Pierre de Coubertin said “The most important thing is not to win but to take part!”. After two years serving as Area Governor in Toastmasters, last weekend speech contest at Toulouse Rosemasters was the first time in which I could take part in speech contests again. I didn’t leave this opportunity.
Some people do not see what is in the competition for them. They tend to see it as very much American. Or they may think there is someone who is a better speaker, thus, no purpose in battling in the competition. Others may be afraid not only of public speaking but even more if there is a competition around.
I may understand those points, nevertheless I still think Toastmasters’ members should give it a try. There is always something to learn from that experience. My speech in the contest was a try to explain that.
Darren LaCroix is a Toastmasters member who won the World championship of public speaking in 2001. Last Friday, I attended a workshop on public speaking that he gave in Lisbon, just before our District 59 Spring conference.
The guy is impressive. The 3-hour workshop was fantastic. The deal was truly value for money.
He explained his story more or less in his winning speech from 2001, repeated at an event of the NSA in the following video:
10 years later, he is even better… but he wasn’t always like that. During the weekend he played another video of himself in the late 80´s. He was then a disaster of a public speaker. He then went on a journey of studying the best speakers and working hard to improve until being what he is today. This sounds very much as the American dream story… but having seen the video back then and seeing the dozens of shelves filled of videos and cassettes of speeches that he went through in those 10 years, there is little doubt of the truthfulness of that story. As he said “I use the tool of Toastmasters better than most”.
Some takeaways of the workshop
I will leave below some of the notes I took during the workshop, to share them with you and to have them properly stored for myself (still, if you get the chance of attending one of his workshops, do yourself the favour and book a place in it). Many of them are quotes either from him or from his coaches, sometimes I didn’t get right the source.
The most important part of a presentation: “The thought process in the audience’s mind”.
He introduced the concept of “salting” a presentation: getting your audience to want to hear your message before you deliver it (building up curiosity, tension).
The 4 most important habits to create:
Never turn down stage time (he even subscribed to 4 different club to “quadruple his failure rate”).
Record yourself every time (“yeah, it’s hard to listen to yourself… but guess who we have to listen to!”).
Be confident enough to be humble.
You must crave feedback.
“Habits are like train tracks: take a long time to put in place but once there they’ll take you anywhere”, Patricia Fripp.
On nervousness before an audience: “Did anyone come here to watch me fail?”
“Skill set without mindset will get your audience upset”.
Sometimes emphasizing is de-emphasizing (from the lyrics of some U2 song).
“Clarity and simplicity”, for the audience. Use the stage with a purpose.
“Don’t add humour, uncover humour”. Not especially in favour of adding others’ jokes, if you do that you have to say so.
If you are inauthentic and the audience senses that, they won’t follow you.
“Connect before you can educate, entertain and persuade” (he had greeted 90% of the audience individually before starting the workshop). As a curiosity he mentioned the movie “Avatar”, in which the creatures are connected through hair and ponytails, e.g. “the horse chooses the rider”, in the same way the goal of the speaker is to get the audience to like him.
For professional speakers the pay has to be a side effect.
We are not taught how to incorporate feedback.
“Toastmasters slogan should be: `The best place to make mistakes´”.
“The difference between good and great speakers is 100 speeches”, Dale Carnegie. An average Toastmaster member gives 3-4 speeches per year (it’d take 25 years to give 100). Take every opportunity you have to give speeches. He delivered his winning speech 22 times in the 3.5 months previous to the competition. “What is your stage time rate?”; join more clubs.
“Speaking as a dialogue, not a monologue”. Use pauses to give people time to reflect, especially when speaking to people of different cultures and when you ask rhetorical questions. Since pauses are uncomfortable for the speaker, give yourself something to do mentally, e.g. counting “1001, 1002, 1003…” (Internal dialogue)
Use stories
“Jesus did not use Power Point… he used parables”. Tell one to make a point; then another one to make another point. Use very clear transitions between stories. Be careful of narrating the story: not good to step in and out of the story. “Take us, don’t tell us”. A story goes directly into the subconscious.
“What can you do to tell the story without words?”. The emotion is in the eyes (“eye-motion”). Reaction tells the story.
In a story: at least one of the characters has to change the emotion from the beginning to the end. Focus on telling better stories. The audience needs to know who is speaking: the best way to achieve it is by using the name of the recipient of the message in the dialogue (no need to change position, just a heel-turn).
V.A.K.S. = Visual Auditory Kinesthetic Smell (strongest one is describing smell)
Invite the audience into the scene (use “you”). “I / you ratio”: Even when telling a personal story, use more times the pronoun “you”.
“Tap and transport”: ask a question about a personal memory of the audience and then bring them into your story (they’ll relate what you say with their story, it’ll be their story). Once telling the story is better to use present tense. Do not ask “How many of you…?”, use instead “Have you…?”, the test is that you would never ask to a friend in a 1-to-1 conversation “How many of you?”.
“It doesn’t matter what you see, it matters what the audience see when you say it”, Patricia Fripp.
Not in favour of memorizing a speech (internalize it). Never give a speech in front of a mirror. Do not memorize gestures (inauthentic).
What do you want the audience to do / think / feel after hearing your speech? You must be able to phrase that message in 10 words or less.
On the use of simple vocabulary/grammar: “the audience wants you present, not perfect”.
Hold the silence before starting the speech (shows confidence): the “Ed Tate scan”. How stable you are in the first 30 seconds tells the audience how stable the message is.
Let it go. The true story is not so important. You may have to twist some details or cut some parts.
Opening: CSI beginning, i.e. directly into the crime scene.
Do not preach. Don’t tell people what to do (“you should”), instead tell what you did, what “we” could do, etc…
Recordings of Toastmasters finals speeches can be found at: Bill Stephens Productions. Darren found out that the champions:
Had a coach.
Paused.
Used Word to write the speeches (counting words).
Had a sparkle in the eye (they owned the stage).
If there is anything we should take home from the workshop, it is: “Stage time, stage time, stage time”.
Some weeks ago I read “The Seven Minute Star”, by Florian Mueck. Florian is a fellow Toastmaster from one of the clubs in Barcelona who I met some years ago in a division conference in Madrid.
He is a very energetic speaker and I remember that he came in 2nd in the International Speech contest in that division conference. I have seen him some other times along these years. In one of those occasions, I believe in Porto, he mentioned that he was writing a book. I remember him mentioning something about some stairs, a way to the top, etc. And about a year later here I am, having read the book and writing the review.
The book is a quick guide to become a proficient public speaker by following 15 steps (confidence, transparency, first sentence, eye contact, voice, body language, visual aids, structure, rhetoric, anecdotes, quotations, humor, enthusiasm, passion, and smile). It is a very easy and enjoyable read (~100 pgs.) with lots of stories and examples. If you have no previous experience in public speaking, the book is a very informative guide.
If you are a member of Toastmasters, you may have noticed that the Toastmasters program covers many of those steps in the book, though he adds some more tips: for example, the smile (then you recall having always seen Florian smiling!) or the stress in the use of quotations (though I may disagree in the approach! I would say “read a lot and pick some quotes out of what you’ve read” instead of learning some quotes right away).
Another good point is that in the book he presents some tools he has developed, for example the “speech development template”. I recommend you to pay a visit to his website, where other tools (speech evaluation template) and analysis are available.
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If you would like to know more about Toastmasters and you happen to live in or nearby Madrid, take the opportunity to attend the Division Conference of Toastmasters next Saturday May 7th in Madrid.
I wanted to share with you in this post a speech I gave last Saturday at Rosemasters club contest. I was not contesting but a speech was needed for the evaluation contest, so I volunteered.
Why do I share this speech in particular? Not because it was especially good (nor especially bad), but because it has some insights that could help some of you in case you hadn’t reflected on them or made the numbers yourself.
I titled the speech “Snowball” but a more suitable title would have been “Snowball, or the beauty of compound interest”. Please, note that the metaphor of the snowball it’s not mine, so no need to praise my originality here. I borrowed it from Alison Schroeder’s biography of Warren Buffett “Snowball”, which I reviewed in other post in this blog (I take the opportunity to recommend the book again).
Below you can watch the video uploaded in Youtube (from the second 0:42 some helping hand lifts the camera, please be patient during those first seconds). Below the video I share the script of the speech so you can actually see the formula and the charts I showed. Reflect on it; it may help you a lot a long way down the road.
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Script:
“How many of you used to play with snow when you were a child?
Do you remember what the process you followed to build snowballs was? You started by making a small ball with your hands, like this. Then, you left it on the ground and let it roll over itself, so it was gaining more snowflakes and thus getting a bit bigger with every roll… for you it was a small effort, and after some time of rolling and rolling over, you easily could end up with big snowball like this.
It shows what is the future value (FV) of an investment’s present value (PV) that gains a fixed interest rate (i) for n periods.
To put it simple, it means that the interest that we earn over the investment in the first year, will enter the calculation in the second year. In a very similar way that small snowflakes are making the snowball bigger.
The importance of compound interest for our future.
Who is the younger member of the audience today? I will ask you one question, let me see if I get the answer I want.
Are you saving and investing with your retirement in mind? Do you have pension plan or fund?
An extremely important factor in this discussion is that time in the formula appears in the exponent. This means the longer the time period, the better. Or put it in another way, the sooner we start investing or saving, the better.
I made two quick calculations to show you. Imagine a 25 year old person who just started working. If he or she is able to save 250 euros per month, that is 3,000 euros per year, and puts it in a conservative fund which earns 3% a year… by the time he is 65 he will have around 230.000€. His yearly contribution would have been 123.000€. So another 110.000€ will have come from the interest. He will practically have doubled his money.
On the other hand, take a 50 year old person who never saved any money beforehand. He will have to save it in only the last 15 years of his working life. To make the comparison, I supposed that he contributed the same 123.000€ in those 15 years, for this he has to save 8.200 per year or 680€ per month… when he is 65 he will have 150.000€, having earned about 30.000€ from the interests, 4 times less!
Effect of a 3% compound interest over 40 years.
If the young person would invest in more volatile asset, for example the stock market, which historically earns about 8% every year, the new figures would be these ones.
840.000 – earning 720.000 from interests
222.000 – earning 100.000 from interests / 7 times less.
Effect of a 8% compound interest over 40 years.
Finally, with this discussion I wanted to explain little bit the compound interest, how it is making your savings grow, and even though at the beginning the growth seems very slow this is because the growth with time is exponential and we human beings are not very patient, thus it is important to start early saving small amounts, as snowflakes… in the end you will have a big snowball.
Start saving and see you at the retirement age.”
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Final comment: as you may have noticed there several passages when what I say differs from the script. I didn’t learn it by heart. During my first speeches in Toastmasters I tried to do so. Now I am departing from that approach. However, I do write the speech to give it a clear structure, to polish some parts, spot words I may have difficulty in pronouncing (so I can replace them for others) and count the amount of words so I am sure it fits in 5 to 7 minutes (often 7’30”… never more or fellow Toastmasters will start clapping).
Two weeks ago I attended the Toastmasters District 59 Conference, “Springtime at the Beach”, in The Hague. This was the first time I attended such a conference, and I was impressed at the level of the speakers and the organization of the conference itself.
Being an Area Governor, for me the event lasted two days and half, starting on Friday June 4th afternoon with an executive committee meeting, following with the start of the conference, later the evaluation contest and a party with divisions showcase. That wasn’t a slow start.
On Saturday we had some workshops, the elections of new officers and the international speech contest. The way the conference, workshops and elections are held reminded me very much of my time at AEGEE and how there the Agorae were held; even some of the topics covered are similar, the way sometimes the focus is put on the procedure and not on listening at length to what the candidates plan to do if elected, etc…
On Sunday we had more workshops and the training for the new district officers (namely Division and Area Governors).
International Speech Contest. This is the main attraction of the event. We could say that we paid the 135€ fee of it to attend this contest. We had 10 speeches, one representing each division. As I wrote above, the level was very high. I couldn’t see a clear winner; a prove of that is that only one of my 3 favourites came among the 3 first ones. The winner, Na Elom Amouh, told us about his journey from Togo to Munich and how we should never give up in the pursuit of our dreams. A motivational speech. In general, most speeches in these competitions tend to call the audience for noble purposes, inspire good behaviours, etc. I must admit that some of those speeches do get to move you.
Evaluation Contest. Here, the participants had to evaluate a very good speech from former District Gov Christopher Magyar. This is not an easy task, as it is always more difficult to find points of improvement. Even though in this contest the level was very high as well, with very analytical and encouraging evaluations, this time my 3 favourites came in the first 3 positions, the winner being Tara Majumdar.
Miscellanea. There are many small details, side happenings, different situations that contribute to enlarge the baggage the one takes from the conference.
The landscape surrounding the conference letting members to relax.
The music being played in the plenary sessions, especially the banners parade bringing up the spirits of all attendees.
The chance to have meals in the terrace.
The wonderful garden for the gala party and the party at the beach.
The attentive organisers… the continuous availability of stroop waffles, coffees, etc.
The counting of votes behind the scenes… when each one is coming up with a different number!
The entertaining way in which chairs conducted the contests.
The experience of tweeting the event (from @TM_Madrid and @javierirastorza)…
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Learning experience. Overall, the conference is an intense learning experience. You learn how others organise officers’ trainings, set up clubs, give recognition to members, set up workshops, and use different techniques and skills in public speaking… To end this post I wanted to remark two workshops that I attended and especially liked:
Pecha Kucha: this is a presentation technique originally from Japan that consists of preparing a presentation that consists of 20 slides, each one lasting 20 seconds and that will run automatically. You, the presenter, can’t stop it so you need to time yourself to precisely convey your different messages when each slide is being shown. It was very dynamic and I think it’s a nice challenge to try it one day. Check out the calendar of Pecha Kucha nights in different cities around the World.
Youth Leadership Program: this is Toastmasters program for youngsters. A couple of Toastmasters explained how they have carried it in a school with teenagers. From what I saw, it must be a very rewarding experience, a way to give back something to society and at the same time a way to help young students improve their skills. This is also another challenge I might try one day.
Next District conference… in Barcelona; I’ve already booked my place there!
I have already mentioned Toastmasters quite a few times in the blog. From the Toastmasters International site:
“[...] Toastmasters International has grown to become a world leader in helping people become more competent and comfortable in front of an audience. The nonprofit organization now has nearly 250,000 members in more than 12,500 clubs in106 countries, offering a proven – and enjoyable! – way to practice and hone communication and leadership skills.
Most Toastmasters meetings are comprised of approximately 20 people who meet weekly for an hour or two. Participants practice and learn skills by filling a meeting role, ranging from giving a prepared speech or an impromptu one to serving as timer, evaluator or grammarian.
There is no instructor; instead, each speech and meeting is critiqued by a member in a positive manner, focusing on what was done right and what could be improved.
Good communicators tend to be good leaders.”
There are 15 Toastmasters clubs in Spain in Portugal (3 of them in Madrid!), with over 400 members. Next weekend (April 24th), we will gather in Porto for the Division conference. There, we will have several workshops, lectures and presentations delivered by prominent speakers; among them Ed Tate, World Champion of Public Speaking in 2000, and John Zimmer, four times European Champion of Public Speaking.
Even more interesting will be the contests that will take place there: Evaluation and International Speech contests. From our Area (Madrid and South of Spain) there will be four participants taking part in them: Jane Kinnear, Ruben Navarro, Damian Alcolea and Alexander Hristov.
I am sure they will make a great performance and above all they’ll learn a lot just by participating in the contest. The rest of us attending will enjoy two great contests in a memorable weekend!
