“Say it well” by Terry Szuplat

The author 🖋

Terry Szuplat is a speechwriter, author, keynote speaker, trainer and a communications expert with over three decades of experience.

He was one of President Barack Obama's longest-serving speechwriters, helping craft nearly 500 speeches over 8 years in the White House and has published personal essays on the topic in publications like The New Yorker and The Washington Post.

Key takeaways 🎓

1. Be prepared

Preparation is key to effective public speaking.

Szuplat recommends investing time in understanding the audience, the context and the purpose of the speech.

Tailoring our language, delivery style and content based on this information gives us a much better chance that our message resonates and is remembered.

2. Be yourself & keep it simple

Authenticity and simplicity make the speaker more relatable which enhances the impact of our message.

Be honest about who you are and talk about things that matter to you.

Don’t use jargon or complicated words that might confuse people, keep the language simple, straightforward and speak to the audience the same way you would with your mates.

3. Engage the audience

For a speech to be successful, the audience needs to be engaged.

The people who are listening to us need to think and feel something.

Szuplat discusses how to use different techniques effectively to make people pay attention to what we’re saying and remember it long after the presentation is over (including sharing personal stories, asking rhetorical questions, telling jokes, incorporating interactive elements and etc.).

Closing thoughts 🧠

Polls say people fear public speaking more than death.

To me this is an absolutely unbelievable statistic but in the book Terry distills the techniques used by some of the world's greatest speakers and shares insights that will make anyone better at public speaking.

I don’t fear public speaking more than death but this definitely goes on my full-reading list 😅