"Edit your words properly, young man."

Imagine that you could edit words as they came out of your mouth; that somehow the words fell onto an imaginary caption line just below your chin and as you spoke out words, you could delete the 'ums', the 'likes', and the 'you knows'. But the reality was, you couldn't! What you say in front of an audience - whether it was a friend at a coffee shop or a room-full of your co-workers - was exactly what they were going to hear.

How important was it to properly edit your words first in your mind, then breathing life into those thoughts by positioning the lips, the tongue, your jaw, then with a final exhale, bringing the word into existence. Once you say it, you can't take it back.

Sure you can clarify by saying "Oh, what I meant was..." or by saying "Sorry, I take that back" for the words that you actually didn't mean to say. Once you've said it, the damage was done.

So before opening your mouth and saying something you would regret later, why not think, pause, then say what you really wanted to say? Easier said than done. Unfortunately, this was a skill that any communicator needed to master, me included.

We recently did our first speech in oral presentation class, and this blog post reminded me of it. Our presentation was recorded on video so we would be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your own presentations. I would have posted my own video here but, unfortunately, the video has not been captured digitally.

I remembered writing 'Barack Obama' on my paper when instructor Cathy Hanson asked the class to write down the names of people who we thought were good at public speaking. After watching these videos, I never would have noted him down.

This was an example of knowing what you were going to talk about in the event the teleprompter failed.



Here were some tips from the pros:



Always be prepared with notes. It is good practice to have two or even three copies of your speech with you in case something happened to one of them (like spilling coffee on the notes or losing the copy). Just make sure you don't keep all the copies in the same spot. Leave a copy with an assistant or secretary or leave a copy in an envelope.

Know what to say by first editing your words in your mind then speaking them. Don't rely on technology and always be prepared with a back up plan. Once you say it, you can never take the words back.