An article I wrote for my Toastmaster club's newsletter in March 2014. My journey from nervous wreck to content speaker. :)
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When I first joined
Toastmasters, giving a speech itself seemed an insurmountable task. So when I
gave my project 6 after almost a year of joining the club, I felt as if I’d
completed a milestone. However, my sigh of relief was short lived. That very evening,
the then Club President Yashoda Satya suggested I take part in the
International Speech Contest at the club level which was the following week. I gave
her a look that very clearly suggested I thought she was insane! “I take weeks
to write a normal project speech, and you want me to come up with a contest
speech in less than a week!? You’ve got to be kidding me!” Yet she persisted,
and I tentatively agreed, though what would I write, I had no clue.
Just 5 days before the contest, I was still wondering what could I
speak about. I had an idea, but writing a speech in a short duration was not my
forte. After nearly 2 days of racking my brains, I came up with a speech I felt
was contest-worthy. Now came the tough part. My mentor too was contesting, so it
felt wrong on my part to call him to review it and trouble him. However, I
definitely wanted to get the speech reviewed. The only person I could ask was
the champion speaker himself. Having not spoken much to Deepak Justin (DJ) at that point, and
being terribly in awe of, I was hesitant to contact him. Timidly, I dropped him
a mail asking if he could review my speech. A few minutes later, my phone rings
and DJ on the other line suggests we meet. I was surprised since I did not
expect the champion to take that much interest in a mere fledgling like me. As
we met the next day, DJ went over my speech and literally helped me overhaul
it, bringing to light minor details that I had not even thought of! He
suggested I touch the audience emotionally by enacting the character I was
talking about instead of merely describing him. Sceptical as I was of such a
drastic change, more so of the dramatics I would need to do, I decided the
least I could do was give it a try. On Friday, I felt the need to rehearse my
speech in front of him, yet did not want to burden him with my apprehensions. Torn
between my desire to value his time and my need to rehearse my speech, I
finally decided to give him a call. He immediately suggested we meet the
following day to practice my speech. “Wow!” I thought, “Here is someone who
makes time for others”. Awed by his presence, I found it difficult to rehearse,
yet he calmed me and instilled in me the confidence that I would deliver a
great speech.
The day of the club contest, I was fraught with nerves. Being pitted
against champion speakers Prasanna Kumar and Mala Mary Martina does that to you! I just wanted to
deliver the speech and be done with it – I was that petrified! I didn’t care
about the contest, I was more concerned about not messing up my speech, I just
wanted to deliver it the way I imagined it. I distinctly remember telling
Prasanna and Mala, the only other contestants, that I wanted to go in first
because if I saw them deliver their speeches, I’d be too nervous to deliver
mine. As the contestant order was being drawn, I prayed hard that I got the
number 1 (yes, I was that scared of giving the speech). And to my good fortune,
1 it was! The relaxation on my face had all of them grinning, as they too tried
to calm me down.
As the contest master called out my name, and I walked up to the
lectern, my hands were trembling, my feet were quivering, and my fingers were
ice cold. I delivered my speech and returned to my seat, still trembling, but
visibly relieved. I barely heard the audience clapping and a few people congratulating
me on a supposedly wonderful speech. Across the table, Mala looked at me, and
simply said “AWESOME!”. I could see many others giving me a thumbs-up sign. To
me, it did not matter what the outcome was, I was just glad I delivered the
speech and it was now behind me. So imagine my surprise when the results were
announced and I got to know I had made it to the Area level!
My confidence boosted a teeny bit, and now I wanted to do well at
the Area level. From just wanting to “get it over with”, my aspiration now
became “Give it a proper shot at winning”. I had asked Sunil S. to record my
speech and when he sent it to me, I was eager to watch my “award winning
speech”. This was the first time I was watching a recorded version of any
speech of mine, so I hoped it would be good. I opened the video, and by the end
of 7 minutes, I was horrified. Except for the first minute of the speech where
I was impersonating a mentally challenged child, I was as still as a statue,
just narrating the rest of the speech! I knew I had a lot of work to be done if
I even wanted to win the third place at the area contest. I sent the video of
my speech to a few others and received feedback on areas of improvement. I
worked on improving my delivery, the body language, making the speech more
interesting. Now that I’d cleared one level, I wanted to clear the next level
too.
The day of the Area contest too, I hoped to win, though I wasn’t
cocksure about it. I was competing with experience speakers from other clubs,
which made me wonder if I would make it to the next level. As I delivered my
speech, I hoped that I would make it to the division level.
“And the winner of the International Speech contest, for Area L1
is…… Pearl Fernandes” – probably the best words I’d heard. They made my day –
who am I kidding! They made my week! :D
2 weeks to the Division contest, and I had picked the brain of every
Toastmaster in the club I could to receive feedback. I watched the video of the
area contest, and observed the areas of improvement again. This time, I thought
I’d take the help of a good friend, who was at that time a non-Toastmaster, so
that I would get a neutral view. And so I called on Kynan D'souza, who helped me
practice for the division contest.
I delivered the speech at the division contest, and though I did not
win, I was elated that the speech was very well received. I delivered it the
way I wanted to and had given it my best shot. That I did not win did not
bother me as I knew the speech had touched people’s hearts. And I guess I was
not ready to move to the District level yet :P
As I look back on that time, I’ve learnt that
1. People are always willing to
lend you a helping hand, you just need to ask.
2.
You’re never too new to
Toastmasters to participate in anything. You need to atleast give it a try
before you say you’re not good at it. Who knows, you might be a lot better at
it than you think!
3.
The best critic of your speech
is you. So preferably record your speech (and watch it as well later! :P).
4.
As a Toastmaster, we’re always
encouraging. But if you want to contest, you have to learn to critique and work
things out to the tiniest detail.
5.
It does not matter how senior
or junior a person is, there is always an insight they can provide you.
6.
You needn’t incorporate every
idea into one speech. You need to choose what goes in, and what stays out.
Keeping it simple is quite a complex job!
7.
Practice, practice, practice! Famous
film producer Samuel Goldwyn said “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” I
find that to be true.
8.
Make sure you record your
practice sessions – this was something I failed to do, and something I think
would definitely help anyone planning to contest.
9.
Believe in yourself and your
message –you can’t convince someone else to believe if you don’t.
