Earlier this year, I chaired the 25th anniversary conference of the European Speechwriter Network in Cambridge, UK. It was there that I had the privilege to meet and get to know Terry Szuplat.
Terry is an award-winning author, speaker and trainer. For eight years, he was one of Barack Obama’s chief speechwriters and he worked on some of the most impactful speeches of our time. He’s also a genuinely nice guy with a wry sense of humour and a humble confidence.
In June 2026, Terry gave an online masterclass in which he shared insights and lessons on how to move people and change minds when delivering a speech or presentation.
Below are 11 lessons that I pulled from the session, each followed by a quote from Terry. They are insightful and worth your time.
1. Great speakers are made, not born
Terry pushed back firmly on the idea that people like Obama are “naturally gifted.” He said that no one is born great at anything whether it is music, sport, speaking, whatever. I agree. That’s why I put Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote at the top of my website: “All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.”
What we see at the top of any profession is the result of decades of deliberate work. Obama himself struggled as a young speaker and set out systematically to improve.
The corollary is that believing “that’s not me” is the most damaging and defeatist thing a speaker can do. All the tactical tips in the world — rule of three, body language, power poses — are useless if the underlying belief is absent.
“The biggest thing that we all have to get right is that this is something I can get better at. … As Obama said, you gotta get your reps in.”
2. Confidence follows action, not the other way around
Fear of judgment, fear of mistakes, fear of professional repercussions — these are all real things. Terry was candid that he himself struggled when he had to move from writing speeches to delivering them. His solution? Just do it. Rip the band-aid off. Give a toast at the family dinner. Speak at the community meeting. Volunteer for the work presentation. Perfection is not the standard, and it never will be.
“You are never going to get better if you don’t do it.”
3. Watch yourself on screen
One of the most practical habits he recommended is to record yourself and watch it back, even on a phone camera. Studies show that the things we carry around in our heads as catastrophic failures — the stumble, the pause, the mispronounced word — almost always look far less terrible on screen than they felt in the moment.
It’s not easy to watch ourselves on camera. I don’t like it at all, but I learn from it.
“We are actually better than we think.”
4. Write it out fully
Terry Szuplat is a strong advocate for writing out a full script, not just bullet points. His reasoning is that you can only see the strengths and weaknesses of your argument once the words are on the page. Without a base script, every rehearsal comes out differently, and you can’t identify what’s not working. At the same time, you don’t want to become a hostage to the script; the goal is to use it as a foundation and then let your personality come through on top of it.
“You haven’t really thought it out unless you’ve written it out.”
5. Know your “10 words”
Obama would call his speechwriters into the Oval Office one to three weeks before a major speech and ask a single question: What is the story we are going to tell? Not ten things, not twenty. What are the one or two things the audience should take away?
Terry Szuplat suggested a practical exercise: If a journalist were writing a headline for your speech in ten words or less, what would it say? If you can’t answer that before you write or speak, you are already in trouble. Audiences cannot remember ten things. Give them one.
“The audience can’t remember 10 things. Just give them one thing.”
6. The audience is looking for you
A recurring theme was the mistake leaders and entrepreneurs make of thinking it’s only about the product or the service or the issue. If someone else can step in and give your presentation without it suffering, it isn’t personal enough. Human beings speaking to human beings need to establish human connection first. And that means that you have to bring yourself to the presentation. Why do you care? What drew you to the work? How has the issue affected you or others?
“The audience is looking for you. They’re not looking for a script. They’ve invited you to speak at this moment, for some reason, and that’s all you have to give them.”
7. A story has three parts
Terry was dismissive of “9 steps to great storytelling” or “17 steps to a great story.” He argued that the structure for a story is ancient, simple, and the same whether it is a 60-minute presidential address or a 30-second TV commercial:
- Part 1: The problem — ideally rooted in your own experience
- Part 2: The solution — your product, service, idea, or policy
- Part 3: The result — a vision of the future where the problem is solved
If one of those three elements is missing, you are not making your best presentation.
“To me, it’s really pretty simple, and it’s the oldest structure in the world.”
8. Don’t hide from elephants
Leaders in difficult moments have a natural tendency to obfuscate, to reach for euphemisms. “We’re not laying people off, we’re rebalancing.” Terry Szuplat argued that this destroys trust, because everyone in the room already knows the truth. The audience knows, the speaker knows, and when the speaker won’t just say it, credibility collapses.
He used Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech as the model. Accepting the prize while simultaneously escalating a war in Afghanistan was a genuine paradox. Obama addressed it directly at the outset, then used the entire speech to explore the tension between peace and war. No one could accuse him of ignoring the elephant.
Terry’s practical test for plain language in hard moments: Imagine bumping into an employee in the corridor. What would you actually say to them face-to-face? That’s your speech.
“Say the thing that people think you won’t say.”
9. Use AI for scaffolding, but never for the soul
Terry’s position on AI was nuanced. Generic AI output is fine for brainstorming, finding less-obvious quotes, generating examples, research, and outlining. But when the moment comes to actually write the script — especially for anything that requires genuine human connection — he was adamant: don’t do it.
His reasoning is sound. What makes a speech or eulogy or commencement address powerful is lived experience, vulnerability, and the specific things only the speaker knows and has felt. A chatbot cannot access that.
“When it comes out that you used AI, it never ends well for the speaker. The audience wanted a human. They wanted a human touch.”
10. Being heard vs. being believed
If you’re at the lectern, you are heard. Being believed is about whether you’ve offered your audience something that solves a real problem, speaks to a genuine need, and gives them a practical call to action they can take. That’s why people agree to meetings and attend presentations in the first place.
“There’s a need to be filled. And it’s their need. If you can speak to that, that’s when they invest, that’s when they volunteer, that’s when they join your effort.”
11. The greatest lesson from Obama
Terry shared the greatest lesson that he learned from Obama:
“The greatest leaders and the greatest speakers are those who know who they are, know what they believe, and speak from a place of conviction.”
To learn more about Terry Szuplat, please visit his website.
