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SMILE!

Sounds silly, doesn't it? But here's why you start your talk with a smile. After the introduction, speaker after speaker stands up and scowls at his audience. Others simply try to look dignified. Just picture the situation. Here you stand before the group, a total stranger. If you scowl at the audience, they scowl back at you. If you try to look dignified, they groan inwardly and sit back ex­pecting the worst. But if you smile, your smile transfers itself to their faces and, brother, you're off to a head start.

But this is to be a serious speech, you say. Maybe so, but you're glad to be there, aren't you? Yes, with your knees knocking to­gether and your throat constricted, you're still glad to be there. And so you smile. You must write it down at the start of your speech so that, first, you'll remember it, and second, you'll plan just how you will smile.

Perhaps at this moment, as you are writing the beginning of your speech, you may see little to smile about. But there will be plenty. Why, when you stand up to speak, you'll have just heard the chair­man introduce you. That's good for a smile always, perhaps a laugh. To you, anyway, his verbal efforts to convince people that he has brought a real big number to talk to them should be good for a smile. And if he gave no better break than to say you were a brother-in-law of Mr. X, who happened to be in town, you can smile at that. You can smile at the things he should have said but didn't. Yes, you can smile at what he said and at what he left out.

Then you can smile about what you thought when they first asked you to make this speech. Now you're there looking at the group to whom you are to talk. Think back to what you thought about them when you received the invitation. That should be good for a smile, for never are they what you imagined.

Just to show you what a smile does to the audience, I am going to give you a demonstration that I give to audiences. I have a chart with the illustration you will see below. There is nothing on this chart but the circle and the curved line. Keeping the chart covered, I say, "I want to give you a demonstration of the value of a smile. Now I want you to look intently at this chart—all of you—look in­tently at this chart." When I have full attention I show the il­lustration. Try it, please; look intently at this illustration for ten seconds.

You are now smiling. That illustration isn't a complete face. It is just an outline with a line to represent a mouth. But you are smiling back at it. Now if I can get you to smile with a simple drawing on a sheet of paper, think what you can do with a friendly smile when you face your audience.

So start by writing it down. Make it the first word. Get it right up there at the top of the first page, even before the "Ladies and gentlemen—." Make it such an important part of your talk that you can't forget it.

If you get up there without a plan for that smile, you may forget it. So write it down now.

SMILE

That will get you off to a good start.

Related terms include speech writer and valedictorian speeches.