Photo by: Cayusa

Last week, I happened to witness a double-champion in two different clubs using two different speeches on the same day. That was so unbelievable. I like to look at the behaviour of contestants before and during the contest. I have discovered that most of the contestants still busy referring to their scripts, especially before the contest. That means, preparing for only one speech is a burden to them. It is a burden to me too. I want to make sure that I will speak only what I have planned in order to avoid over time.

I was wondering how this double-champion did that. His name is Benjamin Cheng who is a well-known speaker in Singapore. I happened to talk to him during a Toastmasters Club Meeting. Here are the tips that he shared with me.

Stretch yourself to the limit
This was actually the first time he prepared two contest speeches for one-day two different club contests. He wanted to try out whether he could deliver two QUALITY contest speeches in one day and it was proved that he did it! Congratulations!

Write the full script out
A contest is very strict in timing. Therefore, controlling the timing is very important. To make sure that you won’t go over time, you have to rehearse your speech again, again and again. The best method to ensure that you will not go over time is to plan what you want to say during the contest and that is to write the full script out.

Two speeches in different styles or topics
The first speech he delivered was about “in the end” he got victory. It doesn’t matter what happened in between and what really matter is in the end, you have achieved your goals. This speech was quite a serious speech. Not much humour was injected.
The second speech was quite a relax speech. It’s about happiness.

Use personal stories
This is always the recommendation from experienced Toastmasters. Using personal story is the best way to touch audience’s heart. And it’s true that using personal stories, we tend to remember the speech easily.

Practise
PRACTISE, PRACTISE & PRACTISE…

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The most excited moment has come, a day which I long-waited for, a day which I was going to present a 5-7 minutes speech which was under weeks of preparation.

There were a total of 6 contestants for the international speech contest. I was pretty satisfied with the number of participants. It used to be only 3-4 contestants in the past. I always stressed to my club members, joining a speech contest is the fastest way for us to master the essence of public speaking skills. And I believed the members were somehow “brainwashed” by me and took their courage to join this contest.

When it was my turn to speak, I could feel that the atmosphere of the room was a little bit strange. Everybody looked very serious. I hardly found a smiling face. I started off with a funny dialogue between me and my mum. I was expecting at least 2-3 big laughter, and it turned out to be only 1 small laughter (I think only 10% of them laughed).

Anyway, I carried on with the speech. My mind went blank in two occasions, however, it was a very short moment and it didn’t appear to be too obvious. Step-by-step, I was approaching to the end of the speech and finally, “Contest Chair!”. I went back to my seat. Somehow, I was not very satisfied with my performance. I think my emotion was affected by the “serious” atmosphere. I had a feeling that I might lose this time.

I started to blame myself for not practicing more a few days before the contest. I didn’t expect that I was so “negative” thinking on that day. What’s happened? The audience’s reponse… I was affected by the audience’s response.

Then, I started to recall the thought that I always convey to my member. Joining a contest is not about winning, it’s about the experience you gain and it’s about the improvement that you’ve made. By thinking this, I started to feel better.

Until the moment when the results were announced, my anxiety was totally disappeared. I was once again emerged as the champion in my club! This is my 2nd champion trophy in the International Speech Contest at Club-level.

When I walked back home, I thought of the atmosphere during the speech contest. This kind of unusual incident might happen again in the future, I thought. So, what should I do in the future if the same thing happens again?
1) Look at people who are with smiling faces.
People who smile to you will give you encouragement to move on.

2) Concentrate on the speech and try not to have negative thoughts.
Whenever negative thoughts start flowing into your mind, it will attract a lot of negative incidents. So, try your best not to think of any negative thing while you are delivering your speech.

3) Smile to the audience before delivering the speech.
Let the audience feel comfortable with your smile. Influence your audience with you smile before you first utter a single word.

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Photo by: Joe Hatfield

Wow…What a long holiday that I have gone through! And it’s OVER!! It’s time to come back to something serious and exciting. My work, my blog, my club, contest, jogging…

Chinese New Year holiday was indeed a great memory for me this year! I got a chance to catch up with my old friends (primary schoolmates, high schoolmates). So many things have been changed. I have a friend who is pregnant now and she is going to deliver her first baby next month! Some of my friends plan to go wedding this year. Wow… what’s happened to me? I’m still single and always available… hahaha… It really doesn’t matter as finding a girl friend is not one of my resolutions for this year. I will let it go as it is. No rush…

I have done one thing that I felt very satisfied and happy during the holiday in Malaysia. I taught my dad how to log on internet to read news on stocks and newspaper. He has been nagging me since last year to teach him how to go online. I tried my best to ignore this topic as I felt that a man at his age of 68, who doesn’t know English at all, doesn’t know computer at all…. Internet is definitely not his cup of tea. Teaching him, it would spend me months, I thought. And I pushed this responsibility to my sister’s boy friend. It turned out that my sister’s boy friend was not a good teacher, my dad still knew nothing about internet.

Since I always aspire to be a great speaker, conveying a message in the easiest and most understandable way is also part of my job. I will take this challenge, I told myself.

Hey, dad, let me teach you how to log on internet. (By the way, I’m still using dial-up connection in Malaysia. It’s a little bit unfair to him as he has to learn extra steps…)

1) Switch on computer
- I think this should be the easiest step throughout the INTERNET LESSON.

2) Manipulate the mouse
- I asked my dad to click on the “dial-up” icon on desktop. I told him logging into internet is like making a phone call. Dial-UP is a phone, and you need to dial the correct number to bridge the connection to the internet.
- My dad was very poor in double-clicking. His finger was not so flexible, I guessed. He always failed to open the dial-up window due the slow response of his double-click. I adjusted the double-click speed to the lowest and occasionally he managed to open the dial-up window. One strange thing that I found was he always looked at his finger and mouse while doing the double-clicking task. I shouted at him, LOOK AT THE MONITOR! Then he recalled the incident when he taught me driving, I always looked at the sterling and gear knob instead of looking in front. Yup, it’s the same thing I told him. LOOK AT THE MONITOR!

3) Open a window of Internet Explorer
- Typing the URL may need extra few hours for me to teach him. So, to short-cut this process, I created a short-cut icon to the newspaper website that he intended to read. By clicking on the short-cut icon, he immediately logged in to the newspaper website.
- I could see the satisfaction in his eyes. He was so amazed by the “fast-speed” that he could cope with the internet learning.

4) Click on the link in the website
- I told him whatever he wants to read, just click on the hyperlink. A finger-like icon will appear if it is a hyperlink.

5) Minimize, maximize, close a window
- This is actually quite a simple task. However, I made my dad repeated the same task over and over for more than 50 times. The minimize, maximize and close buttons are too small for him to aim properly. Occasionally, he still looked at his finger and the mouse. Again, I shouted, LOOK AT THE MONITOR!

6) Shut down the PC
- Click on the shutdown button. That’s all!

Yesterday my dad called me, he told me, sometimes, he could log in the internet successfully, sometimes not. I said, it will take some time for him to familiarize. After all, repetition and practice will definitely make improvement.

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To all my faithful readers,

I would like to dedicate this song to all of you, Happy Chinese New Year 2008!

In case you don’t understand mandarin, there is English Subtitle on top.

Enjoy yourself! I will be away from 5-February-2008 to 11-February-2008.

I will be heading to Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur tomorrow night…

See You!

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After a chapter meeting, there was one club president asked me whether I have any good tips in President Opening Address preparation. As a president of The Frontier Toastmasters Club, I have to make an opening speech in every chapter meeting. Since last year July until now, I had made 6 President Opening Speeches.To me, the opening address is just another Stage Time. How to make full use of the Stage Time and at the same time whatever you say, it strikes a chord to the audience, especially to your club members? I would like to share with you my point of view in president opening address…

1) Share your vision, thinking and goals
- Whatever you are going to say during president opening address, it has to be aligned with your vision, thinking and goals.

2) Stress on your motto
- “It can be done” is my motto and a lot of time, I stress on this sentence to my members and now, whenever my members hear this sentence, they will somehow relate to me.

3) An incident that happened to you
- Share with the audience a recent incident that happened to you, preferably the incident that you have learnt something from. There must be a message that you wish to convey to the audience through your story.
- I have once shared my experience when I first obtained my driving license in Singapore. I didn’t know many road names in Singapore and I lost my way in one occasion. With that incident, I brought out a message “it’s important to do planning”, with proper road planning before driving, we can save a lot of unnecessary time in searching for roads. Same to our life… We need to do planning.

4) An incident that happened in Toastmasters Movement
- The target audience is majority Toastmasters. As a president, I think we have the responsibility to say good about Toastmasters all the time.
- I talked about how semi-annual convention has changed my perception towards Toastmasters and how my mindset was built to be more positive through the convention. At the same time, I encouraged them to join the Toastmasters Convention.

5) A book, workshop, educational program
- Talk about what you have learnt from the book that you’ve read, the workshop that you’ve attended and the educational program that you’ve listened. This will not only benefit the audience, it will help you to remember the important points that you’ve learnt in the programs.
- I couldn’t wait to share the tips about time management from Brian Tracy after I listened to his audio programme. I immediately shared with my members during the next chapter meeting after I listened to that programme.

6) Try something new
- Opening speech is your stage time. I would suggest you to try something that you have never tried in your project speeches. I have tried a stage magic to relate to my message – “to master a skill you have to know the methods, and then practise and practise until you succeed.” I was quite satisfied with this opening address and here, I have included the youtube video.

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