Delivering my second speech in Toastmasters

I recently delivered my second speech at Toastmasters, and I’ve learned a lot of things.

The struggle

I had more than two weeks to prepare, however, the speech still didn’t come out better than I expected. The primary reason is that, despite having ample time to prepare, I spent most of my time, writing the speech instead of rehearsing it.

The writing process was a struggle.

I had to browse through a lot of online resources, ted and toastmasters videos and books just so I could come up with a topic and the key message.

At first, I watched a lot of experts deliver speeches that won the prizes. And I tried to replicate the same kind of speech they delivered. They had a story, and they taught the audience something. So I tried to do the same thing.

But it only made me more confused.

I found out how difficult it was to craft such speech. I ended up with a draft that had a story which probably wouldn’t interest the audience. And a key message buried way too deep that people wouldn’t be able to find it.

So, I turned to ebooks by popular experts:

1. Speak to Win: How to Present with Power in Any Situation  
2. Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds

And they taught me how to properly outline one, and I did come up with a good-enough, simple speech on friendship.

I learned that…

1. It’s never good to memorize the speech word-for-word especially if you only had one night to rehearse

I will try to be more spontaneous in my next speeches, and work on having an outline which I could talk about freely. But of course, I’ll have to prepare the bullet points to discuss. I had troubles memorizing the speech especially since it was in paragraph form, and I couldn’t quite connect the points with each other. But if I used bullets, then it would have been easier.

2. To spend more time rehearsing, and to stop rehearsing the day before

I was definitely cramming the night before I delivered my speech. And if I could turn back time, I would have relaxed on the same day I will be delivering it. I think I was too lazy in rehearsing my speech, compared to the time I was about to deliver my Icebreaker project (where I rehearsed for at least one week).

3.  Pause. Pause. Pause

Why is it so d*mn difficult to pause? As I was watching the video, I realized I tend to speed up, instead of slowing down, especially when the part is a good one. Could it be because I lacked ample time to rehearse? Or probably because It’s a habit I should start correcting.

4. To enjoy

On the day I was about to deliver the said speech, I couldn’t explain how I felt. Despite visualizing a great presentation, I still felt as if I was about to face disaster. I ate a lot, and I felt as if I’ve already given up. That was until someone told me, to just enjoy. And it made me relaxed, it made me feel happy. Speaking on stage definitely makes me happy, so why was I so blue. On the next talks, I’ll make sure to think of having fun instead of dwelling on how my speech will go.

Next steps

1. Take creative writing courses

I need to improve more on writing coherent paragraphs. I think practice would definitely help me improve, but I think a few courses/classes will help, too. I realized the importance of writing, and if I become better at it, then I highly think i’ll be able to deliver more speeches. Which leads me to…

2. Write at least one article a day

Not only will it help me to think and organize my thoughts better, but I think it will allow me to write faster.

So, Here you go…

So, here’s the video for you to learn from. I actually thought it was too cringe-y to watch because of the mistakes I made, but I did get to watch it fully today, and I think it wasn’t that bad. Let me know what you think, and how I could improve on my next talks…

To be honest, I definitely thought everything would be easier after the Icebreaker, but I thought wrong, and I definitely will be learning a whole lot more on my next delivery…