Imagine, you are about to give a presentation to an auditorium full of onlookers. You have practiced your speech, perfected your outline, and arranged your information well to be presentable to the audience. The sensation of stage fright creeping in can grip your body if you haven’t considered the importance of tone to what you are about to present. Even the most practiced speakers will feel as though something is amiss right before giving the initial introduction to a talk if they are undecided on which type of atmosphere to promote. The most important aspect of any speech is to keep the tone conversational.

Explore the four keys that make learning stick for adults: practicality, relevance, real-world application, and demonstrated value.

Knowles (1978) proposed Andragogy to make a distinction between how children learn, known as pedagogy, and how accountable adults pursue learning. The agency inherent in the accountability assumed from adulthood allows adult learners a distinct advantage in setting their own learning goals. Adult learners can guide learning journeys based on what has motivated and catalyzed other adults to learn, grow, improve, and create meaningful change. Knowles (1984) states that adult learners function through five distinct assumptions: self-concept, experiential learning, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and motivation to learn.

All communication is persuasion; it is either well-placed or it’s misplaced. I use this statement to exemplify that even the most mundane statement is an attempt to get others to listen, at the least, and be prompted to act or change their views at the most. In my college courses, I offer ten points of extra credit to the person who can disprove the idea that all communication is ultimately an attempt to persuade. I have yet to award those extra credit points after roughly fifteen years of teaching similar courses. The value of information and informative speaking structures are important in the sense that they allow an audience to feel relatively less pressure to act. Persuasive speaking should influence people positively to take actions that will bring positive outcomes to individuals, groups, companies, communities, states, or globally.