This is 100 times better than ending with thank you when it comes to the end
of a speech most speakers including the super impressive TED talkers closed
their speech with thank you thank you for listening thank you for tuning in
thank you for joining me today or some variation on the theme don't get me
wrong saying thank you is so important showing your audience gratitude is a
really great thing what I'm saying is don't close the speech the talk with
thank you it's a pretty dull and boring way of ending today we're gonna discuss
a new way of closing your speech that's not just thank you and what I'm about to
share with you today is not only relevant for closing a speech but also
for a talk or ending a meeting you could even do this at the end of a
conversation this strategy is forever going to change the way you close your
talk it's going to leave your talk in the audience's mind for hours days weeks
maybe even years to come so wouldn't you want to try out this approach your
message will have higher impact longevity and the best part is it may
even initiate a call to action how amazing does that sound are you ready
for this game-changer let's get right into it I
have three magic words for you food for thought now you may have heard this term
before but we're talking about it in the context of closing a talk closing a
meeting ending a speech let me explain food for thought is posing a question at
the end of your talk but not just any old question it is by design an
open-ended question now you may be wondering well why does the Food for
Thought work how can that be a great way of closing here's why this open-ended
question will be so alluring so enchanting so inviting that they're
going to think about it it'll just pop up throughout their day they might be
on the subway on their way to work making dinner playing tennis the thought
of your speech and the message that resonated with them will just surface if
you use a food for thought so in other words it keeps your talk alive it'll
stay in the back of their minds and they might even want to act upon it they
might want to do something about the message you shared the information you
gave the reason you were able to persuade them the reason you want to
avoid a closed-ended question starting with do you did you have you is because
the audience will answer that right on the spot yes/no and poof your talk you
will disappear in their minds there's no need to linger upon that message so here
are the three steps that'll help you generate a food for thought for the end
of your talk step 1 formulate a question using to what extent why how in what
ways notice how we're avoiding closed-ended questions step 2 allow the
Food for Thought to organically emerge from your talk in other words you don't
want to force it but let it appear as the relevant thing to ask so it has to
be related to your talk logical connections explorers right that makes
sense step 3 address a burning question that
the audience may have had throughout your talk and to do step 3 you can ask
yourself two things what question would I have liked to answer for the audience
but don't have an answer to what question can germinate from this speech
but has no solution as of yet let's look at some food for thought in action say
we've just wrapped a talk about revamping the education system your food
for thought could be how would you provide the best real world education
that a child needs to excel in this world for a talk on policy change you
may end with what remains to be known is whether these policies will have
negative impacts side the benefits they bring if this
topic interests any of you I highly encourage that line of inquiry as we
continue to address this important issue for a talk about the future of our
planet you might have a food for thought that is when will we reach a point where
terraforming Mars will be our only chance at human survival no one knows
for sure but based on our current trajectory that day is fast approaching
what you do now will influence that deadline so as you can see these are so
much more powerful than ending with thank you right say your thank you get
your food for thought in there the audience will be mesmerized and they're
going to think about this question that will ruminate over it and they might
even find a solution to the question you posed you can also think of it as a
research question that you're putting out there for future inquiry for future
development and for further research so to sum up food for thought is a powerful
way of closing your talk and it establishes not only your authority as a
speaker but also your credibility and it will get the gears in the audience's
brain working and that's what we want no one in the audience expects you to have
the answers for everything even if you're a subject-matter expert the way
knowledge works is that everyone moves it a little bit forward so you've moved
it forward now it's the audience's turn think of it like passing the torch to
the next person so that is the power behind the food for thought before we go
let's quickly recap the problem that we're trying to solve is to end the talk
with something other than thank you our solution to this problem is food for
thought it can spark passion curiosity and even generate a call to action we've
discussed three ways of generating a food for thought with these three steps
phrasing it as an open-ended question letting it organically emerge from the
topic because it's relevant asking a question to which there is no solution
of yet so these are the three steps to help you figure out what your
food-for-thought will be the first step in coming up with an open ending
question should be relatively straightforward now you may have a
little bit more difficulty with steps two and three because you really have to
think about what you're telling them what message you're sharing and where
are the gaps and knowledge are but you can think of it along the lines of I've
done the research I've contributed now I'm passing the baton so that you can
also do the research contribute and add to the fount of knowledge my advice you
use to practice trying out the food-for-thought strategy by trying it
on your friends maybe in a casual conversation see how people respond to
it and what kind of curiosity and questions it generates if you find that
people are really interested in knowing more and thinking about it and you can
see the wheels and their head turning then that is probably a good food for
thought so practice it try it out in different scenarios and then use it when
you want to close your talk and your speech come to the end of a meeting it's
a really powerful way of closing that speech with some practice in those
settings you will start to see the gradual benefits of doing a food for
thought alright Explearners that's a wrap on this video thank you so much for
tuning in and I hope that you found this video useful if you did give it a like
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in my next video Happy Explearning