7 Lessons From a 7-Minute Speech – Part 2
In part 1 of this four-part series we saw how a speaker’s only obligation must be to the audience. This series is based on a presentation about the lessons I learned last year from my Toastmasters contest experience. In that contest a 7-minute speech called “One Life, Fully Lived” took me to the semfinals of the World Championship. of Public Speaking.
This part covers lessons 2 and 3. Together, they are about how you saying less can make your message land more effectively for the audience.
Lesson 2: Every Word Must Earn Its Place
An audience pays us with attention. That’s the currency. And attention is expensive.
We must eliminate every unnecessary word.
To show you what I mean, here’s a paragraph from an early draft of my contest speech:
“About a year before Uzma parasailed, we received devastating news. The doctors said her cancer had returned. It had spread to her liver. That meant it was stage 4. It was as if fate had put a ticking time bomb in our lives, and we could both hear it tick.”
That’s 50 words and 7 sentences.
Now here’s the final version:
“A year before Uzma parasailed, we got devastating news. Her cancer was back. Now, stage 4. Fate had put a time bomb in our lives. Tick. Tick. Tick.”
That’s 28 words and 7 sentences.
Same emotional impact. Same story. Forty-four percent fewer words.
Why use more words when fewer hit harder?
The original version explains everything. The doctors said this. It spread there. That meant this. It was as if something.
The final version shows it. Short punches. No hand-holding. And the “Tick. Tick. Tick.” at the end creates urgency that the audience can feel in their bones.
There’s a technical point here, too. The original paragraph reads at a third-grade reading level. The revised version reads at a kindergarten level. I’m not saying kindergartners should read about cancer. But simpler language is easier to process, which means your audience spends less energy on decoding and is more open to your point.
That’s the craft. Every sentence should give the audience meaningful new information and move the story forward. If a word isn’t pulling its weight, cut it.
What This Means For Healthcare Leaders
You know where this lesson shows up constantly?
Emails. Presentations. Reports. Meeting agendas.
I’ve reviewed hundreds of physician-written communications over the years. The pattern is almost always the same: too many words doing too little work.
Here’s a real example, modified slightly. A department chief sent this message to their team:
“I wanted to reach out to let you all know that after careful consideration and extensive discussion with the leadership team, we have made the decision to implement a new scheduling system that we believe will improve operational efficiency and better align with our patient volume patterns.”
That’s 46 words. Here’s what it actually says:
“We’re switching to a new scheduling system to better match patient volume. Here’s what’s changing.”
Sixteen words. Same information. More respect for the reader’s time.
This isn’t about dumbing things down. It’s about sharpening things up.
Every time you write an email, build a slide deck, or draft a proposal, you’re asking people to spend their attention on you. Respect that. Make every word earn its place.
A quick test: after you write something, go back through and ask of each sentence, “What new information does this give the reader?” If the answer is “nothing new,” delete it.
Lesson 3: Tell The Truth, But Don’t Be Boring
This lesson is a close cousin of Lesson 2, but it tackles a different problem.
Lesson 2 is about cutting unnecessary words. Lesson 3 is about cutting unnecessary facts.
An early draft of my speech had this paragraph:
When Uzma’s cancer returned, it was in her liver. She read all the medical literature she could to understand her prognosis. The literature said that 50% of women whose breast cancer spreads to the liver die within 3 years. 75% are gone within 5 years. After speaking with her oncologist and her oncologist friends about this, she was convinced she had 3-4 more years.
Were the details accurate? Yes.
Were they necessary to land the message? No.
Instead, I distilled it to one line:
“When Uzma’s cancer returned, the doctors said she had 3 to 4 more years.”
Truth preserved. Impact amplified.
Here’s what happened. In the original version, I was dumping clinical data on the audience. Percentages. Mortality rates. Organ-specific prognosis. I was being thorough.
But that particular audience didn’t need a medical education. They needed to feel what it was like to hear that you have 3 to 4 years left. One simple sentence did that better than a paragraph of statistics.
And notice the phrase “the doctors said.” In reality, no single doctor said that to Uzma. She was herself a physician. She read the literature, spoke with her oncologist and her oncologist friends, and arrived at that number. She died about 10 days before the third anniversary of her stage 4 diagnosis.
But explaining all of that in a speech? Boring. Confusing. Irrelevant to the message.
“The doctors said she had 3 to 4 more years” is truthful in spirit. It captures the essence without drowning the audience in details they don’t need.
That’s the principle: tell the truth, but curate it for your audience. Skip the details that don’t respect the audience’s time or advance your message.
Why This Is Especially Relevant In Healthcare
Here’s where physician leaders consistently trip up.
We are trained in precision. In clinical medicine, the difference between “50% mortality at 3 years” and “the doctors said 3 to 4 more years” matters enormously. It changes treatment decisions, goals-of-care conversations, and prognosis discussions.
But most of our leadership communication isn’t clinical. It’s strategic. It’s motivational. It’s cultural.
And in those contexts, precision and detail can actually hurt you.
I once presented to hospital leadership about why we needed standard alcohol withdrawal management protocols. I had incredible data. I presented the data in great detail. Towards the end, I explained why we needed to do it. By that time, half the room had checked out. It took a full year for my proposal to become a reality.
I like to believe that had I been a better communicator then, it wouldn’t have taken that long. My presentation wasn’t wrong. But it was boring. And boring information doesn’t change minds.
What if I had opened with a patient story that illustrated the problem? What if I had stated the solution in one sentence, and then said, “The data backs this up, and I’m happy to share the details with anyone who wants them”?
Same truth. Better delivery. More likely to turn into reality.
The Art of Curating Truth
This isn’t about lying. It’s not about misleading. It’s about choosing which truths to emphasize based on what your audience needs.
When you present to a CFO, they need the “so what.” Not the methodology.
When you talk to your team about a new policy, they need to know what’s changing and why it matters to them. Not the sixteen committee meetings that led to the decision.
When you mentor a junior colleague who’s struggling, they need one insight they can act on. Not a comprehensive review of everything they’re doing wrong.
Curating truth is an act of respect. It says, “I trust you to handle the essential message. I won’t waste your time with everything else.”
The Two Practices
Here are two things to try before your next communication:
First, apply the “every word must earn its place” test. After you write something, go back and ask of every sentence: does this add something new? Does it move the message forward? If not, cut it.
Second, apply the “truth, not boring” test. For every fact or detail you include, ask: Does my audience need this to understand the message, or am I including it because I think it’s important? If it’s the latter, move it to an appendix or leave it out entirely.
These two habits alone will transform how people experience your communication. You’ll say less. You’ll mean more. And people will actually remember what you said.
This is Part 2 of a four-part series: 7 Lessons from a 7-Minute Speech. It is based on a 25-minute interactive presentation with the same title that I have given in multiple settings, including at District 30 (Chicago Region) Toastmasters Leadership Institute in December 2025. Leave a comment if you would like to explore whether it could be a good presentation for your team.
Next week: Why reading your speech silently doesn’t count as practice, and what happens when you let real people hear your work.