You’d have to brain dead to “listen up,” when the human brain retains less than 5% of what a person hears in any talk. It’s true. Lectures actually work against your brain. Yet in every lecture hall, and in every hard seat, you find people sitting bolt upright, feigning interest for the sake of some speaker. Wait a minute … how then have lectures and talks stuck around since Plato, if they work against a person’s brain? Good question, and the answer is finally here.

Talking benefits and motivates the speaker, not the listener!

How so? Whenever speakers talk or teach anything, those speakers fire up many intelligences for aha moments through the teaching process. Here’s the clincher though - speakers retain 90% of what they teach. Compare that high-stake return with the less than 5% retention for the poor schmuck bolt upright in a hard seat. Do the math and answer becomes clear. Teach and you retain 90%, listen and you keep 5% at best. In spite of wasted revenue, lost time and unused talents, talking sticks around because it benefits talkers. Speakers’ motivation for lectures is more than high enough to keep words flying - even those that bounce off your bored brain.

Still feeling the need to lecture? If so, why not deliver your next speech to the cat. You’ll still get the 90% retention benefit, Kitty gets the attention, and unsuspecting listeners get spared wasted words.

So how then do we teach anything without talking?

Tomorrow I am invited to give a breakfast talk to a Rotary group. The Title of my talk is … “How could a brain ever benefit from a talk like this?” And I’ll engage many of their multiple intelligences in this way.

1. I’ll offer a brief introduction for under two minutes and throw in a joke to release enzymes for learning. Then I’ll ask my question … “What was the best talk you’ve ever heard and why?” Since there are too many to hear all the answers, I’ll have them swap stories with the person to their right, and then hear a few after 3 minutes.

2. Next I’ll play the song, “I believe I can fly,” and ask Rotarians to come up with one question each about how their brains could reboot to help them fly in a new way? I’ll invite them to reflect on one thing that holds them back, and to jot their question down on a piece of paper, during the song.

3. Then my PowerPoint will generate interactive discussion. With each of five slides, I will motivate participants to apply brain based ideas to their day, in ways that answer a few of their questions… Remaining questions that come in, I will answer in future blogs here at Brain Boomer. That way we can all enjoy their great questions and interactions, I suspect will emerge.

Here are slide titles we’ll banter back and forth to apply new ideas to people’s interests…

a. Nightly your brain rewires based on questions you ask and things you do that day
b. Target a new adventure for the day and you strengthen your working memory
c. Expect serotonin not cortisol to move your day forward
d. Move multiple intelligences into action to grow neuron pathways for your brain
e. Reflect on new solutions to a problem, laugh at yourself, and play with ideas

Nuff said. My time is up … the breakfast meeting is over … I talked less … and hopefully my audience will feel inspired by the many intelligences they engaged, to try out a few brain based ideas, in ways that benefit their day. I hope that happens, because Rotarians are the best and they deserve the best! Any ideas to make my talk better?