Heading for California

I’m heading for California, in a day or two, to compete in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. The two speeches I’ve prepared are the best I have ever written (and rewritten and rewritten). Toastmasters District 76 (Japan) recently asked me to write a few words for their website about the matter, so this seems a perfect time to share those thoughts with you.

The process of writing a speech that accomplishes your goals is the same whether you are writing for a Toastmasters speech contest, a business presentation or any other situation.  Beneath all of the entertainment and drama of humor, voice and stage presence, you need to clearly communicate something of value to your audience.

Clear speaking comes from clear writing and clear writing comes from clear thinking, so the first and most important thing you need to do is sit down and THINK about what you want your audience to hear, understand and remember.

Think of lessons you have learned in your life, successes or failures that have taught you something important, surprising or contrary ideas that you believe or events that have changed your perspective on the world. You don’t necessarily need to tell your audience what to do. That’s one approach, but I think it is often more powerful, if they draw their own conclusions about what your words mean to them.

Once you’ve found a simple, clear message that you think will benefit your audience, connect it to a story or stories that demonstrate that message in concrete, specific ways. Tie that universal message to real experiences that demonstrates the truth of what you are saying. Take your audience along on the journey of what life has taught you.

Those two elements, message and story, are the backbone, the core, of your speech. You must remember that. It’s so easy to wander off course into other somewhat related stories, or interesting side thoughts. You have to constantly cut and refocus.

Writers call this “killing your babies”, because it seems that your most interesting, funny and beautiful lines are always the ones you have to cut. It’s painful to do, but it’s vital to writing a tightly focused speech. If it’s not driving your message, cut it out.

So you write, cut, refocus and write again, expanding on your core message. Do it again and again, until you have a tight, lean script that leads your audience towards the idea you want them to remember.

Then you practice and practice until your speech becomes so much a part of you that it comes spilling out as naturally and smoothly as if you were telling the story to your best friend; until you don’t even have to think about what comes next. All you have to do, when you walk out on to the stage, is look into their eyes, smile and use your voice, your face and your gestures to tell them the story.

Then you can sit down and start thinking about where you are going to display your trophy.