Public Speaking Lessons from John F. Kennedy
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
Whatever your feelings are about John F. Kennedy as a politician and a person, there’s no denying that he was a skilled public speaker. Despite the fact that it’s nearly sixty years since that awful day in Dallas, Texas, many of Kennedy’s speeches are still remembered and talked about.
That’s because he was an expert orator, and that’s where this week’s article comes in. Let’s take a look at a few of the lessons that we can learn from President Kennedy.
1. We all start out small
Kennedy’s early speeches weren’t particularly memorable, with one biographer describing them as “both mediocre and humorless, read from a prepared text with all the insecurity of a novice, in a voice ‘tensely high-pitched’ and ‘with a quality of grave seriousness that masked his discomfiture.’” This should act as an important reminder that we’re all novices to begin with – and anyone can put in the practice required to become as iconic a speaker as Kennedy.
2. We should use the rule of three
We’ve written about the power of three in the past, and with good reason. The general idea is that three is the smallest number of items that can be used to create a series, and that naturally makes it more memorable. The rule of three can be found all over the place, especially in fairy tales like the three little pigs and goldilocks and the three bears. Kennedy used it on a number of occasions, including in the line, “Not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it’s right.”
3. Sometimes we have to ignore physical discomfort
Public speaking isn’t always easy. Even at the best of times, it’s easy for us to wear ourselves out walking up and down the stage or talking so much that our throat goes dry. The lesson from JFK is that sometimes, we just have to soldier on. Not many people realize that Kennedy was “one of the sickest, most physically compromised American presidents in US history.” And yet despite that, he was still able to lead his country and to deliver some of the most well-known speeches of all time.
4. We need to read as much as we can
JFK spent a huge amount of time reading, and he was also reported to be a speed reader who read multiple newspapers every day along with a decent number of books throughout the years. The word is that he was a big fan of Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love. He also told interviewers that it was vital for him to read the papers, explaining, “I’d say that it’s an invaluable arm of the presidency, as a check on what’s going on in the administration, and more things come to my attention that cause me concern or give me information.”
5. Grades aren’t everything
It’s easy for us to think that academic grades are the most important predictor of our performance in the workplace, but the truth is a little less concrete. John F. Kennedy scored a C in a public speaking course that he took at Harvard, which just goes to show that we shouldn’t be held back by the results that we get at educational institutions. Perhaps modern artist Damien Hurst put it best when he said, “It’s amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination and a chainsaw.”
6. Repetition helps reinforce your message
JFK was no stranger to repetition, and there’s a good reason for that, because it helps people to remember things. His inaugural address included a great example in the line, “To convert our good words into good deeds in a new alliance for progress, to assist free men and free governments.” Oh, and did we mention that JFK was no stranger to repetition? It’s best not to overdo it though, like we did here, but you get the idea.
7. Facts appeal to logic
Different people are drawn to different elements of your public speaking, and people who are driven by logic tend to pay particular attention when you use facts and statistics. A great example of this comes to us from one of John F. Kennedy’s speeches about space flight: “…to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced…”
8. Storytelling is super powerful
Public speakers have been tapping into the power of storytelling for as long as public speaking has been a thing. You can see it in action through the words of ancient philosophers like Plato and Socrates. JFK used this technique when talking about space flight, setting the scene by saying, “Condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man’s recorded history in a time span of a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years. Only last week did we develop penicillin and nuclear power, and now if America’s new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we’ll have reached the stars before midnight tonight.”
9. Lists hammer your points home
Kennedy was a big fan of using lists to hammer his points home and to help people remember them. We’ve touched on this already when talking about the rule of three, but another great example of a list in action comes to us via the line, “We observe today not a victory of a party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change.” There’s a reason why we wrote this article as a list of lessons!
Conclusion
Now that you know just a few of the lessons that are on offer from John F. Kennedy, we want to hear from you. Which of these lessons resonated with you the most? And which are you most looking forward to putting into practice?
As always, be sure to let us know in the comments so that we can keep the discussion going. We’ll see you soon for another article!
