I’ve sat through more talks than anyone I know.

Hundreds of speeches. Keynotes. Panel discussions. Corporate presentations. Government briefings. Sermons. Industry conferences across every sector you can imagine.

Not the slightest exaggeration here. It’s literally my job to sit in rooms and listen while drawing what people say.

Which gives me a strange vantage point, seeing what lands and what doesn’t. Not by judging the content or critiquing the delivery, but by what shows up on the page when I try to capture it visually.

Some speeches and talks practically draw themselves. Others leave a relatively blank page.

What Shows Up Visually

When someone speaks authentically, the illustration becomes, well, beautiful. Full of detail, words, emotion, specific moments the listener (and in this case the artist) can see and feel.

A while back, I drew a keynote by Nick Parker called “Faith Over Fear.” His talk about leaving the military, selling insurance, surviving Parkinson’s disease and esophageal cancer created a visual full of faces, quotes, and a journey people wanted to lean into.

His speech “looked” like this:

So many compelling moments. Things worth capturing because they mattered to the people in the room.

This is what authentic communication looks like when someone draws it. Not because I can wield a set of markers, but because the speaker gave something real to work with.

The Contrast

Not all speeches produce this kind of visual richness.

Sometimes, even with preparation time and pre-drawn elements, the page stays sparse. The speaker reads from prepared remarks or follows a teleprompter, and there’s just not all that much there to capture.

Blurred this one because I’m not trying to call anyone out. But even blurred, you can see the difference. More white space. Limited visuals. A few talking points. Nothing for the pen to catch onto.

And where I see these kinds of visuals show up is when the speaker is reading word-for-word off a teleprompter or staring down at the notes.

Simply put: The less word-for-word reading, the more the speech shows up.

What Listeners Are Already Doing

When I’m in the room, I’m working overtime to make visible what’s likely already happening in every listener’s mind.

During a talk, the audience is creating mental models of what’s being said. They’re building pictures, making connections, finding meaning in your words.

Some speeches do this naturally. Build rich, memorable images in people’s heads. Others leave nothing to hold onto. By the time the obligatory clapping has peetered out after the speech, they’ve forgotten what was said. And it’s definitely gone by the time they reach the parking lot.

The role of the visual artist is to translate what audiences are already have going on in their heads. Speaks from the heart about something lived through or a deep belief? It creates visual memories, living rent-free is people’s minds in the best possible way.

I’m sorry, but scripted remarks just don’t do that. Reading from a teleprompter doesn’t do that. Following pre-written talking points doesn’t do that.

The audience might nod politely. They might even clap at the end. But nothing stuck. Nothing translated into a picture they’ll carry with them.

Your Talk If Someone Drew It

Would it be full of specific moments? Real stories? Emotions and faces and things people could point to and say “that part, right there”?

Or would it be a list of abstract concepts that sound important but don’t create any images at all?

The teleprompter might feel safe. Reading from a script might seem more professional. But it crushes the very thing that makes speeches memorable.

People don’t remember perfect phrasing. They remember how it made them feel.

Those are the things that show up visually. And they stick.

Next time you’re prepping to speak (big conference all the way down to tiny meeting room), chuck the script. Just talk about what you know, what you’ve lived, and what matters to you.

That’s what creates connection. That’s what your audience will remember. That’s what shows up on the page when someone tries to draw it.

And that’s what’s already happening in their heads while you speak.

Grateful you are here,

Wade