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There was fear and uncertainty among British cabinet ministers on the afternoon of May 28th, 1940. Belgium had surrendered to Hitler that day and many other countries had been conquered by Nazi Germany or were on the brink of collapse, including France. Many British leaders and civilians were urging the new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to strike a deal with Hitler. Churchill called a meeting of his full cabinet and gave one of the most stirring speeches of the 20th century. "If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground,” he said. Britain chose to fight and change the course of history.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and author of The Churchill Factor, reminded me of the May 28th speech during a recent phone conversation. While most people consider Churchill as one of the most gifted orators in history, Johnson says that Churchill did not start out that way. “We think of him as somehow supernaturally gifted, as if he had sprung from a union of Zeus and Polyhymnia the very Muse of Rhetoric. I am afraid we are only partly right,” according to Johnson. In fact, many years earlier when Churchill was 29-years old, he stood up to give a speech in the House of Commons as a newly elected representative and literally froze for three whole minutes. He managed to say a few words, but returned to his seat in despair and covered his head with his hands. He vowed it would never happen again.
Churchill spent years refining his speeches, practicing his delivery, and obsessing about every word choice, substituting longer words for shorter, more impactful ones. He gave hundreds of speeches. By the time he became Prime Minister at the age of 65, Churchill had become a masterful orator, one of the greatest speakers the world has ever known. “The secret of Churchill’s success of a speaker was immense preparation. He wasn’t a natural,” says Johnson.
Preparation and practice are the habits of the world’s greatest speakers in politics and in business. For example, Steve Jobs, one of the most astonishing corporate storytellers of our time, did not start his career as a supremely gifted speaker. He could get very nervous. In this video on YouTube we see a very young Steve Jobs terrified of being interviewed on television. He even tells his assistant who is sitting off-camera that he feels sick. "I’m not kidding,” he says emphatically. For one of my books I tracked Jobs’ progress as a presenter. In 1984 he was stiff and grasped the lectern as he spoke. He read from notes. About a decade later Jobs was much more relaxed on stage, but not nearly as charismatic as he would be in another ten years when he introduced the iPhone in 2007. The iPhone launch is considered by many of us in the communication field as one of the best business presentations every delivered. Steve Jobs made public speaking look effortless because he worked at it for many hours over many, many years.
In a recent New York Times essay titled, The Introvert on the Podium, author Laura Vanderkam writes about a college experience when she stood up to argue a point in a class debate. “I stumbled through something. People stared blankly. My heart raced and my face flushed. After what seemed like an eternity, I slunk back to my seat, vowing not to repeat the experience.” Vanderkam did everything she could to avoid a repeat. She became a writer, thinking it would be a solitary career. She learned, however, that to sell books and ideas she would have to speak publicly.
Eventually she learned to love public speaking, but only after years of working at the craft. “First, I have realized that being ‘natural’ comes from being practiced…the more you get up in front of people, the better you are at it. In the last five years, I’ve given so many speeches that it no longer feels nerve-racking. It just feels like Tuesday.”
The next time you watch a speaker who appears to be “a natural,” remember Winston Churchill and Steve Jobs. Nobody is born knowing how to deliver a speech or a business presentation. The most “gifted” speakers develop their skill through years of practice. It’s the only way to make public speaking feel as natural as getting up on a Tuesday.
Carmine Gallo is a communication coach, keynote speaker, and author of several books including The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, The
