I Got Dusted by a World Champ & Learned My Biggest Public Speaking Lesson

It seemed like a great plan to find fame and fortune as a professional speaker.

During my years as a member of Toastmasters from 2003 to 2012, I enjoyed the challenge of the International Speech Competition. For those not familiar, the competition involves making an inspirational speech and proceeds through six stages with the final stage being the World Championship of Public Speaking.

So my plan, okay fantasy, was much the same as many of the thousands of Toastmasters who enter each year – become World Champion and trade off that title to become a highly paid speaker.

Well, I didn’t become World Champion but in the process of trying I learned a massive lesson that was hiding in plain sight for a long time.

What It Really Takes to Be a Winner with the Audience

In my most successful tilt at the competition in 2010-11, I reached the District Final (stage 4) where I was one win away from heading off to the USA to compete in the semi-finals.

Alas, that day I came up against the person who would later go on to become the World Champion of Public Speaking that year. I got ‘schooled’ big time in the art of competitive speaking. His speech was well written, brilliantly delivered, thoroughly entertaining, and deserving of sending him on to the next stage. By comparison, I was nervous and not in the same league in terms of the performance.

But then I had a surreal experience in the afternoon tea break immediately after the competition.

Now, I will point out that having invested very heavily emotionally in the experience, all I wanted to do was retreat to some privacy and have some time for personal reflection. However, I couldn’t do that because of the line of people coming up to tell me that even though I didn’t win, they enjoyed my speech the most out of the six contenders.

But why?

The message of my speech that day was not to let the things that keep us busy crowd out the most important things in our lives. I told a story about how I had been doing exactly that and as a result, I was missing out on my young daughter’s childhood. It apparently resonated with A LOT of people in the audience and a couple of them actually had tears in their eyes afterwards when they thanked me for telling the story.

The next day I had plenty of time to ponder this on the 8-hour drive home and it was around about the NSW/QLD border that I came to fully appreciate the lesson...

Creating a performance that meets the judging criteria for a speaking competition is certainly a skill. However, in 'real-life' people care less about how polished your performance is and more about how you make them feel through the power of your message and your ability to connect with them in a real, authentic way.

For some, this is probably stating the obvious. After all, nobody invites you to speak to their organisation just because you are an eloquent speaker. They invite you because you have some relevant experience and knowledge that provides value to them. Duh!

Nonetheless, having been drilled in the performance aspect of speaking, I had lost sight of this simple fact. However, I haven't forgotten it. Since starting my own training business in 2013 I have always helped clients to focus firstly on getting the message right before we move on to their delivery skills.

So there you have it. In a nutshell, worry about saying something that matters before worrying about how well you say it.