Public Speaking Tips: Practice & Preparation

Video Transcript

"Okay, now I want to talk about the most important part of public speaking. And for some strange reason it's the part that everybody kind of tends to brush to the side. You've picked your topic, you know your audience, you've written a great speech. Now before you deliver that speech, you must, and I emphasize must, practice. Practice, practice, practice, practice. Now before you can practice, you have to do something. You have to be prepared. Don't think that you can wing a speech. It just doesn't happen, and it's just so nerve racking. Why would you even bother? We've already got you prepared. Now take that preparedness and practice, practice, practice, practice. Stand up in front of a mirror and deliver it to yourself. Get all your friends and family, your mother, make her sit down and watch you do the speech over and over and over and over and over again. That will help you so immensely when you deliver the speech. Another really important thing you need to do when you're practicing is time it. Time your speech. It is essential that you stay within your time limit. I don't know, I guess I've watched five hundred plus speeches in my career, I'm sure more than that, and what I see happening is people either hit the time--five to seven minutes--because they practiced and they timed it, or they thought they were going to hit the time and their speech two minutes, a minute and a half or forty-seven minutes. You don't want that to happen. Be prepared, practice, and know your time."