Page 70 - How to Develop A SUPER-POWER MEMORY

74 Speeches, Articles, Scripts and Anecdotes
this:—First, write out or read the entire speech. When
you're satisfied with it, read it over once or twice more to
get the "gist" of it. Now, get yourself a piece of paper and
start to list your KEY WORDS.
Read the first thought of the speech. This might be con-
tained in one, two or more sentences; it doesn't matter.
Now select one word or phrase from these sentences which
you think will bring the entire thought to mind! That is
not at all difficult. In every sentence or paragraph there
must be one word or phrase which will remind you of the
entire thought. That one word or phrase is your Key Word.
After you have found the Key Word for the first thought,
find one for the next thought, and so on. When you're
through with the whole speech, you'll have a list of Keys
to remind you of each thing you want to say. Actually, if
you were to keep this list in front of you as you made the
speech, it would serve the purpose. But, if you've mastered
the Link system, you know that it is just as easy to make a
link of these Key Words, and then throw away the paper.
You might, for example, be giving a talk on your local
school problems at a Parent-Teacher Association meeting.
Your list of Key Words might look something like this:—
crowds, teachers, fire, furniture, subjects, playground, etc.
In other words, you wish to start your speech with a refer-
ence to the crowded conditions in the class rooms. Then
you want to talk about the teachers; perhaps about methods
and salaries, etc. Now, you express your thoughts on fire
drills and fire precautions, which leads you into your dis-
cussion on the state of the school's furniture; the desks,
chairs, blackboards, equipment, and so on. Now, you would
talk about your ideas on the subjects taught, and finally, the
recreation (playground) facilities of the school.
You can see that if you make a link: crowd associated to
teacher; teacher to fire; fire to furniture, etc., each thought