Speech Contest Time – Time to Polish

In my last two posts I have shared my Tall Tales speech and my International Speech Contest entry. I managed to win second place at my Toastmaster club with each and will thus be competing this evening in the local area contest with the winners from other clubs in the area. If I am successful there, I would advance to the District level at the annual spring convention in early April.

Each of the past two nights I attended a couple of the other area contests within our district and had the opportunity to listen to some of the competitors I might face, if I get that far.

I have, of course, been running my speech though my mind several times a day all week. I’ve decided to make major adjustments to my Tall Tale speech, and frankly am focusing on it, as I think I may have the best chance of success with it.

My international speech, while solid in content is a little “pedestrian” in content, and while I will do my best to convey it well, a more motivational speech is likely to do better with the judges. My fellow club member who edged me out at our club level has just such a speech and is in my opinion the likely winner. But I will give it my best shot.

My fellow club member and winner of our club tall tales contest is highly talented speaker as well, and will not be easy to surpass.

Therefore, I have dramatically revamped my tall tale presentation. If you listened to my speech the first time around, you will realize that I gave a fairly lengthy preamble that eventually built up to the “tall tale.” In my current version, I have stripped the front end of the speech out and start the tale with a flair from the beginning.

Time will tell how well I do, and if I can rise to the challenge.

Simple contests like these, are pretty insignificant in the course of human events, but they do cause us that choose to participate a goal and reason to take an idea and refine it further. To put polish on it and make it shine. As a rule of thumb, I urge people to not let perfection get in the way of their initial speech or presentation, because it will never be perfect. But once you have a product, or presentation it is possible to refine and make it better. And you should as long as you are offering it to the public.

Win or lose tonight, I have had fun with my two talks, and feel as though I have expanded my personal skill levels a notch and that is what it is all about.

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