Hello and welcome to the fourth in this five part mini series that is guiding you through to giving more confident speeches.
Today I am going to tell you about something that is, again, another keystone in giving a confident speech. And it is the one thing that people don’t tend to do when they are giving speeches. They tend to worry about their speech so much and the finicky bits, that they forget this vital, really is vital step. You need to practice even when you know the information, even when you have got cue cards or some kind of prompting device. You need to practice.
Why? Because you need to practice the timing. You need to get how these things feel as you say them. You need to say them out loud. You need to get a real grasp for the information and how you are delivering it. It might be that you write all of this information down and you memorize it and you get out there and you realize that you can’t quite say that particular long word out loud very well. Or you realize that as you are giving the information it is just too complex and you are saying it and you are glazing over. You know, you are going dizzy yourself, because it is just not very exciting.
When you say it out loud, as well, it is your chance to practice your delivery of that information, because when it is written in black and white in front of you, it is just words. And words convey a meaning, but your emotions are what are really going to set you aside and give you a great speech. But your confidence, therefore, when you practice and practice and practice… and I would recommend as much practice as possible. If you have got the luxury of a few months, then just practice once a day. Do your speech once a day for a few months and you will be… you will give the best speech in the world. I promise you.
Sometimes, though, you don’t have that luxury, especially if you are giving a speech in your workplace and perhaps you need to deliver a presentation in two days’ time. Then, do you know what? Take out the next couple of evenings and instead of getting home, flopping on to the sofa, pouring yourself an alcoholic beverage and just vegging out in front of the telly, don’t do that. Don’t do that to yourself. Practice, practice, practice, especially if you are nervous about the speech. You are going to want to just have a drink. You are going to want to veg out in front of the TV. You are going to want to say: Do you know what? I am just going to pretend this isn’t here. It is not going to happen. And you will give yourself excuses like: Oh, do you know what? It is … it is two days’ time. I will do it tomorrow. Or it is in two months’ time and I will do it a week before.
Don’t do that to yourself either. These are excuses. The human mind is a phenomenal puzzle solver. And if you give it the puzzle of: How can I make myself feel better about not practising? It will give you lots of great answers and you will convince yourself that they are good, valid reasons. Reasons are just excuses. Don’t let yourself do that.
But when you practice, again, you develop confidence in what you are saying. It won’t be the first time you do it. The worst thing in the world is to get out there with a memorized script. So imagine if you have memorized it and you have gone over it, you have read it a few times, but you haven’t practiced it out loud. So you kind of know the material. You stand out there and you start delivering it for the first time. Do you think you are going to feel nervous about that? Do you feel you are going to, perhaps, not feel like you have done this before? Because you have said it in your mind, but you haven’t said it out loud.
I am going to tell you from my experience, that is exactly how you will feel. You will feel as though you have never done this speech before. If you haven’t said it out loud, you haven’t. Doing it in your mind doesn’t count. Self talk doesn’t count. Saying it out loud really does make us feel comfortable with the speaking part of our speech. And, of course, you know, that is what it is all about is speaking, isn’t it, really, when you think about it.
So make sure you do, you really do practice out loud your speech and practice with hand movements. Practice when you need to turn the cards if you are using cue cards, because the other thing that… I have used cue cards in the past with milestone bits of information, but because I didn’t practice… you see, again, back in the early days I would go through and I would go a few cue cards. I would then get lost in a thought, start doing more of my… my speech, get through it and then all of a sudden I am trying to find which cue card I am on, because I haven’t practiced that. I haven’t practiced I say that bit and then turn the card to the next card and then I will say this bit and then turn the card to the next card. You need to be on top of your game. You are delivering a well-honed, confident speech. But you need to know how to deliver it, what you will be saying, how to say it, how to deliver it and also where you are going to be looking, because if you… if you don’t practice reading and then looking up and keeping that information in your mind, well, you just want to have that built up experience to do that. And if you do practice, you will have that built up resource to call upon. So practice, practice, practice. It is essential. And you cannot get enough practice.
Until part five, take care, guys. Bye, bye now.