Page 69 - How to Develop A SUPER-POWER MEMORY

Speeches, Articles, Scripts and Anecdotes 73

the same purpose. Isn't that much better than hemming
and hawing until you remember the exact phrasing just the
way you memorized it?
The people who realized this, felt that the next best thing
would be to simply read the speech. This solves the prob-
lem of forgetting words, until you lose your place on the
paper, and forget what you're talking about altogether.
Besides, it seems to me that there is a subtle annoyance
evident in an audience that is listening to someone reading
a speech word for word. I know I feel that way: he might
just as well have given me a printed copy of the speech
to read at my own leisure.
So, the next step seems to be not to prepare at all. Well,
not quite. Even if you are well versed in your subject, you
may forget some of the facts you want to speak about. As
in the case of the itinerant preacher who always complained
that he made his best speeches on the way home. All that
he had forgotten to tell his listeners came to mind then,
and his horse usually got the best part of the speech.
I believe that the best way to prepare a speech is to lay
it out thought for thought. Many of our better speakers do
just that. They simply make a list of each idea or thought
that they want to talk about, and use this list in lieu of
notes. In this way, you can't forget words, since yon haven't
memorized any. You can hardly lose your place; one glance
at your list will show you the next thought to put into
words.
But, for those of you who would rather not rely on pieces
of paper—the Link method can help you easily. If you wish
to memorize your speech thought for thought, from the
beginning to the end, you would be forming a sequence.
That's why you would use the Link method of memory to
memorize it.
I would suggest that you go about it something like