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Writer Joseph Conrad once said, “If you give me the right word and the correct accent in which to speak it, I can move the world!” The spoken word, can move your world too. Professionally. Personally.

So to help you accomplish that movement, I’ve sought the counsel of Doug Stevenson. Doug has been helping folks deliver dynamite speeches for years. He’s the creator of “The Story Theater Method” and “The 21-Step How to Write and Deliver a Dynamite Speech System.” Here are excerpts from our conversation:

Jeff Blackman: What makes a great speech?

Doug Stevenson: A great speech has solid mechanics and powerful dynamics. The mechanics are the strategic design of the speech, an area where most speakers fall on their face. They have no idea a speech needs to be designed, like any other product they’d bring to market.

The dynamics are the energetic and emotional elements of the speech. These elements; passion, enthusiasm, energy, and conviction make the difference between a speech that’s compelling and memorable or one that’s a boring time waster.

JB: What are some of the “key phases” in your Dynamite Speech System?

DS: The first phase, “Strategic Design” teaches a process for identifying your core message, the one that’ll hold your speech together, and your supporting points. These are the mechanics of speech construction.

The second phase, “Creative Development” is where the speaker makes creative and imaginative decisions about how best to deliver the core message and supporting points.

In a Dynamite Speech, standing and talking isn’t enough.

One of my core principles is that emotion is the fast lane to the brain. If the speaker simply stands and talks without connecting emotionally with an audience, the speech may be interesting, but not Dynamite.

Stories, metaphors, quotes, and ancillary reading material are all part of the creative design phase. This is where mechanics and dynamics come together.

The third phase, “Preparation and Delivery” is where the speaker takes the time to consider performance elements. Here, the speaker rehearses and memorizes certain elements and visualizes the speech.

You must conceptualize it from the audience’s point of view as an auditory, visual and kinesthetic experience.

Where will you stand, when will you move, speed up, slow down, get loud or quiet.

JB: What role does “mental preparation” play?

DS: There are two powerful and equally important aspects to mental preparation. The first, is to spend more time practicing your speech so you’re familiar with it, when it’s delivered. It’s not enough to organize your slides and think you’re ready.

If you don’t practice, you won’t know what you’re doing.

That’s a recipe for fear and panic. But let’s assume you’re prepared and ready.

I spend the fifteen minutes before I speak ... working on my energy and mental state. I walk away from my content and focus on mental, spiritual and emotional energy.

I do lots of positive self talk. I pray. And I accelerate my heart rate. I even run in place for sixty seconds. Then I let my heart rate calm down and I breathe myself into a positive state. This is all far better than worrying about what I’m going to say.

JB: As the creator of “The Story Theater Method” ... what makes stories so powerful?

DS: Studies about how adults learn show memory is formed when a person’s attention is engaged over a sustained period of time. And it’s enhanced when senses are stimulated.

In his book, “The Owners Manual for the Brain”, Pierce J. Howard, Ph.D., explains how memory is formed. The immediate memory is like a buffer area that can hold thousands of pieces of data for two seconds or less.

The short-term memory is a like a broker that selects chunks of data to remember, but it takes about eight seconds of attention to add one new chunk of short-term memory. A new chunk of short-term memory becomes long-term memory when your attention is engaged over time.

When you listen to a great storyteller, you hear the story with your head, heart and soul. You’re not a passive listener. You’re an active participant. You’re experiencing the story as if it was yours.

You retain the chunks of information in the story because you see the images, hear the sounds, and feel the emotions.

The story engages your attention on many levels, for a sustained time, so when the storyteller makes a point, the learning sticks. Storytelling transcends an intellectual experience.

JB: How does one become a great storyteller?

DS: Here are five tips:

1. Select the main point of your story. Build the story with the end in mind.

2. Eliminate tangential or extraneous information. But create detailed descriptions of the important scenes and people in your story.

3. Act out key parts of the story in the present tense, even if most of your story will be told as a past tense narrative.

4. Make the point of your story as an action statement, a positive command. For example: If the point is about the importance of reading and understanding a document or offer completely, you might say: “So you see how important it is to fully understand what we read and sign. If you want to avoid problems like the one I encountered, Read the Fine Print.” 5. Relate the story’s point to your listener with a specific question. For example: “How about you? Have you ever thought you understood something only to find out later ... that you had it all wrong? Have you ever forgotten to read the fine print? Remember, Read the Fine Print!” Next week, even more on stories and structure. Plus, meaningful messages and memorable motivators.

And, to move your world even faster, take a peek at storytheater.net or dougstevenson.com.

Jeff Blackman is a speaker, author, success coach, broadcaster and lawyer who lives part-time on Marco Island. His clients call him a “business-growth specialist.” Send an e-mail to jeff@jeffblackman.com or go to www.jeffblackman.com to subscribe to his free e-letter.