About a month ago, a Toastmaster I'd competed against reached out to me and asked if I'd like to deliver a 20-30 minute keynote speech. For me, this was a no-brainer. Yes, yes I would like to! Only one problem. I didn't have a speech that long. I said yes, then immediately got to work building the content for my speech. Then, I got busy. About a week and a half before the … [Read more...]
I got second place—this is what I learned
As a competitive person, second place is pain. If I'm second, I might as well be last. That's why taking second place at the Division level of the International Speech Contest in Toastmasters knocked something out of me. My goal had been Semifinals: and I was stopped two steps short of it. Worse, it was a public failure. I have five videos on this site titled Road to … [Read more...]
Analysis of 2018 Toastmasters World Champion of Public Speaking: Ramona J. Smith
In this video, I take an in-depth look at Ramona's winning speech in the World Championship of Public Speaking held by Toastmasters in 2018. I give over 20 praises and critiques, showing you how you can achieve the same amount of success by following the principles that she does. If you're interested in this topic, it's worth checking out my post on the top lessons … [Read more...]
Road to Semifinals — Episode 5 (Getting back into an old speech)
Fifth video of the series where I document my attempt to make it to the Semifinals of the World Championship of Public Speaking. Summary I'm back after a long break after getting married! In this video, I talk about the 5-step plan for how to recover your passion for an old speech: To summarize the plan, you need to break it down into small pieces, then get … [Read more...]
Road to Semifinals — Episode 4 (Topic selection and outlining)
Fourth video of the series where I document my attempt to make it to the Semifinals of the World Championship of Public Speaking. Summary I finished selecting two topics: Being unique Be more adventurous Both are cliche topics, but high level speeches in Toastmasters commonly are. It's not really about whether the audience has never heard your point before. … [Read more...]