You've heard me beg you not to read an acceptance speech. And that is true. There's nothing more dreadful than someone just had down monotone boring reading. However, if you do feel you need a few notes to remind you of that. Maybe your attorneys name is hard to pronounce, and you want to get it just right. Or you've got one or two facts, it's okay to have a couple of those.

But remember, your acceptance speech is going to be a few minutes at most for the typical sort of awards banquet. And for major awards programs on TV, you might have less than a minute. So there's something wrong if you get up and you've got this whole gigantic page of it because you're not going to be able to cover it all. However, if you do want some notes, there's a good way of doing it and a bad way of doing it. If you kind of walk up to the stage, like this, you're announcing their logo now. This person's got some big boring speech and they're uncomfortable and it's not going to be funny or entertaining.

So it sends a very negative message to people. So again, I'm not saying don't use notes, but it's about how you use them. So, first of all, don't hold your notes in a visible way, what I would suggest, is have your notes in a pocket. Now the typical men's jacket, there's going to be a pocket, you know, a foot lower here by my waist, I would have it in my jacket. Women, you may just want to have it in your hand if you have no pockets. But now I can walk up to the stage or the front of the room, wherever the awards ceremony is, and very important.

For the first couple of sentences, my first thought, I want to be looking at people. And this will send a signal to people that hey, I'm relaxed, I'm comfortable, I'm confident. I just want to talk to you. So, while I'm looking out at people, I'm reaching into my pocket to pull out my neck. Now I'm not going to hold it up this high, but I'll have it on large font, large print. And now, if I'm behind a lectern, I can drop it on it, my hands can move.

If I'm not behind a lectern, if it's just me, I can have it in my hand, occasionally glance down at the name I need, or some exact figure I need to get. And then when I'm done, I can just put it in my pocket, keep going and walk off. Most people won't even notice that you use note. So it's not a problem to use notes, but you don't have to call attention to it. You don't have to, you know, be waving it around in front of people. And you're not to say, Oh, well, you know what?

I can't see my notes Hold on a minute. Here you are national, fumbling around. Folks. It takes two seconds to copy, select and make font larger, and I can't read without glasses normal font. But I can read the notes to my entire course for you because I took the time of making the font really large. So it's a very simple trick.

You might as well do it. So if you're going to use notes, create your notes and make sure the font is large enough and get used to either having them in a pocket or a hand where it's not visible.