By Ian Millen of London Corinthians
As we draw this year to a close, I thought I would appeal to all London Toastmasters to tap into your true potential, to find out what inspires you and to ask you to follow your dreams. The source of my own inspiration is my desire to see you, my fellow Toastmasters, grow, become all that you want to be and be a source of inspiration for others.
London Toastmasters come from all walks of life and are a truly international bunch, representative of so many nations and cultures. Within the many clubs in London, we have some of the finest speakers in Toastmasters International, many of whom have experienced success at all levels including on the international competitive stage. In my own club, like so many others, our committee share a vision of seeing our members take their speaking skills as far as they want; to be the best that they can be and to share their skills with others. With that vision in mind, I was recently inspired by reading the first chapter of a book that has sat on my bookshelf for many years and felt moved to share some thoughts with you.
We all come to Toastmasters for different reasons - to be entertained, to socialise with friends in a warm and friendly environment, to be educated, to be inspired, to develop our own skills and to grow as a speaker and leader. Whatever your particular reason for coming to Toastmasters, what’s important is that you enjoy your own Toastmasters experience - whether your personal attraction is growth and development or just the beer at our host pub! Some of you want to develop your speaking skills purely for the purpose of personal growth, some of you to improve your professional prospects. Others may wish to find the speaking or leadership skills to assist in some other mission or venture, that will benefit from your well-delivered inspirational, educational or entertaining message. Over the years, I’ve met more than a few people who were inspired to come to Toastmasters to assist them in an upcoming speaking occasion (like a Best Man’s wedding speech or a need to speak at a work function). Some of you may even wish to hone your skills with a desire to become a professional speaker.
Whether you want to speak on a professional basis or not, let me show you the opening paragraphs of the book I referred to earlier - Speak and Grow Rich by Dottie & Lilly Walters. Then we will take a look at how we might use this message to help us all. Here goes:
Chapter 1 - Welcome to the World of Professional Speaking
“Being on the rope is everything. All else is waiting to perform.” - Karl Wallenda, circus tightrope performer.
Professional speakers feel the same way about the thrilling business of appearing before audiences and delivering useful information in an entertaining and beneficial way. Being before the audience - speaking - is everything. All else is waiting (and preparing) to speak.
You too, can follow this powerful calling. You can educate, inspire and lead people to take action and make important changes in their lives. By becoming a professional speaker, you can prosper at levels you may never have dreamed were possible in your life. Based on your own ever-growing body of knowledge, you can also write books, create other useful products, become a professional consultant, and add many more valuable “accessories” to your speaking career. If you have the drive and the dream and can follow our plan, you literally can Speak and Grow Rich.
Speaking---speaking well--- is like a great dance involving your audiences, your customers and the great minds of all the ages. You coordinate the many intricate steps of this dance: the gathering of the knowledge, the marketing, learning to better touch hearts and minds. As you take each step, Speak and Grow Rich will act as your instruction manual, your source of information, and your inspiration. At first you will struggle to hear the music that is meant for you. Soon you will discover your market and your strengths; then you will enter the dance with confidence!
Well fellow Toastmasters, do the words above inspire you? You don’t have to aspire to professional speaking to find useful points from this introduction to the book. So, what can we take from Dottie & Lilly? What can we learn from their words of inspiration?
Firstly, how right they are about the act of speaking, it is the thing that we prepare and wait for. Once on the speaking platform, it’s up to you to deliver your message, to educate, entertain or inspire - the choice is yours, but once you have shaken hands, and taken command of the stage, what follows is what you choose to say. As one of London’s most accomplished Toastmasters, Bill Russell, says, “It’s show time!”
Whether you are a novice or an expert you will have taken time to prepare your speech; to think it through, to draft, to refine and to rehearse. You may be nervous, excited or even moved to be before an attentive audience that is hanging on your every word, watching your language (spoken and non-verbal). They will be taking in the points you make, be they serious, not so serious, educational, entertaining or inspirational.
Most importantly, you have a responsibility to make it worth their while, so think of them every step of the way. If you’ve got something to say, then you owe it to your audience to make it relevant to them. What’s more, you have a responsibility to prepare adequately and deliver to the best of your ability. Some speakers are better than others, but being a member of Toastmasters is not all about being competitive; it’s about personal growth and development. But it is also about doing your best. It’s about walking back to your seat at the end of your speech with a smile on your face, knowing that you’ve done your best. There’s always room for improvement - for everyone - and your evaluator will do his or her best to draw out what, in their opinion, you could better or differently next time.
Secondly, you can truly lead people to make changes in their lives, or in the way they think. Dottie and Lilly aim their remarks at aspiring professional speakers, but their words hold true for all of us. My advice is to choose your topics carefully. What inspires you? What do you care about? What things touch your emotions and bring out strong feelings? The chances are that, whatever topics arise from your answers, these are the topics you will deliver best. Answer these questions and you will deliver you speeches from the heart with an energy and passion that will transfer to your audience - they will feel it! If you want to inspire them or call them to some kind of action, then you must believe in what you are telling them.
Someone recently asked me what topic I thought they should talk about for the International Speech Contest in 2008. This is a contest that traditionally focuses, although not exclusively, on inspirational speeches. My answer was this: ‘If you had seven minutes to give a message to the world, what would you say?’ Asking yourself some basic questions helps to focus your mind on what’s important to you - to find out what you really care about. Once again, if you care about it, then there’s a good chance you can either make other people care about it or make them aware of something they do care about but didn’t know it - you can literally tap into their subconscious and emotions through your words and actions. You can then call them to action - to do something, think something, feel something or change something in their lives or the lives or others - HOW POWERFUL IS THAT?
The final point to draw from the first chapter of Speak and Grow Rich is that speaking (well) is truly like a great dance. Like any performance, including dance, the speech needs to be constructed step by step, with a specific purpose in mind. Is the dance to be ballroom, latin or ballet? Is your speech educational, inspirational or entertaining? You need to keep your ultimate aim in mind and ensure that you don’t wander off the path - although speeches that educate, inspire and entertain all at the same time can be immensely powerful - but you must consciously construct your steps with your purpose (or manual objectives) in mind. Remember that no matter how well you deliver your speech, the real power lies in its substance and meaning. Compare a badly choreographed and simplistic waltz, with a well planned tango where every step, every look and every hold has been aimed at expressing steamy passion, emotion and feelings. Constructing a speech is much the same - you need to think about all the ingredients; pay attention to every little detail and blend the parts of the speech to achieve the effect you wish to create. The words of your speech are like the individual musical notes of a song or the steps of a dance. They should combine, with synergy, to create a haunting melody or mesmerising movements.
Whilst substance is the power that drives your speech, remember that you are the driver. The difference in speaking (for us at least) is that we are the choreographer and dancer, composer and performer, engine and driver. We are the ones that need to deliver it to the audience and we have a responsibility to ourselves to do it justice, by not wasting all the time we spent in preparation by delivering our speech poorly. We can’t all be natural performers, comfortable on any platform, delivering every speech with aplomb and charisma. The vast majority of speakers have to practice, practice, practice! Practice the delivery of every sentence, every word, every vital point and then, practice some more! Practice your timing also - you owe it to yourself and your audience to keep to time. Music, dancing and speaking all rely upon good timing. Let me let you in on a great secret…..(shhhhhh). Those natural performers that appear on the speaking platform or the stage and perform with impromptu brilliance - they have all practised until it appears natural!! Remember, it was Mark Twain that said, ‘It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.’ Furthermore, Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, famously reported from his address in August 1963, had been delivered by Dr King many times in the lead up to his historic address from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.
So there you have it. There’s a lot to think about isn’t there? But there’s good news. The great benefit we can all derive from our involvement in Toastmasters is that we get to develop within a supportive environment. Mentors are a source of guidance and experience, helping us as little or as much as we like. They can listen to our ideas, look at our drafts and even watch us rehearse our speeches, as well as being there to see our performance on the night. Throughout the process, mentors make suggestions, help keep us on course and suggest refinements to our great dance. It doesn’t stop there. Our fellow Toastmasters, evaluators, and even guests are all sources of valuable feedback through formal evaluation and feedback slips. What could be better? - not only do we get to speak to our audience on a subject of our choosing, we also get to hear what they thought of what we said. What they learned, how they felt, and what they thought of our performance. Where else can you get this level of support and feedback? You know where - nowhere!
Well my fellow Toastmasters, are you feeling inspired? Do you want to start 2008 with a determination to engage in the great dance that Dottie and Lilly Walters speak about? Do you want to be the best speaker that you can be, to bring change into the lives of others, to inspire, to educate, to entertain. Do you want to be the best - a true great? Do you want to be the 2008 International Speech Contest Champion or, just as importantly, do you want to be a source of change or inspiration for someone in your club audience, your personal life or at a charity event? Whatever you want to be; above average, good or great, there is a price to be paid. If you are prepared to pay that price with your creativity, your time, your courage and, most of all, your determination, then you can dance the great dance and achieve great things in 2008 and beyond.
