TJ Walker breaks down MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech to show how great speaking comes from repetition. The famous phrase wasn't planned. MLK spoke hundreds of times a year, which let him improvise confidently from material he'd rehearsed for years.
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Hi, I'm TJ Walker, and I help people speak their best because how you present your ideas is the number one factor in your success. Today is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. S birthday and his life and contributions to the world. All of you have heard about his great I have a Dream speech in front of a quarter of a million people in Washington back in 1963. But there are a lot of elements of this speech. There's a story behind the story you probably haven't heard of. And in this video today, I want to give you some very specific practical tips that are going to help you in your career. When it comes to presenting. It doesn't matter if you're never speaking to a quarter of a million people, even if you're speaking to three people. There are lessons to be learned from the great I have a Dream speech. For starters, the phrase I have a dream wasn't written in the speech. That's right. It wasn't titled that. The original title of the speech was get this Normalcy. Never Again. So where did this come from? It came because someone in the crowd said, tell them about the dream. It was shouted out and he responded to it. So how do you do that? How do you get to be spontaneous and speak off the cuff in front of a quarter of a million people? Well, you only do it if you're used to speaking. Here's the thing people don't realize about Martin Luther King Jr. It wasn't just this one speech that he gave in his career, and it wasn't one speech a year. He spoke in 1963 alone, 300 times. Pretty much everything he said in the I have a Dream speech. He had said snippets of it in earlier speeches for years. His advisors admit that as late as 12 hours before he was to give the speech, he didn't know what he was going to say. They were so preoccupied with the logistics of getting the stage set, organizing the crowd, he didn't even have that much time to focus on the speech. But he did have numerous drafts circulating from aides and staff. They considered putting the I have a Dream meme into the speech, and one of his advisors said, it's trite and stale. So much for his advice. I want to give you the real lessons here that apply to you. For starters, just because one advisor or one person in your inner team doesn't like something doesn't mean it's not a good element. Ultimately, you have to listen to your audience. That's one big lesson. Another big lesson. If you want to be able to have the confidence of reacting, of being spontaneous in the middle of a speech, even if it's in front of an intimidating crowd. You have to be so familiar with your content, you have to have delivered it so many times that you already know it, you have it, you're not thinking off the top of your head. Very important. If you want to be a good speaker and a great speaker, you have to speak a lot. It's not just about one great speech, it's about speaking being a part of who you are and a part of your message. So if you want to be the greatest copier salesperson in your industry or your company, you got to speak to a lot of prospects all the time. You got to speak to your customers all the time. If you want to be the industry leader for Internet security, you got to be speaking at all the conferences, not just the one big one of the year. So that's part of the lesson you need to take away, is you want to speak well and be seen as someone who gives the great speech in your industry. You got to speak a lot. Next thing people don't realize about this speech, he was the 16th speaker of out of 18 speakers for the day. So many people put a priority on, oh, I want to be the first speaker when the audience is fresh, or I want to be the last speaker, or I want to be the first speaker before lunch. All these things about priority. Martin Luther King Jr. Showed none of that matters. If you actually deliver the best speech, if you deliver the most memorable speech, it's not going to matter what the order is. So my advice to you, if you're planning, planning a two day annual conference of everyone in your industry or in your company, and you're obsessing over where you are in the order of the speech, spend your time coming up with a great speech and spend your time rehearsing. Now, in Martin Luther King Jr. S particular instance here, it's not that he rehearsed this speech again and again, but by speaking virtually every single day. All of those speeches were rehearsals. So he was so fluid and used to talking about it, used to using the ideas that they came to him and he could actually be comfortable enough, confident enough to make changes while in front of people. You can't do that if you only speak once a year. The other thing people don't realize about Martin Luther King Jr. Is that again, not just this one speech in one year, not just the 300 speeches he gave that year, but virtually every single year of his adult life. He spoke at least 100 times. So part of being known as a great leader in your industry, in his case the civil rights industry, you may be in the technology industry or finance industry. Part of the secret is you have to speak often, and every speech you give in some way helps shape and prepare you for the next speech. He had used this I have a dream frame, this phrase in many other speeches over several years. And that's why it came. It didn't just pop into his head that moment, and it wasn't written down on his prepared text text, but he did prepare by speaking on these issues, speaking with passion, and speaking about stuff he'd already talked about. The other big lesson is, yes, he did have a prepared script and he did glance at his speech from time to time. But for the most part, he was looking out at people and he was speaking with passion. Great inflections with his voice. So it's fine for you to use a prepared text. There's nothing wrong with that. But make sure you're so familiar with it that you've talked about these subjects so often you can speak with passion. Because if Martin Luther King Jr. Had just read down I have a dream that one day, my children, if he had read it in a straightforward, flat, boring, monotone way, believe me, no one would be talking about it 50, 60 years later or even the next day. So let's learn from the greats. Martin Luther King Jr. S legacy is so powerful in so many ways, but his legacy as a speaker, as an orator is obviously one of the most important ways. Unfortunately, too many people say, well, that's just if you're a great civil rights leader or you're speaking to 250,000. No, the lessons that we can learn from his successes apply directly to us as well. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. If you would like regular tips on how to be a better presenter, please go to my Facebook page and like the page and come back often. Thanks.
