Today, I got a chance to practise my contest speech in front of experienced Toastmasters at Bradell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club. I must admit that I didn’t well-prepare. However, I would like to give it a try. I wanted to know how the response from the audience was and hopefully I could receive great comments.

The speech title was “It really doesn’t matter.”

The way I crafted the speech was based on “pain-solution” approach. My pain was “Hair Loss”.

Here is the brief summary of my speech:
Opening:
- A joke saying that I was complaining to my mum that I would be a bald guy soon.

Body:
- Pains
-> I used to love trying different hair styles, but now I can’t.
-> When I looked at mirror, I felt demoralized.
-> When I was with my girl friend, my girl friend poured to me negative comments.
-> I became less confident when I talked to someone.

- Search for Solutions
-> I went to consult a hair growth consultant. The price was too expensive.
-> I tried to search for medicine. There was side-effect on the medicine.

- Acceptance
-> I accepted the fact that I will be bald one day.
-> I looked around and found that there were a lot of people suffering the same problem.
-> I searched for people who are bald and yet good-looking.
-> I found that a lot of successful people are bald and yet they are good-looking and promising and they smiled a lot!
-> I smiled more and participated in speech contests to gain my confidence.
-> I became happier and more confident.
-> My friend said I still looked great with lesser hair.
=> It really doesn’t matter to suffer hair loss.

- Examples
-> Ask for the audience to think of what matters bothered them.
-> I told a story about Nick Vujicic. He is a guy without legs and arms.
=> It really doesn’t matter how you were born, you can still touch other’s heart.

Conclusion:
- I told the audience there must be a reason why we were born in this way.
- I concluded that losing hair is actually not a big deal.
- I can see it in a positive way.

The comments that I received:
- I was trying to beat around the bush. I didn’t really tackle the core message – “It really doesn’t matter”.
- Someone felt that I had something to convey, but it was not clear. He felt that I was using “hair loss” as a metaphor and tried to convey a message. His advice to me was I have to be clear about what message I wanted to convey. He asked me whether I could use one sentence to summarize what was the message I wanted to convey. I couldn’t…
- It’s advisable not to use any joke which contains sexuality. Lady Judges will feel offended.
- I have to repackage the stories and try to touch the audience’s heart.

A lot of comments that I received sound very abstract to me. I didn’t exactly understand what the true meaning was. Anyway, I will try my best to revise and modify the script and make another round of practice on this Saturday.

I will focus on the CORE MESSAGE and how to TOUCH AUDIENCE’S HEART.