How to End a Talk: bookend with silence and story
Gymnasts know how to end a routine. Look at the phenomenal, Simone Biles. She embodies finality. Everything about her, even in stillness, says a proud, “The End.”
Just as we open a talk in silence, we end a talk in silence. We wait. Just wait. We take in the audience. We breathe in this moment. Silently, we thank them for coming on this journey.
We might want to scoot right off the stage—sometimes we even roll our eyes and run, panicked, into the wings! Please do not do this. If we do, we have undermined everything that came before. No matter how uncomfortable, just stop speaking and breathe. For how long, you ask? I imagine a bass tone piano note, “booooooom!” And wait until the sound is completely absorbed by the room.
As I said last week in How to Begin a Talk, I ask that speakers craft and memorize both their opening and closing lines. (I’ll cover how to work with the rest of the talk next week.)
If we do not know our opening and closing lines, we might meander in and sputter out at the end. Having clean, crafted, beautiful opening and closing lines gives us an anchor.
DARE TO END
When anxious, we can keep speaking, filling the space with bland nothings. When you know your last line, it’s easier to end with a clear FIN.
BOOKEND
I love talks that bring us on a journey and then circle back to the beginning. When thinking about how to end a talk, think back to how we started.
A lovely example of this bookending is Ami Vitale’s talk at TEDx Charlottesville. Ami is a National Geographic photographer, activist, and organizer. Her talk starts with a story of her first trip to Africa. In Guinea-Bissau, she lives with women and their children, cuddled at night into each other. She tells the story of her last night. The children ask questions, “Do you have cashews in America, Ami? Do you have mangoes in America?” Yes, yes. And one boy, Alio, asks, “Do you have a moon in America?”
Her talk then moves through glorious photographs of people loving, living, frail, and vibrant, throughout the world. She shows how we are more alike than different.
Her last line bookends the talk beautifully:
“And yes, Alio, we all have the same moon.”