What do you do if you want to keep your public speaking skills sharp after retirement?

To keep your public speaking skills sharp after retirement one can join Toastmasters for regular exposure to public speaking opportunities. Also one can go to Book café to interact with like minded people. Another great way is to watch TED Talks, read more books and volunteer as MC in events!!

To keep your public speaking skills sharp after retirement, join a club or group like Toastmasters International or a local public speaking club. Attend meetings regularly, and participate actively by delivering speeches, providing feedback, and taking on leadership roles. Seek constructive feedback, implement suggestions, and track progress by documenting speeches, achievements, and areas for improvement. This proactive approach enables you to maintain engagement, receive constructive feedback, and continue growing as a public speaker, ensuring your skills remain polished and relevant.

You've retired, so your public speaking jobs are slowing or stopping all together. One way to keep sharp is to volunteer at locals schools to speak to the younger generation about your experience. You can also offer tutorials with local students and adults to teach them what you have learned over the span of your career. Volunteering to public speak at local events, making yourself available for conventions and other speaking events will also help to keep you sharp but also give you the opportunity to pick and choose how involved you want to be.

Keeping skills fresh post-retirement can be fulfilling and beneficial for personal growth and community engagement. I would volunteer in the community and engage in lifelong learning. It's important to keep the brain sharp. I would also attend workshops, seminars, or online courses focused on public speaking, storytelling, or related topics. Continuous learning helps refine your skills and opens you up to new perspectives.

You can either join a club, or create one of your own. You can create a club for public speaking on pure volunteer basis. Sharing the knowledge you acquired through your journey, and helping your club members become better speakers, leaders, and multipliers to then go and help others.

I like to take stock of my skills by attending classes. That way I can tell if my knowledge is up to date. It's also an opportunity to humble yourself if you happen to meet someone with greater skill and insight than yourself. But take a little time with choosing these. Learn to recognise who is just good at selling courses - rather than being great teachers.

You don't necessarily have to have a topic that you become known for speaking on. You could always be an emcee. There are many events all over the country. Most of the smaller, community events would most definitely benefit from an experienced shepherdess controlling the proceedings.

Volunteering as a speaker at local events, retirement communities, or schools offers valuable opportunities to share your knowledge and experiences while staying engaged with your community. Embracing these avenues not only helps you maintain your proficiency in public speaking but also allows you to continue making meaningful contributions and connections even after retirement.

As a retiree, you have a wealth of knowledge on numerous topics, so volunteer to share this knowledge. There are so many avenues where you can speak to groups from 4-5, up to 100's.

Post-retirement, to keep your public speaking skills sharp, record and review yourself by capturing presentations, analyzing performance, seeking feedback, and adjusting your approach. For example, record speeches, watch playback, identify areas for improvement, solicit feedback, and refine delivery, ensuring a cohesive message, engaging the audience, enhancing impact, maintaining credibility, cultivating engagement, and strengthening public speaking skills. This proactive approach enables continued growth and improvement.

Keep your public speaking skills sharp after retirement by reading and watching more content related to public speaking, learning from various sources, analyzing different speaking styles, identifying best practices, and applying them to your delivery. For example, read books, articles, and blogs on public speaking, watch TED Talks, interviews, and presentations, identify strengths and weaknesses, and incorporate new techniques, ensuring a cohesive message, engaging the audience, while enhancing overall impact, maintaining credibility, cultivating engagement, and strengthening public speaking skills.

Reading and continuing to learn more about current topics is also important. This helps your content stay up-to-date and relevant. The world changes quickly. You can even use your experience in combination with changes for comparison. Such as the evolution of work from 9-5 in a physical office to remote work with video calls from coffee shops. Do research on recent developments on the topic you are speaking about.

Keep attending live events. Challenge yourself to speak up by asking a question. Many people shy away from asking questions because they do not want to sound like they don’t know about something or they are afraid that people will think the question is dumb, which it never is. If you find yourself in public places with a group of people you do not know, speak up and say hello or say what a beautiful day it is. Step out of your comfort zone at every opportunity you can and speak up. Volunteer for committees or organizations you support and serve in a leadership position. You will get used to tuning meetings and speaking in front of people in person or virtually will become second nature.

As you mature, you're more likely to say, I know what I can do and what I can't do. And while it may be true, you should not let that be the reason you stop growing. In fact, those skill gaps are where the greatest opportunities for growth lie.

Each week I facilitate two live rooms on LinkedIn; one audio and the other live stream. I’ve been doing this since Covid, and it has kept my skills very sharp, and also attracted a lot of people that I might not of known if I hadn’t moved from primarily public speaking to online speaking and teaching. Practice keeps us agile, regardless of the skill.

If you want to keep your public speaking skills sharp after retirement, spend time reading good books. Avid readers make adept writers and articulate speakers. Spend time watching, listening to and learning from other great public speakers especially youngsters. Offer to teach or give a training online or offline on insider public speaking tips you know. You could do it for free. Lots of persons would jump on the idea to learn something salient from a pro and a veteran.

embrace the social media and technology - speak on the topics of your interest, go live and check the reactions of the audience. The only way to keep on going - is to keep on going!

Retirement is the best time to develop your speaking skills. We have two newer members of my Toastmasters club who joined as a way to stay busy. They fell in love with it and have grown immensely as speakers. Retirees who can speak publicly always have a place in their communities. Step away from the high-stakes business format and have fun at the lectern!

The art is in the doing. Thank goodness for technology. In today’s world we can expand our world, increase our connections and friends by continuing to present online. Our experiences are valued as we mix with different generations and levels of understanding. This in itself helps to not only keep our speaking skills sharp but also our minds. That old saying use it or lose it applies to every age group.