7 Lessons from a 7-Minute Speech — Part 3
Someone once told me they practiced their speech while walking their dog.
“Great,” I said. “Do you say it out loud?”
“No,” they said. “I go through it in my head.”
That’s not practicing speech. That’s thinking.
In Part 1 of this series, we talked about serving the audience above all else.
In Part 2, we covered making every word earn its place and curating truth for impact.
Today’s lessons are about preparation. Not the kind you do at your desk. The kind that actually makes you better.
Lesson 4: Practice Aloud
If you’re not saying your speech out loud, you’re not practicing your speech.
There’s a simple reason for this. What looks good on paper can stumble in your mouth.
Take this line from a draft of my contest speech: “She subtly signaled her skepticism.”
Say that line in your head.
Then, try saying that out loud.
Tongue-tied? Yeah, me too.
Eventually, I replaced it with: “She raised an eyebrow.”
Simpler. Cleaner. Easier to say.
And honestly? More vivid.
When the speaker says it with the gesture, a listener gets it right away.
That’s the first reason to practice aloud.
You find the stumbles. Words that look fine on screen and in your head, but collide and trip you when they come out of your mouth. The only way to discover these collisions is to actually speak them.
But there’s a second, deeper reason.
A speech is not an essay. It is a performance.
When you practice aloud, you discover where your voice naturally rises and falls.
You find the pauses that create tension.
You feel which phrases land with weight and which ones float by.
You start using your body — gestures, facial expressions, posture — because those things emerge naturally when you’re speaking, not when you’re reading silently.
None of this happens in your head.
“But Won’t Practicing Too Much Make Me Mechanical?”
When I first did my presentation on which this series is based, I heard this question. Now, I tackle it head-on in my talk. I understand the thinking behind the question. But honestly, I also don’t understand it.
Would you ever pay to watch a play where the actors hadn’t rehearsed? Would you buy tickets to a concert where the musicians hadn’t practiced until the music flowed from muscle memory? Would you go to a dance recital where the performers were winging it?
Of course not.
Why should your audience, who pays you with their time and attention, deserve anything less?
Over-practice doesn’t make you mechanical. Under-practice makes you anxious.
Anxious speakers come across as stiff, rushed, and disconnected.
When you know your material cold, you’re free.
Free to make eye contact.
Free to respond to the room.
Free to adjust your pace and add a pause.
Free to throw in a spontaneous aside.
Mastery creates flexibility, not rigidity.
Here’s the math from my own experience. From the first round of the Toastmasters contest to the semifinals, I practiced my seven-minute speech aloud about 300 times.
I know what you’re thinking. This guy has no life.
Let’s do the math. 300 repetitions times 7 minutes is about 2,100 minutes. That’s 35 hours. Spread over roughly five months, that’s about 15 minutes a day. Fifteen minutes a day!
That’s less time than most people spend scrolling social media before bed. The difference is that those 15 minutes are compounded into something meaningful.
What This Means For Healthcare Leaders
Most leaders don’t think of themselves as performers. But you are.
Every time you present to your board, you’re performing. Every town hall, every team huddle, every difficult conversation with a colleague — it’s a performance. Not in the fake, theatrical sense. In the sense that delivery matters as much as content.
I’ve seen physician leaders with brilliant ideas fall flat because they read their slides word for word. I have been that leader.
I’ve seen others with simpler ideas carry the room because they spoke with conviction, paused at the right moments, and made eye contact.
I believe the difference is practice.
You don’t need 300 repetitions for a Tuesday morning presentation. But if you have an important talk coming up — a board presentation, a keynote, a difficult conversation — try practicing it out loud five times. Just five. If you don’t have time for five, do three, or do one, but don’t make the actual performance the first time you hear yourself.
You’ll be shocked at how much better it gets. You’ll catch the phrases that trip you up. You’ll find the natural rhythm. You’ll feel more confident walking in because your body already knows what it’s doing.
And here’s a practical tip: record yourself. Use your phone. Watch it back. It’s painful, I know. But it’s the fastest way to spot habits you didn’t know you had. The “ums,” the pacing, the tendency to look at the floor. You can’t fix what you can’t see.
Lesson 5: Rehearse With People
Practicing alone improves delivery. But it can’t tell you whether your message actually lands. For that, you need people.
I gave my speech to at least 15 different audiences before the semifinals. Not counting contest rounds. Each time, I asked for feedback. And I got a lot of it.
Someone couldn’t understand a word, so I changed how I said it. Someone said, “You don’t look surprised when you say you were surprised,” so I modified my gestures. Someone told me I had too many ideas in my speech, so I cut ruthlessly.
A mirror can’t give you that kind of feedback. Only people can. But here’s the tricky part. When you ask 15 different people for feedback, you get 15 different opinions. And a lot of them conflict with each other.
One person says your opening is too slow. Another says it sets the mood perfectly. One person thinks you should add more detail. Another thinks you should cut more. Someone loves the ending. Someone else thinks it falls flat.
This is where two qualities become essential: Genuine Curiosity and Ego Management
First, you need genuine curiosity about every piece of feedback. Even the feedback that stings. Especially the feedback that stings. When someone says something that surprises you or hurts you, the instinct is to explain yourself. “Well, the reason I did that was…” or “You’re not understanding what I meant.”
Resist that instinct. Instead, get curious. Why did they hear it that way? What was their experience of that moment? What did they expect that they didn’t get?
You don’t have to agree with every piece of feedback. But you need to understand it before you can decide whether to act on it.
Second, you need to leave your ego at the door. If you get defensive when people give you honest feedback, they sense it immediately. And they stop telling you the truths that might be hard but necessary to hear. React poorly to feedback, and you will stop getting it.
What This Means For Healthcare Leaders
One of the biggest traps I see most people fall into is preparing in isolation.
They build their slides alone. They rehearse alone (if they rehearse at all). They walk into the room, deliver their talk, and wonder why it didn’t land the way they hoped.
Sound familiar?
Here’s a different approach. Before your next important presentation, give it to two or three trusted colleagues first. Not to impress them. To learn from them.
Ask specific questions.
“Was my main point clear?”
“Where did you lose interest?”
“What would you cut?”
“Did the opening grab you?”
Generic feedback like “it was good” is useless. Push for specifics. And when they give you specifics, listen without defending. Take notes. Say thank you. Then go back and decide what to change.
This practice applies beyond formal presentations. Before you send a big email, ask someone to read it. Before you have a tough conversation, talk through your approach with a mentor. Before you roll out a new policy, test your messaging with a few people on the front line.
The principle is the same. You can’t know how your message will land until it actually lands on real people.
The Clinical Parallel
Think about how we train in medicine. No one becomes a surgeon by reading textbooks alone. You observe, you assist, you practice on simulators, and eventually you operate — with someone watching. At every step, you get feedback. From attendings, from peers, from the outcomes themselves.
Communication works the same way. You get better by doing it in front of people and learning from their reactions.
The physician who never practices aloud is like the surgeon who only reads about procedures. The physician leader who never rehearses with an audience is like the resident who never gets feedback on their technique. Both will get by. Neither will excel.
The Two Practices
First, for your next important communication, practice it aloud at least five times. Not in your head. Out loud, standing up, as if the audience were in front of you. Time yourself. Record yourself at least once.
Second, before a high-stakes talk, deliver it to at least one trusted person and ask for honest, specific feedback. Listen without defending. Then decide what to change.
These are simple habits. They don’t take much time. But they separate good communicators from the ones who actually move people.
This is Part 3 of a four-part series: 7 Lessons from a 7-Minute Speech. It is based on a 25-minute interactive presentation with the same title that I have given in multiple settings, including at District 30 (Chicago Region) Toastmasters Leadership Institute in December 2025. Leave a comment if you would like to explore whether it could be a good presentation for your team.
Next week: why your unique story is your greatest leadership asset, and why having fun isn’t optional.