How To Be A Confident Public Speaker – Part Four
If you’ve missed the previous installments of our wedding speech confidence course, then catch up by clicking on the link.
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Once you have the content of your wedding speech sussed, and you’ve practised it until you’re happy that it’s pretty much what you want to say, is that it?
Not really. You’ve finished the research stage, now it’s time to prepare for a performance.
So what will you do with the speech you have written out? Rule One: Never read out a speech. There is nothing more deathly than waiting while somebody reads out loud from a piece of paper. Just don’t do it.
What do you do instead? Easy – turn it into notes. This is what all good speakers do (until they reach the stage where they don’t even need the notes).
The easiest way is to work from a few cards (postcard-size) that you can hold easily. Turn your script into a set of brief notes with headings or keywords, for example:
STORY Becky and Dad – Garage
THANKS to her Dad
STORY First meeting – Custard
This works because you know the stories about the garage, custard etc. Seeing the keywords is all you need to jog your memory. Then you can lower the card, look at the audience and enjoy telling your story, knowing you can come back to your prompt as soon as you need to.
You may have written out these stories earlier, or certainly practised delivering them. Now you abandon the script and rehearse them again – until you can fluently turn your notes into a finished speech.
Don’t worry about losing spontaneity. It will come out slightly differently each time. The adrenaline will ensure that on the day, allowing you to alter it slightly and come up with a fresh-sounding version.
When you have a set of notes on a few cards, and have practised turning them into a finished speech, you’ve completed the preparation. Well done. You will inevitably be feeling much more confident than when you started.
Now all you have to worry about is what happens on the day. You might be thinking, this preparation business is all well and good, but what about the dreadful attack of nerves I know will strike the minute I get up?
There’s a lot of myths and misunderstandings about being nervous. The biggest unhelpful belief is that it’s a bad thing, something to get rid of. Most of us assume that someone who seems to find it easy to speak to a group doesn’t suffer from ‘nerves’. And we want to be like them.
Wrong. They do feel nervous, they just know how to handle it. It’s about getting your butterflies to fly in formation.
A favourite story is about a major rock star being interviewed just before a huge gig, having claimed never to feel nervous. As his time gets close, he grows sweaty and green-looking, finally disappearing to throw up.
Interviewer: I thought you didn’t get nervous!
Rock Star: That’s not nerves, that’s excitement.
A wonderful example of what coaches call ‘reframing’ – having the same experience but giving it a different name, which creates a different experience. Think of the feelings in your body as something helpful that is getting you ‘in the zone’, into the performance state.
More on this next time.
Steve Roche
Professional Life Coach
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