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The speech begins even before it begins, with a title that forces the contest master to get the audience warmed up and laughing. I haven’t sen this done before, and as an original move it sets the tone. It’s not something we all should duplicate, but it shows the value of the title in setting a tone – an area that many speakers sometimes neglect.
From there Andy told us a story using every component of the TM skill set. His vocal variety was established early and sustained throughout, and was used extensiely to set emotional states – the suspenseful tone of “it was a day I would never forget”, the excitement of “the mountains”, and the humorous echo of ‘destiny… destiny.. destiny…”. Throughout the speech Andy shows us how vocal variety should be considered at every point in a story to enhance the audience’s experience.
I mentioned above the suspense of the opening line. However, here I’d like to raise a point for future growth – Andy’s speech was original in many ways. However, the opening line, about a day I’d never forget, and then his address of the audience (”Fellow Toastmasters…and anybody who’s ever had a date with destiny”) were somewhat generic. These constructions are used sufficiently often in Toastmasters speeches that in the future Andy might consider thinking about alternative phraseologies. He might try, “Have you ever had a date with destiny?” or “Thinking back to that day, the one thing I remember is…” These phraseologies are not substantially different, but they might help distinguish the speech from others the audience has heard.
Not that Andy had anything to worry about on that front. His humor throughout was well-thought and well-delivered. The pauses and double-entendres of “I have his tattoo…but” and “but…that’s another story” had me laughing out loud. There were a few points when Andy hit his take-home message where the pauses might have felt a little long, around when he spoke about Robbins being “only human” with the moment of realization. However, these were the exceptions, and overall his humor was delivered with excellent timing and energy. This is exemplified in his drawing the analogy of walking over hot coals for his hurried, childlike conversation with his idol – first stepping bravely, and then realizing these things are hot hot hot. This was a perfect, humorous analogy that tapped into the collective knowledge of audience members who know about Robbins, but also was accessible to those who don’t.
Great work on a very, very funny speech.
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This post was written by john on January 3, 2009
