In the book PlusPlus I reflect on more than a hundred patterns for better communication. One of the chapters is called The Punk Rocker of Rhetoric. The Punk Rocker of Rhetoric is an episode dedicated to sound bites. Sound bites are phrases that ruthlessly stick out of an otherwise gray mass of content; its effect is that it’s easy to remember — in fact, it’s difficult to forget.
In a seminar I held in Hamburg in April 2013, I got to know a new sticky sound bite.
Imagine you hear 18 three-minute speeches in one day. Which content would you remember? Which phrase would stick out? Would you be capable of citing any line of those speeches after three months?
After that seminar in Hamburg I can remember one phrase. Clearly, this is because I was bitten by a sound!
It was a wonderful lady who said it. Enthusiastic, natural, vulnerable – hopefully a future member of Toastmasters. In her first speech about her life she said this one phrase – one phrase I just cannot forget. A super sound bite!
She said that, I was the forgotten-the-pill-three-times-child.
Add sound bites like forgotten-the-pill-three-times-child or punk rockers of mobile phones or the Spotify of software to your speeches. You and your phrases will be much more memorable.