Timing Your Speech

Let's begin with a video clip.

Jump up to the video icon and see Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson deliver a knock-out speech in a scene from "The Gridiron Gang".

Let us know how Mr. Johnson's delivery landed with you. (Not his words but the way he said them.)

Mr. Johnson delivered a life changing message in just 1 minute and 14 seconds.

That's impact.

Do you know how long you're given to speak? If you were told you have a certain timeframe to deliver your talk, it's important to stick to it, especially if this is a competition or if there are other speakers going before or after you.

Clock your speech now, going at your normal speaking pace, and tell us how long it took to deliver it in the space below. You could use your cell to do this using the "stopwatch" feature in "Clock".

If you're like most people, then your talk is probably too short or too long.

Is that about accurate?

If you said "yes", then let's edit your speech until it hits the limit you were given or a bit under.

To do this, take a look at what messages you have that don't really add any important information or that use too many words to describe.

Start there.

Do you have something you can trim or delete altogether without hurting the message?

Take about 10 minutes and edit your talk, looking specifically for cutting information that's repetitive, too long, too wordy or not important to the overall message.

Select "Successful" when you've done this.

Read through your speech again and see if you like what you read.

Let us know how satisfied you are with what you have edited when you're finished reading through it.

If you need to go back and continue the edits, do so now.

As soon as you feel good about your overall message, then time it as you read through it again at a natural rate of speed.

Write the time it took when you've finished.

Are you at the time limit and like what you read and feel certain you read it the way you would deliver it to an audience?

Then you're good to go!

If not, ask a mentor, teacher, etc. to help you make additional changes. Time the finished product and see if you like it.

You'll get this. No worries. It's a process all good speeches go through.

When you feel comfortable with your time, proceed to the navitent called "Presence".

How excited are you about your speech so far on a scale of 1 (anything but this) to 10 (knuckle bump)?

Keep in mind that everybody else in the contest is nervous and feeling pretty much like you do.

And not one of them has the depth of preparation you have.

Relax. You really got this.