To Pee Or Not To Pee…
I read an article the other week about a technique which the Conservative party leader, David Cameron, uses to help him when making speeches. He makes sure he doesn’t go to the toilet beforehand – apparently this helps to ensure he’s short, concise and to the point.
I’ve given this some thought and am not sure whether it is necessarily something I’d recommend to the novice public speaker.
Certainly, this could encourage you to be as quick as you can, which could be a good thing. After all, an overlong and unstructured speech can be the quickest way to lose your audience’s interest. Indeed, this is probably the reason why Mr Cameron developed that technique – politicians are infamous for doing their level best to bore us all to death. Any politician who doesn’t do that is on to a good thing.
However, a few notes of caution.
Firstly, when I’m desperate for the toilet I tend to fidget and shuffle around a fair bit. Although natural, it’s not the best way to do a speech – your audience will spend so much time watching you jiggle about that they will be distracted from actually paying attention to what you say.
It’s best not to run the risk of being caught short – it’s bad form to run out of the room midway through the speeches.
Personally, I’d recommend you make sure you’re fully… emptied… prior to the start of the speeches. If you have a tendency to speak too long, then use a clock, stick strictly to some very short notes or have someone in the audience ready to signal to you if you start to ramble.
