Humorous Speech Contest

I have previously mentioned that I joined a Toastmasters group here in Tulsa back in April.  I’ve been attending regular meetings, writing and delivering speeches, and generally learning a great deal about my speaking style and areas where I could use improvement in how I deliver speeches.  For example, my biggest glaring weakness is in using my notes.  I can easily tie this into preparation.  With everything else going on in my life (work, baby, triathlon training) writing speeches usually ends up getting short shrift.  When it is my turn to speak, I usually end up writing my speech a day or two before I am scheduled to give it, and as a result, I don’t have enough time to practice it before I delivery the speech in front of my group.  That invariably means I lean too hard on my notes to remember where I am going with my speech, which means I am giving a less effective speech because instead of looking at the audience the entire time, I am glancing down to read my notes.  This one is easy to fix- practice more.

I also tend to get stuck behind the podium when giving a speech.  I’ve had this one mentioned to me several times.  This, also, ties directly to my reliance on my notes because if I were able to deliver the speech extemporaneously, I wouldn’t need to stand behind the podium.  I am always very big when I am on stage- I have a great speaking voice and I use excellent gestures when speaking- but when I stand behind the podium the whole time, the audience never really has a chance to completely connect with me because they can only see the top half of me.  This, too, is an easy one to fix- practice more so I can get out from behind the podium.

This leads me to the title of this post- Humorous Speech Contest.  Several weeks ago, my club sponsored a Humorous Speech Contest where several speakers were signed up to tell a humorous story or anecdote to the group for a chance to win a trophy and a chance to represent our club in the Area Competition on Saturday, September 17th.  I put together what I thought was a pretty humorous idea and brought my A-game to the speech.  You can probably tell from the picture up top that I ended up winning the competition.  So that is where i will be tomorrow morning at 9:30 am, giving a humorous speech in our Area Competition.  If I win that, then I move on to the District competition.  So wish me luck!

The Road to Going Pro

Originally posted 3/16/2011.

I joined Toastmasters this week.  The first meeting I ever attended was last week on the 51st floor of the Williams Building in downtown Tulsa.  I first heard of Toastmasters many years ago and had thought about joining several times in the past but never got past “that seems like a good idea,”  A few weeks ago, I was thinking about my professional goals and self-improvement and Toastmasters popped back into my head.  After a little bit of research, I found an active club nearby and decided to attend a meeting.

This week was my second meeting.  It is odd, although I was in a room comprised of complete strangers, I felt completely at ease.  A big part of that is the welcoming nature of the Toastmasters- nearly everyone introduced themselves to me either before or after the meeting and every one of them was engaging and enthusiastic about Toastmasters.  As long as I can remember, I have been skilled in speaking in front of large groups of people- much of my college career involved giving presentations and early on in my banking career I developed and presented a “Financial Info for College Students” speech and presented it to local college students during their orientation week.  During my one year of law school, I participated in a moot court competition where we received our topics of argument the day of the competition and had to research the topic and formulate an argument either for or against and compete against other students.  In the first event I ever competed in, I placed third out of a field of more than 20 students, and gave my final arguments in front of a panel of judges and a courtroom full of people.  It was nerve-wracking, and yet, I felt cool and calm and received several comments afterward about my poise and presence.  Also during my year of law school, I gave a presentation about a baseball arbitration, again arguing against other students in the class.  The arbitration I lost, but after class the teacher (a local judge) pulled me aside to tell me that in twenty years of teaching his class, he’d never seen a presentation as skilled as mine.

Why, then, am I joining a club designed to develop public speakers when my skills are already decidedly well-developed?  Because you can always get better, and despite my extensive experience thus far, there are areas I can stand to improve.  Unless I am focused on it, I make unfortunate use of non-verbals (uh, um, and).  I can also use more practice seeing what makes a good speaker great.  At some point in the future, I would like to become a professional public speaker, someone who is paid to speak to groups at conferences.  There is no better way to make the connections I will need than by joining an organization comprised entirely of public speakers.

During a Toastmaster’s meeting, the Presiding Toastmaster will address a Table Topic, often a question designed to facilitate easy discussion.  Last week it was, “What would you do with $100 million” and this week it was “If you could be any age.”  Surprisingly, the Presiding Toastmaster asked me to speak briefly on the topic at hand. While caught off guard, I recovered immediately and stood and spoke for about a minute about going back to high school and re-visiting some of the events and situations that have crafted me into the individual I am today.  I sat back down and was thrilled to receive a hearty round of applause from the group.  Later in the meeting, during the “critique” session, I was informed that I had used no non-verbals during my brief speech (whew!) and that the consensus was that my
speech was good.  I was later told that I have an excellent speakers voice and great presence in commanding the room.  To say I was beaming from this praise would be an understatement.

I will soon be sent the “Newbie Notebook” from Toastmasters and will get to progress through the ten speeches necessary to become a “Competent Communicator,” the first in a line of ever-increasingly challenging ranks achieved through giving various speeches in front of the Toastmasters or outside groups.

http://www.toastmasters.org/education

After Competent Communicator comes Advanced Communicator with ranks of Bronze, Silver and Gold before becoming a Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM).  While working towards the rank of Distinguished Toastmaster,
an applicant can also apply to become an Accredited Speaker.  To date, only 60 Toastmasters have ever achieved this rank which requires having spoken at at least twenty-five non-Toastmaster speaking engagements within three years of application, and an audio presentation.  If your speech passes the first level of screening, you are invited to appear before a live review panel at an International Convention during which you will be judged.  Only a few applicants each year are awarded the level of Accredited Speaker, in fact, fewer than twenty percent of all applicants have qualified for Accredited Speaker status in the 31 years the program has existed.

http://www.toastmasters.org/asapp.asp
http://www.toastmasters.org/astips

Whether I am ever able to achieve Accredited Speaker status, I know my future lies in public speaking.  The skills I have developed on my own will only be enhanced and perfected through my involvement in Toastmasters.  My praise, while uplifting, will fade if I fail to improve.  In order to become great, I must continue to challenge myself by stepping outside of my comfort zone.  Only then, after growing as a speaker, will I be worthy of delivering a speech that people would pay to come see.  Someday soon, I hope to be the keynote speaker at a business conference near you.