July 2015. A hot and humid summer night in Kota Kinabalu, East Malaysia. The mumbling sound of Hakka Chinese in the air. Dynasty, a popular Chinese restaurant. Surrounded by my Asian folks I enjoy one of the most delicious Chinese dishes of my life. Home-made sweet and sour pork.
While I savor my plate, a rhetorical thought pops up in my mind. What if this dish were a speech? I look at the plate in front of me and think,
The veggies and the sauce – that’s the content. It makes the speech sweet and sour. The pineapple could be sour emotion, the red pepper could be sweet logic, the sauce could be the structure. Without the veggies, without the sauce, no speech.
I keep thinking.
But – what is it that makes this plate so special? Isn’t it the crust, the juicy taste, the pork? The pork is the delivery!
That sweet and sour pork only tasted so good because both of them came together as one.
Next time you speak in public, don’t serve your audience just veggies and sauce like in the image above. And don’t serve them only pork. Serve them a complete and delicious dish, a dish of content AND delivery!
Then, for sure, your audience will savor your speech like I savored that sweet and sour pork during a hot and humid night in East Malaysia.