BEHIND THE MIKE

I Part 1

n 1905, Ralph C. Smedley was working with the YMCA. He saw a need for individuals in the community to learn how to speak, conduct meetings, plan programs and work on committees.

He formed a club to help them learn these skills in a social environment. As word spread groups in other areas requested clubs of their own. By 1930, the initiative had grown to 30 clubs in the United States and Canada. Toastmasters was born.

Membership today exceeds 375,000 members in over 16,600 clubs in 143 countries, making it easily the largest nonprofit educational organization that empowers more effective communicators and leaders.

History tells us that Toastmasters began having its World Championship competition in 1938. There were no conventions in 1944 and 1945 because of the Second World War.

When I competed in the World Championship of Public Speaking for Toastmasters in 1977 and 1978, they were not video recording the speeches.

Toastmasters offered audio recordings and I actually had one until my office burned down in the late seventies. In those days, they did publish the speech in Toastmasters magazine.

Over the years, Toastmasters changed its approach and began to video the speeches. Many of these videos appear on a brand new web site “World Champion Speakers Summit” – www.wcspeakerssummit.com , hosted by Lance Miller, the 2005 World Champion of Public Speaking.

Lance has published the speeches and has conducted in-depth interviews with 28 of the 32 living World Champions. The Summit is completely free for anyone to sign up and watch the speeches and interviews. There is also an attractive VIP Upgrade Pass that allows for 24/7 access, 30 years of Speech Competitions Finals and 12 hours of public speaking audio lessons.

Brian Wolfe, a friend from my old digs in Lexingtom, alerted Lance to the fact that I was not yet enjoying a long-deserved dirt nap and suggested that he reach out to me. Turns out I’m the earliest winner he’s been able to find and interview.

Lance has attempted to find similarities between all these past champions, but what he learned was there were few, if any. Some participants had made the finals on numerous occasions and many others had faced early elimination. Still, they came back to eventually win.

In 1977, I competed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada against the late Fred Weineke, the best speaker I had ever faced. He had made the International Finals 21 times and never achieved his goal of winning.

I was not nearly that obsessed. In 1977, Fred and I lost to E.J. Davis-Burgay, a blind Washington, DC, attorney. I was disqualified for going eight seconds over. I won a year later in Vancouver. I learned a lot more from losing than I learned from winning.

The speech is supposed to go 5-7 minutes. They give you 30 seconds of grace period. Unfortunately, 7:38 doesn’t cut it. I received a standing ovation in the middle of the speech that lasted…. you guessed it…. 8 seconds.

Watch what other speakers do and try not to look the same. Someone told me I was the first speaker who moved on the platform. You must differentiate yourself.

Listen intently to other participants. If they use a quote or a piece of humor that resembles anything you have in your speech, immediately go to a backup plan. Judges aren’t choosing a winner; they are eliminating the losers.

Take the time to visit LanceMillerSpeaks.com or World Champion Speakers Summit to study the best speaking minds.

Michael Aun, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, received the Legends of the Speaking Profession in 2010 along with Zig Ziglar, CPAE and Jim Rohn, CPAE.