Owning Your Words

One of the primary goals of public speaking-or, whenever we speak-is to be understood to mean what we say.

Yet, one of the funny little ironies about speaking in public is that most often speakers sound different, disconnected even, when repeating words they very well may have written. I’m constantly amazed at how alienating speakers can sound when they essentially force pre-packaged phrases on an audience thirsty for authenticity and meaning.

One of the most effective exercises that demonstrates this is to ask someone to explain what they just said (or read). Automatically, the mind and body shifts into their most efficient communication “gear” and you often hear someone genuinely try to explain something to you. What you hear then is more their “real” voice than a “speechified” or ill-prepared delivery. The goal for a speaker is to match the reading voice and the speaking voice so that they’re indistinguishable. The solution is to “own” your words. “Owning” in this context requires an investment of time to first memorize the carefully crafted words and then embodying the specific intent of the message. This is what professional actors do with their lines, essentially duplicating the natural process of conversation.

Memorization tends to intimidate a lot of people. It shouldn’t because we unconsciously memorize scads of information every day. I believe the intimidation comes from the unfamiliarity of spending the kind of time and effort necessary to truly command text. Memorization is an aspect of public speaking that has fallen out of favor in our information-rich society. As speakers, we tend to react as speakers by contributing to the information stream as quickly as we can.

There’s a hidden danger, however, to simply committing something to memory without truly understanding it. When something is initially committed to memory, repeating it back requires a great deal of concentration and focus. As a speaker, just like a normal person in conversation, your full attention needs to be on your audience. To do this, the process of repeating back a speech has to take up a very small amount of conscious effort.

A rule of thumb I use when preapring for a role or speech is that once I am initially able to repeat back the line as written, I’m half-way done. As much time as had been spent up until that point needs to be spent on commanding the words so as to make them seem like they’re my own.

There’s a short-cut that I most often recommend to my clients: work from notes. If you can jot down single words or short phrases (better still would be images), you force yourself to explain the next topic to your audience. This way, the majority of preparation can be spent on making sure you know and understand what it is you’re saying.

Regardless of the method you chose, time spent ensuring that you sound like yourself is the best investment you can make as a public speaker.