Kanye West. Rapper. Father. Fashion designer. Horrible public speaker.

This Sunday’s Video Music Awards (VMAs) featured phenomenal performances by some of the music industry’s top performers, and then one huge mess of a speech delivered by West. We’re not entirely sure what Kanye was even trying to say, but below are some of the ways to avoid sounding like a complete lunatic while addressing millions of people.

Knowing the following lessons below in the business world, it’s clear that even in the entertainment industry, you need to be professional. Professional public speaking builds credibility and will make the overall effectiveness of your speech that much more meaningful. Take a look at the all the things Kayne West did wrong during his speech and then never repeat the same mistakes.

Six lessons on public speaking learned from Kanye West:

  1. Bullet points • Regardless of how famous you are and how much the crowd wants to revel in your glory — get to the point. Kanye spends approximately 1 minute and 7 seconds introducing himself when he has already been clapped for and introduced over the loud speaker. It’s OK to love hearing your name chanted, but you only have so much time to deliver your speech, and people only have so much time to listen to you brag about yourself.
  2. Know your audience • Avoid addressing your audience as “BROOO.” You may have some “bros” in the audience but you also probably have some “Mrs.’s” and “Dr.’s”
  3. Listen & then speak • Do not interrupt your speech to give a shout out to your ex-girlfriend (even if she is Amber Rose). No one has time to listen to your relationship drama while attempting to find the point to your speech that still has not become remotely evident.
  4. Know body language • If you can clearly tell that your wife and biggest supporter is having immense amounts of second-hand embarrassment and shaking her head at you, it might be time to wrap it up.
  5. Make sense of what you are saying • When you finally get to the center of your speech, which in this case is some very heavy commentary on racial inequality, make sure you articulate it in a way that makes it seem as important as it is. Once again, ending your potentially eloquent sentences with “bro” is a sure fire way to remove all credibility from your speaking.
  6. Research & Prepare • Finally, before getting up to speak to millions of people, make sure you have some sort of idea of what you’re going to talk about because although you may touch on some important topics, you don’t always have four minutes of time to rant about nothingness before you get to the point.