The Key To Public Speaking Without Notes

Most people are terrified of public speaking.

Sadly for many people, public speaking skills could give them a massive advantage in many areas of their life.

If you can speak in public with skill, authority and a touch of pizazz then you have a tremendously valuable asset.

My 2 sons (15 and 16 yo) last night spoke for about a minute each at a celebration dinner.

Bloody Easy Way To Learn A Speech

They did a fine job and one of the other parents at the dinner asked me how they did it.  Bloody simple really.

1.  Wrote out the speech and edited, edited, edited.  Took an hour.

2.  Practiced, practiced and practiced the speech.  That 1 minute speech took 2+ hours of practice.

3.  Once they knew the speech very well, they simply picked a keyword from each part of the speech and remembered that.

So the first half of one son’s speech was this:

• Thanks
• Listening
• Congrats

All He Had To Remember Was TLC

All he had to remember was “TLC” and he knew the first part of his speech.

“I’d like to thank Mr Hogan and the teachers for organising this dinner tonight to celebrate blah, blah, blah.  A special thank you to the Rotary Club for their very generous support in making the evening happen.

“I’m looking forward to listening of the impact the challenge had on others and blah blah blah.”

“Congratulations to the walkers, their support crews and particularly to the mentors and teachers on a fine achievement blah blah blah.”

• T
• L
• C

Easy.

Gives You Flexibility In The Speech

Learning the speech pretty well, then breaking it down to just 1 word per section is the key to delivering the speech without notes, whilst sounding natural and relaxed.  Incredibly importantly, it gives you a bit of flexibility in the speech.

With the “L” part of that (listening), my son’s speech was to be “It’s been great listening to stories about the impact blah blah blah”.

But because he was the first speaker, that didn’t make sense so he simply changed it to be “I’m looking forward to listening about…..”

That 1 word for a section gives you to the ability to quickly tailor the speech to include relevant aspects, delete irrelevant stuff and get it well suited as you go.

Hope that helps your next speech.