Your First Speech

Your first speech will be your Icebreaker. By now, you should have read all about your speech in Pathways - if not, do that first.

This speech is for you to introduce yourself to the club. Some people talk about very intimate parts of the their life, but others talk light-heartedly about certain elements - it’s really up to you. Don’t feel that you talk about anything you don’t want to.

If your stuck for ideas, some things you can talk about are:

  • Your job

  • Your childhood

  • Your family

  • One or more of your hobbies

  • Where you grew up

  • What you enjoy reading or watching on TV, or what music you like

How to write it

The speech is 4-6 minutes long which isn’t as long as you think so don’t try and cram too much in. Personal stories are good, and usually easy to tell.

For your first speech, most people find it helpful to write it out in full. There’s no universal answer to “how much to write” as it all depends on how quickly or slowly you speak. On average, most English speakers will speak at a rate of 150 to 190 words per minute. So, aim to write between 750 and 950 words, depending on how fast you think you speak - pick 825 if you’re not sure. Then practice reading your speech out loud (even if you’re not happy with it yet) and time it. Your speech should last about 5 minutes. If you spoke for less, then you know you need to increase your wordcount, likewise if you spoke less, reduce them. An alternative is to start reading your speech (or anything else for that matter) and stop after one minute. Then, count the words you’ve spoken and that’s your personal word-per-minute rate.

You don’t need special software to write, it and you can do it with pen and paper.

Start by thinking about how you want to structure it, then put headings down with bullet points to remind you what you want to talk about. Once you’re happy with that, you’ll find it much easier to write the actual speech - replace the heading and bullet points.

If you have to stop writing for a while, then one trick is to stop writing part way through a sentence. Then, when you want to start again, you can immediately start as you know how the sentence should end. Once you’ve started writing, it’s much easier to carry on and helps to stop you staring at the page, thinking how to start.

Overcoming Nerves

Do not imagine everyone naked, no matter how many times you have heard this advice. I don’t know about you, but I would find it quite distracting talking to an audience of naked people.

There is no magic cure, and it takes time for most people to feel comfortable when talking in front of other people - around 3 speeches as a rule of thumb. Believe it or not, it doesn’t take long before you start to enjoy it. That being said, you can do things to help with those nerves:

  • Practice your first line many times, and read over it a couple of times just before your speech. If you’re nervous, your mind may go blank as you are introduced. If you can just start that first line, the rest will come straight back to you.

  • Practice, practice, practice. Ideally, practice so you know your speech off-by heart (future speeches will need much less practice). That way, you have one less thing to worry about and have no papers to nervously rattle when you stand up. You can still put flash cards or a copy of your speech in your pocket in case you need it.

  • Remember, your audience want you to succeed. As the audience, we all want to hear what you have to say, and are rooting for you. We also know how it feels and if you get something wrong - forget what you want to say, realise you have missed a bit and have to back, trip over your own feet - it won’t matter to the audience.

  • Never apologise for being nervous, feeling unprepared, or any of your other worries. You have nothing to apologise for and you’re just drawing attention to something no-one else has noticed.

Anything else

  • Think about what you wear and how it may effect you. Some people want to wear comfortable clothes to feel relaxed, others feel more confident in a suit. Wear whatever works for you but consider any mannerisms or habits when you are nervous. For example, if you tend to fiddle with your jewellery, or a watch when your nervous, then maybe take them off.

  • Don’t include slides or any props which have any possibility of going wrong - don’t give yourself anything else to worry about.

  • Ask to speak first. That way, there is less time to worry and more time to enjoy the rest of the evening.

  • One way to calm nerves quickly is to close your eyes and breath in for 3 seconds (as deep as you can), hold it for 3 seconds, breathe out for 3 seconds. You can even do this on stage and no-one will probably notice. When doing this, it may also held to focus on your feet, the ground and your weight holding you down. Some people like to imagine tree roots growing from their feet.