CHAPTER 11

End with a Bang: Leave Them Breathless!

Do your work with your whole heart and you will succeed—there is so little competition!

—ELBERT HUBBARD

A good talk or seminar is like a good play, movie, or song. It opens by arresting the listener’s attention, develops point by point, and then ends strongly.

The words you say at the beginning, and especially at the end of your talk, will be remembered longer than almost any other part of your speech. Some of the great speeches of history have ended with powerful, stirring words that live on in memory.

For example, during World War II, Winston Churchill stirred the nation with his tribute to the pilots of the Royal Air Force, who were fighting and dying in aerial combat with the German Luftwaffe: ...

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