DELIVERY SPEECH

It takes practice to be natural before an audience. Actors know that. When you were a little boy or girl, four years old, you probably could, had you but tried, have mounted a platform and “recited” naturally to an audience. But when you are twenty-and-four, or forty-and-four, what will happen if you mount a platform and start to speak? Will you retain that unconscious naturalness that you possessed at four? You may, but it is dollars to doughnuts, that you will become stiff and stilted and mechanical, and draw back into your shell like a snapping turtle. The problem of teaching or of training people in delivery is not one of superimposed additional characteristics; it is largely one of removing impediments, of freeing them, of getting them to speak with the same naturalness that they would display if someone were to knock them down.

THE SECRET OF GOOD DELIVERY SPEECH

Think that there is no other human being in the world like you. Hundreds of millions of people have two eyes and a nose and a mouth; but none of them have exactly your traits and methods and cast of mind. Few of them will talk and express themselves just as you do when you are speaking naturally. In other words, you have individuality. As a speaker, it is your most precious possession. Cherish it. Cling to it. Develop it. It is the spark that will put force and sincerely into your speaking. It is your only real claim to importance.

PICTURE YOUR ATTITUDE

Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual. Thought is surprise. Preserve a right mental attitude- the attitude of courage, frankness and good cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the chrysalis.

THE WILL TO WIN

Whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would like to do, and then, without veering of direction, you will move straight to the goal. Keep your mind on the great and splendid things you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding by, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the elements it needs.

AFFIRM YOUR SUCCESS

Think success. See yourself in your imagination talking in public with perfect self-control. It is easy in your power to do this. Believe it firmly and you will then do what is necessary to bring success about. The most valuable thing that most members acquire from training in public speaking is an increased confidence in them, an additional faith in their ability to achieve. And then that, what is more important for one’s success in almost any undertaking?

THE CERTAINTY OF REWARD

The entire question of your success as a speaker hinges upon only two things-your native ability, and the depth and strength of your desires. Your passion for your subject will save you. If you only care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must, then, really wish these things and wish them with exclusiveness, and not wish just as strongly. If you want to be a confident public speaker, you will be a confident public speaker. But you must really wish it.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING

You may always, as we have noted elsewhere in these pages, experience some fleeting fear, some shock, some nervous anxiety the first few moments you face an audience. But if you will but persevere, you will soon eradicate everything but this initial fear; and that will be initial fear, and nothing more. After the first few sentences, you will have control of yourself. You will be speaking with positive pleasure. But that is not the spirit, in which all persons begin the study of public speaking.

THE NECESSITY OF PERSISTENCE

When we start to learn any new thing, like French, or golf, or public speaking, we never advance steadily. We do not improve gradually. We do it by sudden jerks, by abrupt starts. Then we remain stationary a time, or we may even slip back and lose some of the ground we have previously gained. These periods of stagnation, or retrogression, are well known by all psychologists; and they have been named “plateaus in the curve of learning”. Students of public speaking will sometimes be stalled for weeks on one of these plateaus. Work as hard as they may, they cannot get off it. The weak ones give up in despair. Those with grit persist, and they find that suddenly, overnight, without their knowing how or why it has happened, they have made great progress.

THE KIND OF REPETITION THAT COMES

The mere blind, mechanical going over a thing by rote is not enough. Intelligent repetition, repetition done in accordance with certain well-established traits of the mind-that is what we must have. Surely, now, in the face of these facts, no man who prides himself on his common sense will delay the preparation of a talk until the night before it is to be given. If he does, his memory will, of necessity, be working at only one-half its possible efficiency. During the intervals between repetitions, our subconscious minds are busy making the associates more secure.