Lessons to help you give your audience goosebumps by Zac Garside.

The First Public Speaking Outline Ever:

Around 465 BC, a Syracusan man named Corax is credited by many as the first man to successfully influence people with a “public speech.”

The tyrant of Syracuse, Thrasybulus, had just been overthrown. The people were finally, in a sense, free!

But they didn’t know how to be free…

There was chaos and uncertainty amongst a people who didn’t understand how to manage widespread freedom.

Then this man, Corax, “began to soothe and silence the people and to speak as though telling a story, and after these things to summarize and call to mind concisely what had gone before and to bring to their eyes at a glance what had previously been said.”

Do you see it?

1. Introduction
2. Narration
3. Argument
4. Digression
5. Epilogue

Those were the terms Corax used to describe the outline his first “public speech.”

And those principles still work to this very day.

The best ideas are timeless ones.

Shout-out to Sam Leith for sharing this story in his book Words Like Loaded Pistols. A must-read.

Thanks for reading! You can email me at zac@zacgarside.com