So now you have your speech outline, it's time to practice the speech. but bear with me, you're not going to want to do this, you're not going to enjoy it. But it really is going to take all the pressure off for the evening. And it's going to make you come across your best. So why not? What I'm going to ask you to do is to practice your retirement speech using just your single sheet of notes.
And I want you to rehearse on video, you can simply pull out your cell phone, you can use a webcam, if you don't have that you may have a child or grandchild who could pull out that cell phone and record you. I know you're thinking, well, TT is not that big a deal. I'm not going on CNBC. It's it doesn't cost anything. It's going to make it so much better. You'll feel so much more relaxed.
So that's what I want you to do. I want you to give your speech, and you can have just one family member present. Practice your speech. Don't just read it silently. Don't just say it out loud. Don't say it to the mirror.
That's a complete utter waste of time. Because if you practice your speech in front of a mirror, you're going to start saying little dishes, my nose getting crooked, am I losing more? Hey, don't practice in front of a mirror, practice in front of a real human being. If nothing else, practice with no one else in the room and just hold your cell phone out and record video of yourself. I want you to do that. Then I want you to watch the speech.
And I want you to critique it. I want you to be a harsh Judge of yourself, but be a fair judge. Write down a list of things you like. And write a list of things you don't like. So, get at this point, we're not trying to change your accent or make you 30 pounds thinner. So if you see a video of yourself and you're like me, you got a little too.
Don't worry about that. Now let's just focus on did it make sense? Were you clear, easy to understand? If people hear you did you have an interesting example? Do you think you came across as sincere? Did you look up and thank people by name?
Those are all good things. On the other hand, let's look at what we don't like. If you think you were too monotone, or seem to sad, or the thanks just seemed generic, or didn't really say anything interesting. Well make a note of that too. So give your speech now record it. Grade yourself.
You've probably seen other retirement speeches, most of them you don't really remember much one way or the other. You may remember a really awful one. But you might remember one that really worked well. So use those as reference points when grading yourself so give the speech recorded on video and grade yourself now.