How To Deliver Speech

Hello. My name is Michael Ronayne. I'm a director of the College of Public Speaking, and I'm going to be talking about different aspects of public speaking.

So the moment's arrived for you to deliver a speech. Now, we're assuming you've worked on the structure, we're assuming you've practiced it, we're assuming that you've delivered it to people, maybe got a bit of feedback. We're now talking about you standing in the wings, you're about to go out there and deliver your presentation.

What do you do then? Well, the first thing you need to do is be relaxed. And deep breathing is always going to help a little bit. That makes you breathe nice and deeply.

Breathe slowly. And you also then need to start talking to yourself, saying positive things, visualizing a successful outcome to your particular presentation. So as you're going out there, or as you're preparing to go out there, you should be picturing yourself, and picturing hearing the applause you're going to get.

Imagine how well it's going to start. Imagine you're making your key points, and imagine yourself getting a big, rapturous round of applause at the end. It's very important to visualize the ending as well as the beginning, because you may start well, but if you don't visualize the end, it may fall apart in the middle.

I remember a man saying once that he went into a competition for riding on a bull, and what he did to prepare himself, he visualized himself getting onto the bull, he visualized himself holding onto the bull. He said what he forgot to visualize was getting off the bull. The bull threw him off, and he concluded the bull was a better visualizer than he was.

So if you're going to prepare a speech, make sure you have a clear idea in your mind of what you're going to deliver, how it's going to go. As you're going out there, talk to yourself. "This is going to be great.

This is going to be my best speech end ever. They're going to love what I've got to say. This is going to go fantastically.

" And the last thing you do as you're walking out, I personally recommend this, not everybody does this, but I think you should, if you know your first line, imagine you are Mark Antony in Julius Caesar and you're about to go out and you're about to say, "Friends, Romans, and countrymen," you let that go around your head a few times. Because the first words you say are what make the most impact as a speaker. People will be, "Ooh! I want to hear more about this," or they'll be "Eh.

Starts a bit weakly." So as you're preparing to go out, and as you're walking out, I'd be saying to myself, "Friends, Romans, countrymen; friends, Romans, countrymen; friends, Romans, countrymen." Friends, Romans and off you go.

So you practice that opening bit, talk to yourself, visualize a good successful outcome, and you're 95% of the way there. .