For those that haven’t worked it out yet I love to speak in public.
My battle was the reverse public speaking fear – private speaking! I could address an entire restaurant on a topic off-the-cuff but sit me next to someone I didn’t know… Terror – if they didn’t start the conversation I was screwed. Nervous, anxious, heart racing type stuff.
In the last month I have had a few wins in the speaking stakes.
Winning Speech #1 & #2
On August 25th Ashfield Toastmasters held their Club Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contests.
Drumroll please….
…I won them both! Yeah for me and super yeah because by the night of the contest I wasn’t even sure I’d enter.
Table topics is
impromptu speaking for those who aren’t familiar where you are given the question on the spot and asked to speak for 1-2 minutes.
You have to make 1 minute to be eligible but if you go to 2.5 minutes you are disqualified. The challenge is to come up with a clear, concise, rational and well reasoned response.
The contest question was “If a genie gave you one wish, what would it be and why?”.
This was not a favourite but basically my answer was unlimited wishes because I am a fast starter who tends to jump in and act later. Knowing that quality about myself I know that with one wish I would act and have to address the well thought out consequences later.
This was trumped by my partner the next morning who simply answered – another genie. Of course that is a very reasonable answer because all the genie’s of my childhood fairy tales grant 3 wishes!
The Humorous Speech
I do not consider myself a funny speaker. I can be spontaneously funny in life and enjoy being a clown but a funny speech is a very different beast.
My tendency is to be too serious and pick big, weighty topics – even if addressed from a lighter side – but be continuously funny in a speech…
That is why I drew on my experiences in my first job in science – milking bull ants. The speech was entitled the good the bad and the ugly. It outlined how I came to be milking bull ants when, faced with the question of what I would do for the rest of my life, I answered “save the world from disease’ with all the wisdom of an eighteen year old.
The Good was the potential of the project to synthesize an antibiotic that could knock out Super Bugs.
The Bad the fact the potential antibiotic didn’t just knock out the super nasties but pretty much every bug. Plus the unusual occupational hazard of bull ant stings.
The Ugly the thought of being found face down, jeans around my ankles being stung to death by bull ants. OK a somewhat unusual fear I grant you – but when I had a bull ant in my jeans at work I raced into a room, locked the door, dropped my jeans and got the thing off me – only to realise I had my jeans around my ankles in the bull ant room. If there was one escapee, could there be more.
To me Good, Bad, Ugly is a metaphor for life and how we choose to see it. If we choose to see the funny side and laughter is the best medicine maybe we can save the world from disease after all.
Winning Speech #3
At the Sunshine Coast Internet Marketing Meetup in Maroochydore I delivered a presentation entitled “Living The Nightmare, ah Dream.. DREAM”. It was to assist people in the IM space to avoid the biggest pitfalls that can turn the dream into a nightmare.
Having experienced most of the issues that can arise I felt well qualified to speak. It was well received and there has been some work arising from it which is always an advantage.
Winning Speech #4
On Monday 26th September Toastmasters Area 48 held the Area contest for the humorous speech and table topics.
It is where the Club winners in the area come to compete against each other. I am pleased to say I won the Table Topics and placed second in the Humorous Speech.
The Table Topic “Life is full of challenging moments…” gave me an opportunity to twist the question from challenging moments or a wealth of opportunity.
The winner, Stephen Licciardello, spoke of growing up with his Italian mother and it was a very funny speech. Mothers are obviously great fodder as a Chinese woman told tales of her mother coming to visit!
Stephen and I go on to represent Area 48 in the Division Contest on Friday October 7th – where all the area winners compete for the right to contest the District (basically all of NSW and the highest we can go in this contest).
All up it has been a busy speaking, but fun, month.
My big tip for winning speech contests – don’t take them or yourself too seriously just go in it to have fun.
