This was my #4 speech from the Toastmaster‘s Competent Communicator manual. I had given #5 in the recent Humorous Speech Contest so taking a little detour in the ordering!
This speech had the goal of ‘How to Say It‘ so I decided to tell the story of the day I finally got my black belt in judo.
This was not what I consider a good performance by me. For a start, this was my second attempt on the evening (hence the slightly strange beginning). A combination of poor preparation and personal life stress did not mix well: I gave up after 30 seconds due to going blank and gave myself a good mental kicking during the next speech in order to try again afterwards. I am very thankful to the support of Farnham Speakers on that! Anyway, this ultimately meant I could not relax fully into the speech which I feel is obvious on the video at times.
That said, there are positives! I left longer pauses for the obvious laughs that I wanted which worked well. I received a good evaluation on the use of language which of course was the goal of this speech anyway. Finally, this won Best Prepared Speech on the night.
Ultimately, the lack of preparation is letting me down. That’s completely my fault and I raised this last time! Knowing a speech backwards is what nails it as then you can work on enjoying it and making it outstanding.
Next time…