in this project, will provide material for some of the talks. Indeed the opening and closing speeches - Icebreaker and Reflect on Your Path - I can reasonably hope will effectively "write themselves" just through the process of doing this exercise.