Lessons from World Champion of Public Speaking 2014

It is a lazy Saturday evening. 

After shopping and singing K in the day, tiredness made me lose energy to do anything. But I requested myself to do something meaningful, at least one or two. So I opened some TED talks to watch. The videos reminded me of the world championship of Toastmasters. So I searched Youtube for Manoj's speech and also the speech of 2014 world champion. My intention is to learn how they made it to the international stage and what qualifications they had. I dreamed to be one of them (Finger Cross).

After watching the speech from Dananjaya, the 2014 world champion, an idea pops out in my mind. Let's write down what I have learnt from him in my beloved and long abandoned blog! LOL

First of all, the video is here :) Do enjoy it.

I will skip the standard and basic qualities of a good speech such as eye contact, body gesture, confidence and etc. 

From what I observed, he designed some incredible tricks in his speech:

1. He used props. A physical item that he could use to demonstrate his idea in more effective way. As an audience, I could feel the destruction of a beautiful object when he tore the petals and the revival when he presented a new flower. 

This increases the impact of the message and hooks up the sympathy of audience.

2. His speech was engaging. He engaged audience with his story in Toastmasters. This was wonderfully designed as most of the audience were toastmasters, the audience could relate easier.

This is why I always involve my audience in my speech, so that they can feel their importance.

3. Of course, his humor spiced the speech up. Humor is one of the most important part in a good speech. It can keep audience listening to the speaker and entertain them at the same time. Who doesn't love to laugh out loud. He fully illustrated his talent in humor which made audience love him. This is a powerful tool. I have to learn it. Words are wisely chosen and sentences are cleverly twisted to create the LOL factors. 

4. Inspiring speech using personal stories. A well designed story-line can only be awesome when it comes with fantastic storytelling skills. Personal stories satisfy people's curiosity towards the speaker too. Most importantly, he made the whole speech inspirational! Well paced stories with excellent narration caught the audience's attention and created a strong ripple in their hearts with great inspiration! Message of the speech was absolutely clear and remarkably presented. Not to mention, his whole speech is DAMN natural. 

This is simply GOOD JOB! 

Retrieved from Dananjaya's Facebook

Perhaps there are more things can be learnt from his speech. 

But I am too sleepy to absorb already. Haha. 

It is never an easy task to be a good speaker. Continual practices and relentless self-improvement are required. There is no destination for public speaking, but it is an enriching journey. 

Public speaking is frightening yet fun. Once you conquer the fear, the satisfaction is beyond description. 

Hope everyone will learn something, be inspired and enjoy his jokes. 

It is time to say Good night. Yawnnn.