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Imagination

🪄 Make a Boring Thing Fascinating

Take something dull and find a surprising angle that makes people want to hear more.

What you need

Boring subjects: paper clips, waiting rooms, receipts, stairs, parking lots.

How to play
  1. Choose a deliberately boring subject.
  2. Find one unusual question about it.
  3. Add a surprising comparison, story, or imaginary consequence.
  4. Give the topic a title that sounds irresistible.
See one in action
Topic: stairs.

Boring: “Stairs help people move between floors.”
More interesting: “Stairs are one of humanity’s oldest machines. They move millions of people every day without electricity, software, batteries, or instructions.”

Look for a surprising angle, contrast, or question that changes how the audience sees the topic.
10 ideas to try

Choose any one of these prompts and use the activity steps above:

  1. Paper clips: “The tiny machine that quietly holds modern offices together.”
  2. Waiting rooms: “Places where five minutes mysteriously becomes twenty.”
  3. Stairs: “One of humanity’s oldest machines that nobody calls a machine.”
  4. Receipts: “Tiny historical records of decisions you barely remember making.”
  5. Parking lots: “The giant outdoor puzzle cities build for empty cars.”
  6. Door handles: “The technology every building trusts thousands of times a day.”
  7. Pencils: “The writing tool with a built-in undo button.”
  8. Laundry baskets: “Temporary storage systems with suspiciously permanent residents.”
  9. Sidewalk cracks: “A map of how a city slowly changes under your feet.”
  10. Staplers: “Small machines that solve paper disagreements with force.”
Make it harder / funnier

You are not allowed to say the topic is boring.

Why it helps

Builds hooks, curiosity, framing, creativity, and audience engagement.

Ready to use this skill?
Take the activity into a full SpeakCoachLab practice session.
Try it in Public Speaking →