My First Speech at Toastmasters - Humour Contest

I had wanted to join Toastmasters for a long time and finally got myself enrolled about a month back. At the end of the first session, the toastmaster for the day announced that there would be a humor contest (5-7 minute speech and evaluation) conducted within the club level 3 weeks from then. The winner of the contest would then proceed onto Area, City and so on. As the toastmaster asked for volunteers to enroll in any of the roles (Both for Speaker and Evaluator), i jumped in, confirming to him that i would be one of the speakers. 

I figured that it would be a great opportunity to get past my comfort zone and the earlier i jump in and actively participate, the faster would be my learning. Of course, i did not want it to be my first speech (The first speech is called Icebreaker - Its a speech to introduce yourself in 4-6 minutes) and wanted to quickly complete my Icebreaker speech in the next 2 weeks. As it turned out, the next 2 weeks' slot was already full and i had no real practice before the contest.

I took a long time in deciding the topic (virtually 2 weeks) as i was not sure whether the initial topics i was considering would appeal to a global audience (The group had Americans, Chinese, Koreans and Indians). Finally, a week before the contest, i decided upon a topic and within a few hours, had my speech ready. I spent the next few days rehearsing time and again in front of my wife (unfortunately she had no choice :)). 

I was a little nervous as i was not confident enough about my ability to deliver big on humour. As i started off, i grew more confident and actually ended up delivering my speech pretty well. There were quite a number of laughs and at the end, i got thumbs up from a number of folks. I felt fantastic and actually thought that maybe i could end up winning the contest. 

As it turned out, i finished second but honestly i was totally excited and happy that i had gotten through my first speech without any glitches. Post the session, i went around asking for feedback and figured out that the evaluation was not just on the content and laugh counter but also on body language and facial expressions (those were the areas that i have to work on). It felt great to receive really constructive feedback and just strengthened the positive vibe that i have towards toastmasters and specifically this club and its members.

Am sharing the speech below. As per the structure, the speech should have an opening, then the body or crux of the speech and a closing. It was 5-7 minutes long. (Hopefully it will bring a few smiles to your faces :))

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Impromptu Lying Syndrome!

Have you ever faced a situation where someone is talking to you and somewhere in the middle of the conversation, you mind just switches off (I call that going into La-La land).  You start nodding your head, you keep saying hmmm, hmmm and when you are interjected with a question, no matter what the question actually was, you say ‘Yeah – I agree’! or ‘Good for you’ or ‘Makes sense’. Makes sense - This was what I told a friend of mine, who wanted my advice on proposing marriage to a girl he had a crush on. As I later found out, he had known the girl only for one month and well it is safe to say that he ended up with egg on his face. Talk about bad advice!

Dear Toastmaster, my fellow toastmasters and guests, I welcome you all into my world of impromptu lying syndrome. Now what is impromptu lying – Simply put, I used to have very little attention span, but I lacked the courage to admit it and ask again and more often than not, Impromptu lying used to be the way out. Back then, I used to call it ‘The Great Escape’. I never used to think of it as a negative aspect of my personality until a few recent experiences forced me to re-think.

Last year, at work, I organized an event where my Business Unit head, a Senior Vice President came to address a large gathering of 1000s of our company’s employees. I felt really excited to listen to his vision for our practice. After the initial few minutes, he mentioned something about taking an idea from inception to execution. Ah Inception – Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio, the concept of dream within a dream within a dream – What a bunch of geniuses! Suddenly, I woke up from my dream state and noticed that the audience was applauding. Post the event, my boss introduced me to the SVP and I complimented him on an enlightening and inspiring speech. My boss then proceeded to voice the following words ‘Manoj – I know you really liked the speech and probably will have the key points jotted in your head. Quickly publish the key insights from the SVP’s speech – We need to share it quickly with the other executives’.

That really did not help! Did it? Talk about getting into a soup!

Well, I somehow managed to speak to a few colleagues at work and put together the key insights but at home, it is an entirely different ball game. My wife has this habit of running me through the list of activities that she plans, for me, and that too late in the evening. She had this cousin, travelling down from Chicago and asked me to pick her up at the airport. She then added a number of details however my mind recorded them as Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah. As I started for the airport, my wife asked me whether I had planned for everything. As usual, Impromptu lying syndrome resurfaced and I scolded her for repeating every single thing to me again and again.

I was particular about being punctual and landed at the airport with my car 5 minutes in advance. As I entered the lobby, I saw her cousin walking towards me with a 2 year old kid. Oh my god – This is not that unmarried cousin, this is the cousin with a kid. At the same time, my message box popped up and I saw a message I had received from my wife – ‘ DO NOT forget to pick up the child seat from your friend and insert in our car’. There, I was, in front of my wife’s cousin, utterly speechless. Not because of what I needed to say to her. I can always come up with an excuse. But I knew, back home, I was dead meat! Then and there, I decided, I needed help. I needed to get rid of the impromptu lying syndrome and actually start to listen.

Well, I learnt quite a bit from these experiences.

A – Impromptu lying is a lot of fun when the people around you have to face the music not yourself

B – When you are presenting or conversing, never take the audience for granted – You never know when they take off into La-La land

C – You truly want to Listen, Start with your Wife and take help from Toastmasters

Thank you!

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P.S: I gave my icebreaker speech this week and it went off pretty well. Compared to the icebreaker speech, the humour speech was much more difficult to prepare and deliver but was a great learning experience. Hopefully, i will keep getting better and deliver many more speeches in the near future!

One more thing - It does not matter where you reside in, do join toastmasters if you want to get better at communication. And i guarantee you that you will have a lot of fun and learning in the process!