Speaking Tips: Public Speaking Skills: Part One - How to deliver a speech

Welcome to Speaking Tips: Public Speaking Skills Part One - Delivery

Being able to speak really well in public is one of life's most satisfying accomplishments. Holding an audience, having them waiting in bated breath as you pause, hearing the momentary silence at the end before they bust into rousing applause, perhaps even giving you a standing ovation - there is nothing like that feeling.

That is the result of inspirational delivery!

Many of us try to be that sort of speaker: few of us succeed. I emphasise here that I am talking about excellence: riveting, moving, inspirational delivery, not simply about one having the confidence of being able to get up and say a few articulate words. Thought this latter is no mean achievement. We are all aware of how we felt when called upon to give our first formal presentation. Panic might have been an understatement. Probably we were terrified. And years later even the most experienced of us have a few moments of trepidation before we 'go on.'

Be that as it may, most people who do take up the challenge to speak in public fail to achieve excellence not because of nervousness but because they give up too soon. They do not persist. They do not press on. They do not apply themselves and give of their best each time year after year. As in so many other things, these tyro speakers are after a ‘Quick Fix.’

With public speaking there is no quick fix.Speaking is not only an art, it is a craft. It is a craft that has to be learned by diligent application. The longer we practice the better we become. Yet, in the improvement, we do not become steadily better. Improvement is often erratic. We go up a step or two, or even three, quite rapidly - and remain at that level. Then we go up another step. Here we might experience a plateau which lasts for years. Then we go up again.

 Listen to a good speaker who has five years experience. Then listen to him or her when they’ve been speaking for ten years. Then twenty. Then thirty. If they have been improving all this time - talk about inspirational delivery !

Go for excellence! and remember - the Art of speaking is its creativity. Such comes from the speaker’s mind. The Craft lies in its delivery. Delivery comes from the action of the speaker, the technique. Delivery is, I believe, partially inherent but mostly learned. It comes from both the speaker’s mental and physical energy. It involves emotion: enthusiasm, zest, compassion, things which spring from the soul. These result in the actual application: the voice and body, the tone, pitch, pace, pause, natural gesture- this type of thing. The ideas might be common to us all- the delivery is always unique. It is part of us.

I hoped you liked Speaking Tips: Public Speaking Skills Part One - How to Deliver a Speech. Stayed tuned for its follow up.

Tom.