How Keeping a Journal Can Improve Your Speeches

For the last 10,000+ years, there has been no greater tool to move the minds and hearts of people than telling them a great story. Powerful oratory has been responsible for the building of nations, the pioneering of empires, and the toppling of tyranny. From religious leaders to entrepreneurs; politicians to educators—and community builders, the most memorable voices and speeches are those from men and women who mastered the art of storytelling and compelled their audiences to act.

An easy way to enhance the emotional impact of your speeches is to enthrall your audience with a captivating tale that they can empathize with. Keeping a journal on you at all times ensures you can quickly write down slices of life as you experience them. There are lessons in things that happen to us every day that can be only gleaned by training ourselves to pay greater attention to what’s going on around us, what’s being said, and how we (and others) feel as a result.

Having an easy-to-access notepad or blank book makes it a cinch to jot down antidotes, observations, stories, jokes, quotes, and more. All of these things can come in handy when you need to punch up your speech with a little drama or thoughtfulness—or add excitement or an element of surprise. Telling a story in your presentation helps listeners remember your main points. When told well, narratives make it easier for your audience to visualize what you’re saying and become emotionally invested. This is why it’s important to take great notes as much as you can. A journal can help you remember details and make your own catalog of legends that are unique to your speeches.

Keeping a notebook allows you to create summaries about people you may have met by chance but who deeply affected you. Sometimes strangers say the most profound things. These statements can be quoted for later use to drive home a point in your speech. Too often speakers or speechwriters think quotes have to be from someone who is/was famous. They don’t. Words of wisdom can be from an old lady who works as a cashier near your home, a teenager trying to find his place in life, a toddler on the heels of throwing a fit, or even a stranger sitting next to you on a train or plane. You just never know.

There are people who float into our lives as casually as a walk-on character in a short film but who do something that makes them unforgettable. Put those experiences in your journal. What did the person look like? How was his or her pattern of speech—fast, slow, with a foreign accent or no? What kind of day was it? Were you stressed out and in a hurry or was it one of your darkest days when a single statement and a smile from a stranger refocused you on all the things that were going well for you, rather than the ones that weren’t? Write it down. You might be able to tell that story in a speech later and draw your audience in on a personal level even if the talk is about business.

Billionaire Richard Branson has stated in his book The Virgin Way that his "infamous and utterly low-tech notebook is one of the most powerful tools I have in my bag of business tricks". Note-taking can strengthen your speech writing skills and help you improve the overall rhythm and flow of your presentation. If you work with a speechwriter, having your memories written down makes it easier to relay your personal stories to her so that the two of you can weave them in to support facts, figures, data and the dryer parts of a presentation that must be incorporated.

If you don’t already own a journal or notebook, now is a great time to get one. If you prefer to keep things digital, there are plenty of apps that you can download to accomplish the same goal. Whichever method you choose, be sure to make a habit out of the practice. Using your journal on a regular basis can help you discover fascinating new ways to tell stories in your speeches. You never know when something in your day may turn out to be the incident you need to motivate, inspire, or persuade your audience later.