I’m back from the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking and, once again, it was a maddening, exhilarating, enlightening and amazing experience. I didn’t get the result I’d hoped from the contest, but I gave the speech that was in me to give.
It was a tough speech for me – about the last conversation I ever had with my father. There have been times in this long process when I’ve barely kept my composure long enough to get through my seven minutes.
That, in itself, has been part of my evolution as a speaker. After years of giving clever speeches, I’m digging deeper. I’m exploring who I am and what has made me this way.
It has been an uncomfortably emotional journey at times, but it’s a journey worth taking; for me, and, I hope, for my audience. There is a beauty and a power in simple emotional truth that can move an audience to laughter or to tears and leave a mark that cleverness never will. In fact, had I been in the World Championship of Emotional Exposure, I might very well have brought home the big trophy, but I wasn’t.
I was in the World Championship of Public Speaking. The speaker who won the championship, Ryan Avery of Portland, reminded me of that as he brought together all of the elements of a great speech; emotion, honesty, skill, joy and audience rapport in a truly magical and moving experience.
He reminded me that there is still so much for me to learn; skills to develop, ideas to plumb, personal journeys to take, but for this year, it is over.
It’s time to shift gears and focus on other aspects of life and career that I have been neglecting, ………….. although I have this one idea for a speech next year.
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