Moral of the story

I delivered my third Advanced Project in the Story Telling manual and crashed and burned to some degree! :-P

The title of my speech was "Big Peter, Little Peter" and it was based on a Norway folktale. I was initially attracted to this story because it was rather macarbe. It was a story of 2 brothers Big Peter and Little Peter and how the younger brother was able to use his cunning and wit to outsmart and in fact kill his older brother. On hindsight, a better story could have been found.

My evaluator L gave me a very fair and educational evaluation. Essentially here were the areas for improvement:

• Inappropriate story selection: Less is more! - I had too many details - I overran the time 4-6mins by 100% ending up at 12mins!
• Incongruence of facial expression and tone - It was a macarbe story but I had a smile on my face the entire time....Hmm.. maybe I have the makings of a serial killer (just kidding!)
• To select a shorter story with simpler moral and to embellish it to make it fit the timing would have been a better strategy
• Flow of the story was jerky and abrupt and hard for the audience to follow as there were too many details that did not help to advance the plot

She was kind enough to also feedback that she felt I had the confidence and ability to carry the story through and should capitalise on that to pause often and let the audience follow my pace instead of trying to deliver too many details to the audience.

For my own benefit, I will try to schedule a time to redo this project as I feel that it is an important one given the short duration of 4 to 6 minutes. This is critical to my development as a kidsREAD volunteer if I want to be serious about delivering my speech.

V the President of the Club has done the story telling manual too and he started the meeting by telling us about the story of the donkey who was being buried alive by the farmer when it fell into a pit. But instead of being buried alive as dirt was poured into the pit and onto its head, the donkey shook it off and took one step up and was finally able to escape from the pit.

We are put in the position of the donkey at times, life pours dirt on our heads but we need to shake it off in order to take a step forward.

Onwards with my story telling manual journey!

First Fear

Public speaking comes easy to some but not so for others.

I realised that I had some ability in public speaking only after making mistakes such as having up to 40+ pause fillers in my speech and also forgetting bits of my speech even as it was being coughed out in front of a live audience. My ability came after doing 10+5+5 speeches along with at least 30-40 table-topics over an interrupted span of 5 years in toastmastering.

Some evaluators have been gentle with me. Some have been harsh but fair, others have been harsh and unfair [but these were the minority].

What I learnt from my toastmastering experience was the fear of speaking is very real. There is something about fearing ridicule, laughter or embarrassment that triggers the flight or fight instinct in us. That is why I try my best to smile at first time public speakers doing their first few speeches from the Basic Leadership and Communication Manual because it can be so hard for them to overcome their inate fear of embarrassment or "malu-ing" [embarassing in malay] themselves in front of an audience. By smiling, I show support and I also empathise with how difficult it is when one gets a negative reaction from a frowing listener.

Looking back at my toastmastering, I realise that the benefits come now as I am more confident in dealing with interviews and speaking situations at the workplace compared to what I was 5 years ago.

If you are a new toastmaster and continue to struggle with the fear. Brother or sister in public speaking, I share your fear. The fear IS REAL. The fear CAN be PALPABLE. But the good news is that the fear can be overcome with practice, practice and practice as well as mentorship and genuine coaching. I saw the benefits of my toastmastering experience and my ability in speaking off-the-cuff after training my mind to be able to handle table-topics. This ability is one of the greatest tangible benefits I have received from my investments in my time with toastmasters.

If you are discouraged over your toastmasters performance, my suggestion is to HANG IN THERE. It will get better but in the short-term it may get worse before it gets better. In each of us, there will be this "ah-ha" or eureka moment where it finally clicks for you how all the components of a excellent speech come into play. The combination of content, genuine conviction in what you have to say and being able to use voice, gestures, tone, pace and all the toastmasters skills to deliver an effective speech will materalise.

And when it does, you will be so glad that you stuck with it and managed to reap the rewards for doing so.

Public speaking can be hard for some. But it can be so rewarding when you are able to do it.

What I Learned in Toastmasters

If you want to be an effective public speaker, you must also learn to be an effective public listener!

What is a public listener?

Officially, this term "public listener" doesn't exist. It's something I coined to be the opposite of public speaker. Too often in your quest towards public speaking, you forget that part of effective communication is to listen using your ears and you eyes for feedback from your audience.

In a one-to-one conversation, it is relatively easy to maintain eye contact with audience of one. You can see her body language, facial expression and listen to her tone, pitch and volume.

However when you are a public speaker delivering a speech, you are having a one-to-many dialogue where one party speaks i.e. YOU, while the other party i.e. THE AUDIENCE, listens. The trick of powerful speech making is to make the speech a dialogue where you are not TALKING to but are INTERACTING with your audience.

How can you do this?

Firstly, make eye contact with selected members of the audience from different parts of the room to establish rapport and don't forget to smile. Look out for their facial expressions to see if they are happy, interested or bored with your speech.

Establish a connection with the audience by using YOU and US to be inclusive. Rapport with your audience can also be established if you understand the composition of your audience. Are they linked by geographical location, i.e. Singaporeans or Singapore residents. Are they affiliated through the toastmasters movement? Are they young, old or middle-aged? Are they members of the same company, club or charity?

React to the audience! If they laugh, pause to let the laughter permeate and then subside. If they are looking look puzzled or confused, you may want to slow down and articulate your next point carefully and take your time to speaker clearly. If they are frowning, then you may have to make some changes or lose your audience.

Listening to the mood of the audience

Your audience is a group of individuals who have different motivations, moods and mannerisms. However, when they are in the room to listen to you speak, there must be a purpose that draws them together with you in that room, hall or auditorium. Find out how they are feeling by mingling with some of the audience and picking up on the vibes by speaking with a few persons there. You'd be surprised how you can release some of the tension within yourself as you've made one or two acquaintances or even friends before you address the audience.

To really improve in your public speaking, follow-up by speaking with one or two members of the audience to get some feedback on your speech. They make give you the audience's perspective on how your speech went.

Speak well, listen well and live well.