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    9 Tips for Giving a Gracious Acceptance Speech

    9 Tips for Giving a Gracious Acceptance Speech

    There are nine key elements to giving a gracious and memorable acceptance speech. The following guidelines will apply whether you are being honored as the local Walmart "Employee of the Month" or winning an Oscar.

    1. Express your respect for the organization making the award.

    By opening with words of admiration for those giving you the award, you simultaneously enhance its worth and score points with the audience, while displaying your modesty by praising others, not yourself.

    2. Share the credit.

    Whatever you did to win the award, it could not have happened without the assistance, cooperation and input of others. They helped you get there, now show them that you appreciate it. Expressing your gratitude to them presents you in a grateful, unselfish light.

    3. Thank your family members for their support.

    Your family are the people to whom you owe the most. To get where you are, you've needed their support - emotional, financial, and otherwise - their encouragement, inspiration, and love. It's only fitting that you should tell them how much you appreciate and love them when all of that support begins to pay off. And it's fitting as well that that appreciation should be shown in a public manner, so that others can also acknowledge the contributions your loved ones have made to your success.

    4. Be humble.

    By expressing humility, you add to the luster of the honor while demonstrating your own modesty. Just don't overdo it, or it will lack sincerity. Keep it real.

    5. Where appropriate, pay respects to a departed friend or mentor.

    There has probably been someone in your life who inspired you - parent, teacher, friend, adviser, grandparent, etc - and who has passed on. Share an anecdote about this person and illustrate how he or she affected your life in a positive way.

    6. Praise the competition.

    The more highly you speak of the people you had to beat to win the award, the more meaningful your award becomes and the more you come across as a good sport!

    7. Give people a chance to see the “real you.”

    Don't just stand there and read off a formal speech that you could have phoned in. If you’re known for your sense of humor, demonstrate it. If there’s a crusty side to your personality, people who know you and like you will enjoy seeing you appear as the lovable curmudgeon.

    8. Poke a little fun at yourself.

    By making a humorous reference to your own age, appearance, or ability, you will make yourself more likable and your audience more entertained.

    9. Keep it short.

    Keep your acceptance speech as short as the occasion allows, and no longer than it requires. Always leave them wanting more, not looking at their watches. Just because they're giving you an award doesn't mean they want to listen to you going on about it for half the evening. That would undo all the great rapport you've established with the first 8 points on this list!

    Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

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