Preparation. Effective public speaking requires preparation.
Impromptu speeches are products of your stored knowledge- what you have read, what you have seen, what you have heard.
Impromptu speaking is not “unprepared speech” for your material is life and your preparation has been years.
As you gain experience in public speaking, you will learn to put aside all conscious thought of rules or methods. You will learn through discipline how to abandon yourself to your intentions and to give spontaneous expression to all your powers.
Yes, the physical limelight is on you, but as you mature in speaking you will learn to enlarge the limelight and include your audience.
What do you need to prepare?
- You should have something to say. Nourish your mind; develop sound judgment, a sense of proportion, mental alertness, a retentive memory, tact, and common sense,—these are all the vitamins to good speaking.
- You must have good health and energy. As a speaker, I travel from one place to another and a lot of people demands your presence. As a corporate trainer, I sometimes run program for five consecutive days.
- But even if you are just in one place, say you are a parish priest or a teacher, you still need to take care of your body–you must have a willing spirit and an able body.
- Give careful attention to your personal appearance, which includes care of the teeth. Your clothes and the evidence of general care and cleanliness, will play an important part in the impression you make upon an audience.
Every time you stand before a group of people, you are communicating who you are. You need to prepare.
That’s the little secret of effective public speakers.
– Jef Menguin
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