Obama's longtime speechwriter pens advice book on public speaking

A former White House speechwriter is sharing some of the public speaking tips he picked up while penning prose for President Obama.

"These are the lessons in public speaking and communication that I've learned from having a front row seat for years for someone who — even his critics acknowledge — is a great orator," Terry Szuplat said about his new book, "Say it Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience."

The literary effort, which hit store shelves on Tuesday, was inspired by Szuplat's own challenge with public speaking, despite his role as one of Obama's longest-serving speechwriters.

"When I left the White House [in 2017] and started trying to give speeches myself, I struggled. Sometimes I was fine, but other times I was not fine, and I froze up and I was anxious."

"I could write the speech. Why couldn't I give the speech?" Szuplat wondered. So the Massachusetts native said he attempted to "reverse engineer" his career, and reflect on what he learned from Obama that he could apply to his own preparation for stepping in front of an audience. 

One lesson Szuplat learned from Obama involved what he thought at first was a hazing ritual during a flight back from Chile with the then-commander in chief, who was poised to deliver remarks less than an hour later.

"I'd worked on the speech for weeks, and I thought it was done. President Obama sort of casually walks back to my seat with his speech in hand, and he looks at me, and he says, 'Terry, this is a good six-page speech... It would be a great five-page speech.'"

"I thought he was messing around with me, but he wasn't smiling. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't joking," Szuplat, 51, recalled.

"He did this to us all the time. He said, 'Shave a page off. Shave a paragraph off. See what you can cut.' And it drove me in crazy."

But in retrospect, Szuplat said, Obama's last-minute edit request was a "teachable moment."

"He was trying to teach us to be more concise, to be more precise, to use our words wisely. And the speech went great," said Szuplat, who now teaches political speechwriting at American University. 

When he once asked Obama what makes an effective public speaker, the president told him: "Do they have a sense of who they are and what they believe? Are they speaking from conviction?"

Other pointers include remembering to share your unique perspective and "give the speech that only you can give," along with "not being afraid to speak hard truths."

Another bit of advice stemmed from a real-life speech snafu that occurred while Obama was speaking.

"He's flipping the pages. Gets a few pages in, and the pages are blanks," Szuplat said, explaining that some of the president's team had forgotten to put his entire speech at the podium.

After coming off the stage and getting positive feedback from an aide, Obama quipped, "I'm glad you enjoyed it. I had to make the whole thing up."

The simple takeaway, whether you're giving a toast at a wedding or delivering a campaign stump speech before hundreds of voters, Szuplat said, is "always count your pages."