I interviewed Ed Tate on December 18, 2012 and asked him just one question: “What are your best pieces of advice on how to win the Toastmasters’ World Championship of Public Speaking?”

Ed is a sought-after keynote speaker who uses storytelling to guide his audiences through the full range and intensity of human emotions .  Click here to learn more about Ed.

 

Tip #1: Take a risk

“I’m very thankful to have won the World Championship; but when I joined Toastmasters 14 years ago, it was never my intention to win.  I only joined Toastmasters to get better at my job as a sales executive for a computer company.  The founder of our club was a gentleman by the name of Randall Shelton. Very early on Randall said, ‘There’s this thing that’s called the World Championship of Public Speaking, and you need to consider it.’”

“He harassed me for the next 18 months and it got to the point where I was rather annoyed. I held Randall at bay since my work travel schedule did not permit me to enter the contest.  Then I became the training director of the Denver Rocky Mountain News.  When I told Randall that my new job involved almost no travel, he said, ‘Great, now you can enter the International speech contest.’ My reaction was, ‘Great, now I can enter this freaking contest.’ (Ed laughs) Same words, different reactions.”

“I had several purposes for competing.  Number one, I wanted to get Randall off my back. Number two, Cherry Creek Toastmasters in Denver, Colorado has a core group of people who are into giving back to other speakers and I thought it would be cool if I could be looked upon in that same light.”

“The year I won, my club contest started out as a tie. We had to have a runoff. As opposed to six rounds of the World Championship I actually had seven.  I did something very risky.  The speech I tied with was about bullying. For the runoff, I decided I would test out a different speech that my club members said was really good. That was a speech about telling the truth.  Taking the risk of changing my speech gave me the element of surprise.  The judges were not expecting it and the fresh humor worked better.”

 

Tip #2: Don’t Talk Down To Your Audience, Talk To Your Audience

“Though I purposefully do not watch other contestants deliver their speeches, I’d heard about a gentleman from India who gave this amazing Horatio Alger story. He literally slept on dirt floors and now his daughter goes to Harvard.  I’m thinking to myself, ‘Okay, this guy won.’”

“While we were sitting at the table at the start of the awards ceremony, my 10-year-old son turned to me and said, ‘Dad, I think you won the competition.’ I said to him, ‘Son, well you don’t know how these things work. You don’t know how they’ll think and you especially don’t know how Toastmasters think. Let’s just wait and see.’”

“They announce the third runner-up.  Then, they announce second runner-up who turns out to be the guy from India. At that point my son turns to me again and whispers, ‘Dad, you’re going to win this!’”

“The moment they announced the winner someone coughed at my table and I did not hear the name. My son said something to me which sounded like, ‘You lost,’ and I was trying to explain to him, ‘Maybe next year.’ He looked at me and he said, ‘No, Dad, you won.’”

“When we were on the plane back from Galveston, I looked my son and I asked him, ‘Why were you so certain that I had won?’ He replied, ‘Well, dad, it was easy.  All the other speakers sounded like parents. They were speaking like that guy Tony Robbins.’ He added, ‘They were trying to tell you how to live your life, how to do better.  You were the only person who just came out and told a story, and it was up to us to decide what we wanted to do with it.’”

“At that moment, I knew I had found my voice. That is my strength – telling stories. If you watch all three of the speeches I delivered on my World Championship journey, each is one story from start to finish and each has a lesson. That’s my style. I do not preach.  I share life-lessons, but I leave the choice of taking those lessons up to each listener.”

 

Tip #3: Compete in order to develop your professional speaking skills

“The odds are so tremendous against winning the World Championship- something like one in 35,000. However, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t compete.  Competition makes you a better speaker.”

“In Toastmasters, speakers deliver one speech and then move on to the next assignment with very little feedback. In competition it’s more like professional speaking.  You take a story with a lesson, you hone it and you craft it, over and over to make it better. You get a chance to experience what the art and the creativity of [the professional speaking] business is all about.”

“Even if you choose not to be a professional speaker, I encourage people to compete so they get a feel what it’s like to hone a story. I literally edited the draft of my winning speech hundreds of times.  Testing and re-writing is the only way to craft something that is truly excellent.”

“I am still an active Toastmaster.  I still compete.  I always test out new material, new stories, and new techniques in front of my Toastmasters club.  I never test out new material in front of a paying audience.”

 

Tip #4: Record Every Speech You Deliver

“Now the other thing that our club does is that we record every speech.  Video is the best way for you to improve. You can see what works, you can see what doesn’t work, and you can see some of your idiosyncrasies.  Before the World Championship, I went to 22 different clubs and recorded every single one of my speeches so that I could improve by studying the iterations.”

“Joel Osteen, who is a television minister, does the same thing. I just saw an interview with him and he said that he has done over 500 sermons in the past 13 years.  He said he sits down with his editor and they go through every single sermon and they talk about what went well and what they can improve for next time. You should apply that same process of watching your videos and asking yourself what you did well, what you would change if you could.  That process makes you better.”

 

Tip #5: Be Unique

“Before I went to the World Championship, I actually watched nine years previous contests back to back to back to back. The one thing I discovered about the winners is they had something unique that separated them from the pack.  It wasn’t more the same.”

“I can’t even tell you the number of contests I’ve attended and the number of speeches I have watched. I’ve just stopped counting. The vast majority of speeches I see are more of the same. They’re just like what my son observed.  Too many sound like parents trying to tell you how to live your life.”

“The winning speeches have something that stands out. Lance Miller had ‘Cha-Ching’ and David Brooks had ‘The Silver Bullet.’ My speech required audience participation where I say ‘It was just…’ and the audience finishes with ‘… one of those days.’  At least 98 percent of well meaning, well intentioned Toastmasters were against it.  They were saying that the judges weren’t going to like it and that I would probably run out of time.”

“The last part turned out to be true.  The speech was originally six minutes and ten seconds.  In front of 2,000 people it turned into 7 minutes and 29 seconds because of the laughter and the audience participation.  It was a calculated risk that paid off.”

 

Tip #6: Don’t speak to be liked, speak to change the world

“For my next piece of advice, I give full credit to Mark Sanborn, who is in the Speaking Hall of Fame and author of the best-selling book ‘The Fred Factor: How to Turn The Ordinary Into The Extraordinary.’   He says that our job as speakers is not to be liked.  Our job is to make an impact – to try to change the world.”

“I have a book that someone gave to me several years ago called ‘The Greatest American Speeches.’ In there, you have former President Reagan’s, ‘Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall’ and you’ve got Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ and you have John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech and you’ve got Eleanor Roosevelt… all the speeches that shaped our country.”

“The book is several hundred pages long and there is not one line of humor.  Not one sentence of humor. There’s a belief that if you want to make impact have humor in your speech. There’s some truth to that, there’s a lot of truth to that, but in many of the greatest speeches of all time, that’s not the case.”

“On the flip side, I saw a President Obama’s 18 minute speech yesterday at the site of the recent massacre in Connecticut.  He was able to make it light at one moment by referencing one of the kids who said to a rescuer, ‘Hey, it’s okay. I know karate.’ In that very, very serious moment he was able to provide some relief. “

“I was four years old when Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I have a dream speech.’  The only thing I remember about that speech was that the cartoons didn’t come on the following Saturday. There were only three channels and they kept showing this black man who giving his speech over and over again.”

“Now, think about the times. Segregation was the law of the land in the South. He declared a new future.  It didn’t even exist then. It was an idea. He was describing this new future where people were judged on the content of their character rather than on the color of their skin. I submit to you that that Barack Obama became President because of that speech.  But [Martin Luther King] paid for it with his life.”

“If you really want to be a great speaker, if you really want to make impact, take a stand.  Yes, at times, you are going to be criticized.  But, you are going to be criticized no matter what you do. In the words of Seth Godin, you are either remarkable or invisible.”

 

Tip #7: Make a deep connection with your audience starting before you speak

“I attended a workshop years ago run by Lee Glickstein that exposed me to the idea of transformational speaking.  He pointed out that speakers are the most nervous and the audience is the most skeptical at the beginning of a speech.  That is a bad combination.  Lee said that before you even speak, you’ve got to make a spiritual connection.”

“There’s a lot of debate about when my championship speech actually started. There were around 2,000 people there.  Obviously I couldn’t see them, but I tried to connect with each person.  I acknowledged them with eye contact during a long silence before I spoke.”

“The vast majority of speakers start talking a nanosecond after they are introduced. Not me, I want to connect, I want to have that spiritual, emotional connection with the audience first. I know it sounds like woo-woo, but it’s psychologically important to me.”

 

Try it out!

When you watch any of Ed’s speeches, you will immediately appreciate his masterful use of the pause.  The most noticeable is the opening silence he uses to establish emotional connection that he referred to in this interview.  The next time you speak, take center stage.  Look left for two to three seconds.  Look right for two to three seconds.  Finally, look center for two to three seconds and then start speaking.

I interviewed Jock Elliott on November 20, 2012 and asked him just one question: “What are your best pieces of advice on how to win the Toastmasters’ World Championship of Public Speaking?”

Jock is a master of the written and spoken word, making his living as a speaker, speech writer, author, and speaking coach. His latest book, Speak Easy, is available on Amazon.

 

Tip #1: Push yourself out of your comfort zone

“It is very hard to define what actually wins (the World Championship) because I have seen some very peculiar results over the years.  I come from a much more restrained culture than in North America.  I have always struggled with the difficultly of doing the showmanship that so often seems to work over there.  Instead, I have always pursued oratory.”

“When I speak in the real world as a professional speaker, I cannot do some of the things that seem quite acceptable on the Toastmasters stage. I would just get mocked.  However, that is not to say that I don’t hold Toastmasters in the highest esteem – I have been a member for 37 years and will continue until I drop.  It is fabulous training ground for learning to be comfortable as a speaker.  The problem is that it is easy to become complacent.  People can be equally comfortable as a good speaker or as a bad speaker.”

“It is only when you are forced beyond your comfort zone that you grow as a speaker.  Both competitive speaking and professional speaking put you under the gun.  Among the two, competitive speaking is the better training ground since you are most directly putting yourself under the gun. The Toastmasters environment has the added advantage that constructive evaluation is the norm.”

 

Tip #2: Know what you want to say

“The primary thing is to know what you want to say.  And so often, people do not. Instead, they fall in love with particular lines; I am as guilty as anybody of that.  Often, a particular line or concept is not to the point – it is a diversion.  You have to have the luxury of being able to walk away from your preparation and then come back to the speech cold and say:  ‘Yes, lovely as it is, I will keep this idea for the future because it is good, but it does not live in this speech.’”

“Until you can get down to exactly what you want to say, then your speech will lack focus and you are not going to have a speech of any significance.  The old principle of being able to write down what you want to say on the back of a business card holds true.  You might not achieve that in the early days of (crafting) the speech. Often, you have to work your way through your theme until it is refined. That can be based as much on your own intuition as on the feedback that you get in rehearsal.  Ultimately, until you have that hard, crystal clear message in your own mind, you are never going to get it across to your audience. And of course, then it has got to be a message of value.  To me a speech without substance is just froth.  You must have something that people can take away.”

“You have to know your audience well enough to express what matters to you in words that matter to them.  The better I know my audience, the closer I am to where they live in their heads and in their hearts, then the quicker I can move them to where I want them to be in terms of accepting the point of my speech, if not necessarily agreeing with it.”

“In the Toastmasters International speech contest, your message should have a universal appeal.  Some messages are merely topical; for example, the war in Afghanistan.  Current events and many social issues will not endure 5, 10, 15 years down the road. I wrote a speech 30 years ago about a certain type of Australian beach bum.  Well, he does not exist anymore.  So, that speech only rings a bell to people of my generation who can cast their mind back that far. It does not rob the speech of its value in certain respects, but it no longer has universal appeal.”

“At the end of the day, only one person takes home the trophy.   But if 1 person or 10 or 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 people take home my message, then I have also won.  I am not trying to change peoples’ lives.  What I am trying to do is give them something to think about; what they do with it is entirely up to them.  In fact, in the writing of a speech, sometimes I change the way that I think about life myself and modify my behaviour accordingly.  That is one of the merits of actually writing speeches. It clarifies your thinking; it discharges emotions; it gets rid of the baggage.”

 

Tip #3: Express your true self

“I know a lot of contestants look at the DVDs (of past winning speeches) and say: ‘Right, that is good (from one) and that is good (from another).  I will put them all together like Marilyn Monroe’s smile and Sophia Loren’s eyes and all the rest of it and get the perfect face or in this case, speech, but the end result is that it gets very plain looking.  Watching the DVDs is fine but only if you focus on trends rather than tactics and personal style.”

“If someone wins and they have a component in there which is replicable like a song, a dance, or climbing up a step ladder, then you will see a number of copycats in next year’s contest. Some do it well, and some do it badly, but they are rather missing the point.  Most winning speeches do incorporate a gimmick – verbal or physical – that rings a bell with people.  But it needs to be uniquely yours.”

“I don’t do gimmicks and I don’t do props.  I work on the principle of being able to operate in total darkness without a sound system.  To me, it is the words and the images I create with my words enhanced by body language and vocal variety that should do the job.  I draw the line when body language and vocal variety overshadow substance.  Because it is the substance which people take home.”

“In the end, you have to do what works for you. There is no right or wrong.”

“If you are very tall you play basketball, and if you are very short, you play billiards. You do the thing that you can do most easily.  That goes for your vocal and physical style as well.  My “Just So Lucky” (winning) speech was relatively still and quiet, because that is how I usually am.  I knew that would either count against me or count for me. I knew there have been rumblings about too much show.  I was happy to take the risk because, as always, it’s what I wanted to say.

“There is one right way of doing brain surgery; but almost every other activity has any number of right ways. It is comes down to the person, the event, the audience, even the time of day.  So, for example, I can be at a conference, speaking at a rather informal lunch and there will be a different expectation then,  then at the very formal gala dinner later that same night. Not only will my message change, but also my style of dress and use of language.  Many changes are automatic.  It is just the natural persona we adopt in these circumstances. You talk to your boss in one way, your dog in another, and you mother in another. That is just the “you” that you are showing to each different person. “

 

Tip #4: Touch your audience intellectually and emotionally

For many years, I missed the point.  I was probably too academic.  I was passionate about what I was talking about, but I was obsessed with issues that did not have an emotional resonance.  Ultimately, you have to touch your audience both intellectually and emotionally.

I was in Brunei the other week and a very new Toastmaster said something I thought was so profound.  She said: ‘You are the bridge between your point and your audience.’  And I think that is very, very significant.  I certainly know from years of sales and marketing that if your target customer does not like you, then they will not buy from you.  You need to be at least respected as a speaker. Your audience may have no experience of you before.  So you have to establish likeability and respect and credibility with your audience quite soon.  Otherwise, they are saying: “Alright, he is just talking at us. He has got this thing that he is saying.’  If they are thinking that, then you have failed.”

“I try and put myself in the audience’s shoes.  I try to get as close to where they live in their heads and in their hearts and start from there. My audience in the United States is middle aged, middle class, middle income, and generally a little bit to the right politically, if you can generalise from an audience of 1500+.  I don’t think there is anything you cannot talk about – even sex, politics, and religion but it is entirely comes down to treatment.  There is no point in needlessly offending people.  I I am quite happy to deliberately offend butI go to a lot of trouble to not accidentally offend.  To accidentally offend reflects poor research or carelessness in writing.  At the same time, you cannot please everyone. No matter what you do, there will be 3% of the audience that hates you. And odds are, they are sitting right in the front row, scowling heavily, with their arms crossed (laughs).”

 

Tip #5: Hit the judging criteria quickly, clearly, but subtly

“For many years, whilst I gave very careful consideration of the judging form and addressed all the points, I do not believe I addressed them in the right way. The judges are looking for very particular criteria.  You have to give the judges landmarks they are looking for.  You’ve got to address it in a sufficiently clear way for the judges to say: ‘Right –that bit is done.’ But, you don’t want to be too obvious such as saying:  “That was my introduction, now into the body of my speech.’”

“As a listener, I am more than happy for a point to emerge a long way into the speech as long it is going somewhere.  However, the judges have to hang their judging criteria on a point. They need to see your message fairly early or at least have a useful departure point.”

 

Tip #6: International speakers should acclimatize to the host country

“Some years ago, I used to come over to the United States a week in advance and go around to as many as ten clubs.  It is very expensive and time consuming but it gets your body clock in order.  Though you are sometimes exposed to foolish evaluation, the feedback is usually very good.  Most importantly, it shows you what is working in terms of timing and language use.  This helps you make sure that your message fits your audience.  Generally speaking, it is harder for those outside North America to compete, simply because we are not immersed in the images – cultural and visual – that are second nature to most North Americans.”

 

Tip #7:  Strive for no audience member left behind

“We have far too many ‘deaths’ in the contest.  Some of the stories are so harrowing and so personal as to destroy the relationship between the speaker and audience.  With ‘Just So Lucky’, I very deliberately did have not a lot to say in detail about ‘me’.  Instead, I created a series of images which the audience could put themselves into. “

“For example, when I talk about friends of our family I say:  ‘We had our differences, but we got over those.’  When I was practicing, a woman came up to me and said: ‘You lost me there because I have family differences and never got over them, so I could not be with you from then on.’ What I did was add the words ‘Well, I’m just so lucky because we got over those.’  By saying I was lucky, I acknowledge that not everyone gets over their family issues.  I hope that allowed her or others like her to move on with me to the next bit.  All the way through, my images and language are crafted for people to say. ‘Yeah, I am there, he is talking about me.’

 

Try It Out!

When you listen to Jock’s winning speech ‘Just So Lucky’, you recognize how he meticulously crafted every word.  Most world champions do not discuss this effort much since it has become second nature to them.  When you deliver your next speech, engineer one or two key phrases tied closely to your key message that deliver powerful emotional or intellectual impact to your audience.

I interviewed the 2007 District 36 speech evaluation contest champion, Christine Clapp, on November 30^th, 2012.  Though she is a successful educator, keynote speaker, and speaking coach, she graciously shared her deepest insights.

In her words, here are the secrets to winning the Toastmasters speech evaluation contest.  Christine’s overarching theme is that a speech evaluation must have a clear structure.

 

Tip #1: Craft a positive introduction

“Just like any other speech, a speech evaluation must have an introduction, body, and conclusion.  During the introduction, start off by thanking the speaker and saying something relevant, personal, and positive.  For example, ‘Your speech is such a timely topic.  I completely empathize with you since I too have kids that get sick at the worst times.’”

 

Tip #2: Focus on content and delivery in the body of your evaluation

“As you transition into the body, provide your audience with a preview of how you are going to move through your evaluation.  Most evaluators just go through a list of things chronologically which can feel chaotic.  I always structure my evaluations with two sections in the body – content and then delivery.  When you structure this way, you set yourself apart.”

“Break each of the two sections into three components.  In the content section, start with one thing the speaker did well.  Second, share one thing they did well but could have done better. Finally, close with one thing that they can improve upon.  Then, repeat those three components in the delivery section.”

“You want to troubleshoot for people by not only revealing an improvement area, but also suggesting a specific example of how to address it.  Each one of your three components should be supported by specific examples from the speech.  Here is an example of sharing one thing the speaker did well but could have done better:  ‘You did well on your gestures when you showed us how you hacked the coconut out of the tree.  But it would have been more impactful had your gestures had been more exaggerated like this (demonstrates).’”

 

Tip #3: Conclude with a call-back, a call-to-action, and a summation

“When you transition into your conclusion, call back to the positive detail you used during the introduction.  Then, encourage the speaker to apply a relevant call-to-action related to the Toastmasters communication or leadership track.  For example, ’I hope that you consider using this for a humorous speech contents in the future.’  Or, ‘Your story was very well told; you should consider pursuing the Storytelling advanced manual.’  If they delivered a leadership centric speech, you could say: ‘I hope you consider expanding this speech and delivering it as an educational workshop at your regional conference next spring.’”

 

“Many contestants do not look at the judging ballot which gives 15 out of 100 points for a concise, encouraging summation.  About 1 in 100 evaluation contestants will actually provide a summary of their key points.  For example, ‘And just to review, great job on this and this, and it would be really great if you could focus on this, this, and this in the future.’  Literally doing that one thing alone will help you clear the path to the District if not win your District contest.”

 

Tip #4: Know where the speaker is sitting

“In a previous District speech evaluation contest that I did not win, I left the room before I saw where the speaker sat down.  That was a big mistake because when I was ushered back into the room and up onto the stage, I was looking in the crowd of 150 people trying to find the speaker.  I did not know where she sat down. “

“When I give an evaluation, I like to look at the person when I start and when I am sharing complements.  Then, when I give suggestions for how the speech could be even more effective, I broaden my eye contact to the entire audience.  In the contest that I lost, I never made eye contact with the speaker.  I felt uncomfortable and my speech seemed weird and disconnected.”

“The year I won, I waited in the room until the speaker sat down.  All the other contestants rushed out. I stood at the door waiting to see where the she sat down. Then, when I came in, I looked at the speaker and thanked her with direct eye contact.”

 

Tip #5: Mind the time

“Many, many of your competitors will be disqualified by going over 3:30. As with all Toastmasters contests, you need to be very aware of time.”

 

Try It Out!

Unlike the International speech contest, the Toastmasters speech evaluation contest requires little or no advance preparation.  Next time your club holds an evaluation contest, give it a try following Christine’s winning advice.  Open on a positive note with a relevant personal detail.  Discuss content and delivery separately in the body of the speech providing specific examples and advice.  And finally, conclude with a call-back, a call-to-action, and a summation.

I interviewed Lance Miller on November 19, 2012 and asked him just one question: “What are your three best pieces of advice on how to win the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking?”

Lance speaks and delivers seminars on leadership and communications.  He is also sought-after as a speaking coach.  You can reach him at http://www.lancemillerspeaks.com.

As you will discover in his words below, Lance’s core principle is sincerity in your message and in your delivery.

 

Tip #1: It is not in the winning, it is in the learning

“I competed and lost for 13 years before winning the World Championship.   One of the big lessons that changed my life came in 2002 when I realized that it would be hard for me to learn from my mistakes if I was unwilling to admit that I was making any.  The audience was telling me that I was not speaking at the level of a World Champion.  Early on, I wanted the audience to say, ‘Oh, you are so brilliant (laughs).’  That type of thinking was proof that I did not yet have the right mindset. “

“I learned more from the speech contests that I lost than I ever learned from speech contests that I won. I would never go back and win a contest and lose the lesson. The audience would not allow me to go forward until I corrected specific aspects of my attitude and my speaking.”

 

Tip #2: It is not about you, it is about the audience

“I have already had three people in the last month contact me and tell me that they are the 2013 World Champion of Public Speaking.  From my experience, if you go into the contest with that attitude, then you are missing the biggest component of the contest. You are missing the fact that the contest is about the audience, not about you.  How does your speech improve the way your audience thinks and lives three hours, three days, three weeks, three months, or even three years after your speech?“

“Humility and sincerity are what make great speakers and great speeches.  Your speeches should not be sensational.  Humility means you are talking eye to eye with your audience. I see people go into this authoritative posture, talking down to their audience.  It comes from watching too many stereotypes of preachers and football coaches. Their style becomes: ‘I command you to think this way (laughs).’  It is better to appreciate that your audience is made up of brilliant people – probably smarter than you are.”

“I see people time and time again focus on traumatic events.  Never mention the word ‘cancer’ in a speech. Playing the ‘death card’ is many times an attempt to try to use sensationalism to make up for other deficiencies in the speaker’s skill set.  Instead, turn your attention to the audience with a message that you sincerely believe will make a difference.  Even if you do not win the contest, you still win because you are actually making a difference in people’s lives.  The speech that most deeply touches the hearts and changes the mind of the audience is the one that wins.”

 

Tip #3: Be yourself

“Just being you is the hardest thing in public speaking.  When we stand in front of a group of people, the strangest things start happening to us.  You lose your thoughts, your body starts doing stuff all by itself.  I want to meet the exact same person on stage that I met offstage albeit with more energy.”

“For me, the contest was a journey of self-discovery and self-worth.  You need to look at your life and define who you are. We go through life and get defined by our family and friends. We end up trying to be who they want us to be instead of who we want to be.  When you can figure out who you are, then you have something of value to give the world through your words.“

“At one point when I was trying to find messages (to use as speech topics), I was so frustrated because nothing really bad had ever happened to me.  Have you ever felt that way?  I started looking at my life. I came from a good family; I had a good education; I had good jobs.  Oh, man, where is the inspiration in that? This is horrible (laughs).  But, I went back and instead asked ‘What have I learned? What has made a difference in my life that I would want to share with the audience?’”

Part of being yourself is talking to the audience instead of acting on stage.  Great oratory is not having conversations with characters that are not there, screaming and yelling, or getting overly emotional. It is not about ladders or chairs or orange cones.  Just talk to your audience.  You should be able to make your point with your speech even if your audience cannot see you.  Paint images in people’s minds with your words.  Share your story with your audience instead of telling them what they should think.

“When I bring characters to life in my speeches, I do not dramatize them.  I tell the audience what they said and what they did in my own voice.”

 

Try it out!

Lance’s winning speech, entitled “The Ultimate Question”, focused on the importance taking the time to validating yourself and others.  I leave you with his words on how he found that message:

“Early on in my Toastmasters experience, I asked what the International contest was.  Somebody told me that it is your five to seven minutes to say something important to the world. So, I asked myself, ‘If I could make one change in the world, what would it be?’  It struck me that if we just validated each other, by looking for what is right rather than for what is wrong, then the world would be a much better place.”

I interviewed Darren LaCroix on November 14, 2012 and asked him just one question: “What are your three best pieces of advice on how to win the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking?”

Though Darren is best known for his humor, the aspect I enjoyed most in our conversation was his view that we stand on the shoulders of giants.  As you will discover in his words below, he views every other speaker as a coach and mentor.

You can connect with Darren at darrenlacroix.com.

 

Tip #1: Focus on the process of becoming a great speaker, not the outcome

“Every time I speak at a conference, somebody asks me: ‘How can I win the World Championship of Public Speaking?’ The first thing I tell them is that simply winning the contest is a bad goal.  Your goal should be to become such a great speaker that you can win.  If you just create a championship winning speech, what are you going to do with it afterwards?  Focus on the process of becoming a better speaker.  If I could do anything, it would be to get the lust (for winning the championship for its own sake) out of people’s minds.”

“There are many world champions who have won whose lives have not changed in a meaningful way. And there are plenty of people who have not won and gone on to have amazing careers.  So, winning the contest is not the be-all end-all.”

“In fact, I do not know of too many people who won that actually set out with the goal to win.  Consider 2008 World Champion LaShunda Rundles – her goal was to get her message out there and this was just a platform to do it.” (LaShunda’s message was that our words are the seeds of our immortality.  Sadly, Ms. Rundles passed away on August 21, 2012 after a long battle with lupus.  You can follow her journey in the documentary SPEAK.)

“Rather than looking to win, I joined the contest in order to work on the stories that I was already telling in my keynote speech.  Those days, I was spending all my time either doing my day job, marketing myself, or speaking. I never had time to work on the craft of speaking.  Win, lose, or draw in the contest, I would win by putting those stories back into my keynote.  As Craig Valentine says, ‘If you want a masterpiece, then you have to master the pieces.’”

 

Tip #2: Build a team but trust your gut

“Having a coach is important. You don’t have a clue if you don’t have a coach.”

“You have to be careful who you listen to. There are two kinds of feedback.  The first is ‘here is what I thought and felt’.  Everyone is qualified to give you ‘thought and felt’ feedback though you do need to look for commonalities and not be swayed by a lone opinion.  Second, there is ‘here is what you can do to improve your speech’ feedback.  Not everyone is qualified to tell you what you can do to make your speech better. “

“When I fell on my face at the 22 practice clubs everyone said ‘Get up sooner, I was uncomfortable.’  My coach Mark Brown said ‘Stay down longer, they are uncomfortable. Darren, our job as speakers is not to make people feel comfortable, it is to incite change.’  I too was incredibly uncomfortable while I was lying down. If you watch the video of my speech, you will see my foot shake – that was not intentional. I overrode my discomfort by having Mark’s voice in my head saying ‘One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three… O.K. Darren, now you can get up.’”

“It is also important is not be coached out of who you are.  David McIlhenny was my phenomenal head coach up through the Regional contest.  There is a joke in my speech about my experience with a restaurant franchise where ‘I took a $60,000 debt and I doubled it. I turned a Subway sandwich shop into a non-profit.’  David thought I should take that line out. I said, nope, that stays. That was the one piece of my speech that I had done before; it came from my early days of stand-up but was a perfect fit into big picture of the speech.  I knew in my gut and from experience that it would work and I knew I had to do it. It is still going to be your speech.  Though you may be uncomfortable, you have to stay true to your own ideals.  When I won the regional contest, David chose to take a back seat and urged me to take Mark Brown as my new head coach.  Mark had been to the big dance and David was wise enough to recognize that.”

 

Tip #3:  Find a deep message to use as your starting point

“When I got to the finals, I had already used up my two best stories.  I thought I had to start from scratch.  It was then that my head coach Mark Brown said:  ‘Darren, don’t write a speech.  Instead, pick the most important child in your life.  If you were going to die tomorrow, what one lesson would you want to pass on to him?’ That stopped me in my tracks. I thought of my nephew.  It forced me to dig deeper.”

“Many people start out trying to write a winning speech. They are not going deeper inside themselves to find what lesson will resonate. I think a lot of people start with the wrong starting point. If you start from the wrong place, you can work really hard, harder than anybody else, and never ever make it. “

“I can work hard on perfecting a story, but if that story does not reinforce a core message then who cares.  There is a great story ooooh, it is entertaining, it is memorable but to what end?  You might win your Area contest, you might win your Division contest, but you are never going to win the whole thing unless you are your message. There is no perfect topic.  The only topics that will work are topics that you care about.”

“It is possible to start with a story.  But if you do, then you have to look very carefully at the message. It is better to begin from the other direction – to start with the message.”

“The gist of the contest is that it is supposed to be motivational or inspirational… a life lesson.  These are simply universal messages that we need to be reminded of.  My message was nothing new. But I put my own twist on it.  So, sometimes, we are in the business of being professional reminders.  Glenna Salsbury, a past National Speakers Association President, says: ‘You should be talking about your ah-ha moments.  Transfer your ah-ha to the audiences ah-ha. ‘  The point is not that you are simply telling a story.  The point is that that stories are there to drive home a powerful lesson.  Bill Gove, the founder of N.S.A. said that all speaking is: Tell a story, make a point; tell a story, make a point; tell another story, make another point.  I do not think there is any number that is the perfect number (of story/point pairs). I did not have 3 stories.  Ed Tate’s whole speech was one story, that’s it.”

 

Bonus Tip: Have a no-regrets mindset

“Two quotes resonated in my head throughout the whole process.  David Brooks 1990 World Champion said “Let no one out prepare you” and Otis Williams Jr 1993 World Champion said “Be so good, the only question is who comes in second”.  I did not want to regret that I did not prepare enough or that I did not follow through with an idea. For example, I had this idea about running.  I thought that if I am going to be under the most intense pressure of my life, then I should be in good physical shape.  So, I started running four miles a day. “

The night before the final contest, I saw a sign for a massage in the hotel. I was barely making a living at that point.  My cheap side said, ‘$70 for a massage, are you kidding?’ But my no-regrets voice kicked in and asked ‘What would a champion do?’  A champion would be under a lot of pressure – so get the filppin’ massage. That is an investment in winning.  I could not afford to be too cheap to do it.  I did not want to have any regrets.”

 

Try it out!

Darren’s tips very closely mirror those of every one of the Toastmasters World Championship speakers that I have interviewed.  Approach the contest as a learning journey.  Start with a compelling message that will change your audiences’ lives.  And, seek out great coaches but treat their feedback as advice, not law.

I interviewed Stuart Pink on November 14, 2012 and asked him just one question: “What are your three best pieces of advice on how to win the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking?”

Stuart’s experience differed from many champions and finalists as family priorities limited his ability to practice prior to the World Championship.  Perhaps his speech was so authentic and fun because it was only the seventh time he had delivered it.  He viewed the contest as an opportunity for personal growth and camaraderie.

In his own words, here are the insights he captured along his journey.

 

Tip #1: Don’t Try To Win, Just Strive To Connect With Your Audience

“Though it may sound paradoxical, my first piece of advice is don’t try to win.  Making a connection with the audience is what matters.  If you are all about trying to win, then I don’t think it is going to happen.”

“I found the contest to be such a valuable experience that I am looking forward to entering again next year.  To me, it was not a competitive experience. There was a real camaraderie between the contestants.  I learned so much about myself and how to connect with an audience that I would like have another go at it. Obviously, I want to do as well as I can, but in my mind, it is not actually about trying to win.”

 

Tip #2:  Stand Out

“I wanted to be original; to stand out in some way. On the one hand, it is good that there are all these former World Champions who provide great advice.  There are lots of places you can go to find out how to improve your speaking. However, one of the problems is that if you are not careful, your speech can start to look everybody else’s.”

“There were a few ways I found to stand out. One of them was that my stories focused very much on children. If you look at the other speakers, they focused on their life stories; and often, on great tragedies that happened in their lives.  There were quite a few stories about cancer and divorce. On their own, those stories can be quite compelling.  The problem is that when you hear them back to back, they become less compelling.

“In addition to standing out with story choice, I tried to stand out thematically.  I tried to think of things that I had not heard before. I invented the word and concept “Brainlifting” which I thought would capture people’s attention. For my final speech, I understood that you hear the question ‘What if…’ all the time, but I had never heard anyone refer to it as the two most important words in the English language.  I thought that might be thought provoking.”

“Last, I tried to stand out with physicality that tied meaningfully to my metaphor linking physical exercise to mental exercise – Brainlifting.  I ran around the stage and did jumping jacks. I was aware it was going to be a very big stage and you want to try to use all of it. Though I think it worked, I do sometimes wonder how authentic it was. Non-Toastmasters look at these contests and say ‘These people are ridiculous – running around, falling down, and doing things no normal speaker would do.’”

“If you do something unusual, it needs to tie very closely to your core theme.  Perhaps the jumping jacks did not tie closely enough to my core theme of creativity.  Darren LaCroix did it best when he fell over, got up, and pointed out that even when you fall down, you have still taken a step in the right direction. That was brilliant!”

 

#3 Add Humor Incrementally

“Humor is essential in any speech.  Most of the funny things in my speeches were things that my children said.  After I won the Division contest, I was talking to my 5-yerar-old son who had been going through a phase all children experience trying to grasp the concept of death.  Out of nowhere, he said ‘Daddy… don’t worry… when you die you go to Jupiter where there is all the chocolate you can eat!’  At that moment, I knew I needed to put that into my speech.

Humor is very incremental.  Let me give you another example.  I did a speech in my club where I talk about why most work environments are not conducive to creativity.  Even the business casual clothes you wear are a uniform.  Though people told me that I should always wear a suit in a speech contest, it seemed hypocritical to wear a suit with that topic. After the speech, someone walked up to me and suggested, ‘Why don’t you get to that point in your speech and cast off your jacket and tie.’  I thought that would be great.  A little later on, it struck me that I could add the line “Fellow Toastmasters, I could go on” just after the tie came off.  Then there is this double meaning that I would strip down to wearing nothing as I made the final points in my speech. I got the biggest laugh every time I delivered it.”

“There are different types of humor, and I am always on the lookout for something that might be funny.  If I find something funny, then that is a good start – something that I can then build on.”

 

Bonus Tip:  Link speech content to stage location

The semifinal and final were the first time that I ever really thought about my movement on stage in detail and doing different stories in different places.  Darren LaCroix and Ed Tate gave me this great tip the day before. Write one word associated with each part of your speech on a separate piece of paper. Place them around the floor of your hotel room.  Then, practice walking to the bits of paper and give the speech in the right order. Also, practice giving your speech starting at any point.  Normally, when I practice I begin at the beginning. So the beginning gets practiced much more than the middle and the end. I got to the point where I could step on any piece of paper and deliver my speech from that point.

 

Try It Out!

I leave you with the final words of encouragement that Stuart shared with me:

“I only joined Toastmasters last year.  Literally, from the club contest on up, each level was new and eye opening to me. It is a gift to be able to communicate with people and I still am finding out about it. I am fascinated by it really.  For me, it is such a learning experience.  If I complete again, I may not even make it past the club contest since we have such great speakers in Providence Toastmasters Club.  Still, it is just a fantastic process to be a part of and I encourage everyone to try.”