Speech Notes

You’ve heard me beg you not to read an acceptance speech and that is true.

There’s nothing more dreadful than someone just head down monotone boring reading.

However if you do feel you need a few notes to remind you of then maybe your attorney’s name is hard to pronounce and you hit it just right or you’ve got one or two facts.

It’s OK to have a couple of notes but remember your acceptance speech is going to be a few minutes at most for the typical sort of awards banquet and four major awards programs on TV you might have less than a minute.

So there’s something wrong if you get up and you’ve got this whole gigantic page of good you’re not going to be able to cover it all.

However if you do want some notes there’s a good way of doing it in a bad way of doing it.

If you kind of walk up to the stage like this you’re announcing the envelope.

Now this person’s got some big boring speech and they’re uncomfortable and it’s not going to be funny or entertaining.

So it sends a very negative message to people so again I’m not saying don’t use notes but it’s about how you use them.

So first of all don’t hold your notes in a visible way.

What I would suggest is have your notes in a pocket.

Now the typical men’s jacket there’s gonna be a pocket you know a foot lower beer here by my waist.

I would have it in my jacket.

Women you may just want to have it in your hand if you have no pockets.

But now I can walk up to the stage of the front of the room wherever the awards ceremony is and very important for the first couple of sentences.

My first thought I want to be looking at people and this will send a signal to people that hey I’m relaxed I’m comfortable I’m confident I just want to talk to you.

So while I’m looking out at people I’m reaching into my pocket to pull out my net and I’m not going to hold it up this high but I’ll have it on a large font large print.

And now if I’m behind a lectern I can drop it on it.

My hands can move if I’m not behind a lectern if it’s just me.

I can have it in my hand occasionally glanced down at the name I need or some exact figure I need to get and then I’ve done I can just put it in my pocket keep going and walk off.

Most people won’t even notice that you use notes so it’s not a problem to use notes but you don’t have to call attention to it.

You don’t want to be waving it around in front of people and you know to say oh you know what.

I can’t see my notes Hold on a minute.

Here you are our national fumbling around.

Folks it takes two seconds to copy select and make the font larger.

Now I can’t read without glasses Normal font that I can read the notes to my entire course for you because I took the time of making the font really large.

So it’s a very simple trick.

You might as well do it so we’re going use notes create your notes and make sure the font is large enough and get used to either having them in a pocket or a hand where it’s not visible.