Lessons from a demo meeting.

I volunteered to give a speech because I had an idea for one. I had a few jokes about the British Empire and their audacity. Our annual Toastmasters Demo meeting seemed like a nice opportunity to finally string them together.

Toastmasters is an international organisation of public speaking, and for sure there is a club not so far away from you. Our annual demo meeting is the opportunity to show off and spread awareness of our club. Which is why Cyril Junior Dim, a Toastmasters World Champion was invited! You watch just how good he is here.

The idea for the speech came about because of the jokes my girlfriend tells mostly, and I'd say at least a few were stolen from her. When I moved to Poland she would insist that there would be zero tolerance to the colonisation of the apartment.

I guess the jokes on her because I've even taught our dog to speak English.

The title of my speech became, How to Build an Empire

I prepared a lot, I find it kind of addictive.

Over the last couple of weeks, there was zero chance of me being bored because there is always a better word to use, a different sentence structure to use, an unnecessary line to get rid of. In a humorous speech, every line should either generate a laugh or drive the narrative forward.

*You'll find that this rambling article will not follow that rule.

In another life, I film weddings. And sometimes within this life, I film weddings too, like next month. I can't help put find similarities in the craft of speechwriting and editing a film.

If you think about the film... Let's say, Parasite (2019). You could argue that there were an infinite number of ways that film could have been written, scored, choreographed, shot, edited, and even colour graded. But it wasn't, it reached a point of completion, which I suppose, according to the director Bong Joon Ho, would have been the version.

Creative tasks therefore present two juxtaposing aspects. The infinite vs the singular state of "perfection". I can be a bit of a perfectionist, even though... perfect technically doesn't exist. Perhaps it does within a small margins?

There's another category which is worth mentioning... What about creative tasks that are completely spontaneous, like turning up to do a speech, and being presented with the topic and going for it, off the cuff. Can that be perfect too?

Can a conversation on a podcast be classed as a work of art?

Anyway!

A humorous Toastmasters speech like most creative acts come with some limitations. It can't be just a series of jokes, it should have a structure (beg-mid-end), it should have a purpose for existing as a speech, like some meaning or message, and it cannot be shorter than 4 minutes 30 seconds and no longer than than 7.30. So depending on your pace, you're bound to a word limit. I imagine between 400 - 1000 words, give or take.

My speech is 739 words and takes me _ minutes _ seconds to present.

I always get surprised by how much faster I deliver speeches to an audience compared with practicing alone.

Okay, I've rambled a lot. Though I warned you, so it's fine.

Here's what I actually came to discuss.

After I got my speech to a place where it was nearing completion, I decided to get some feedback on it. I gave the speech to my girlfriend, to my two sisters and parents. The feedback I got from them prevented me from crashing and burning on stage, with introductory jokes that I'm pretty sure would not have landed with the audience.

I originally wanted to begin my speech in the following way:

Tonight I'm going to teach you how to build an empire!
I know what you're thinking...
Empires are terrible things built on slavery and expoitation.
If it helps, you don't have to call them slaves, call them volunteeers.
...

I gave this version to my parents, they loved it, especially my dad. I delivered it in such a way, that it was serious enough for them to believe I was giving them some secret loophole, that I genuinely believed was a useful way of building an empire. Just call them volunteers. Every joke landed ten fold and I had a lot of fun delivering the speech to them. I was particularly psyched to have found an introductory joke that could land so well!

I was buzzing from delivering my speech and getting such a good reaction. The next day I get my sister's feedback. When I finished, she asked me "Was that supposed to be funny?". She had interpreted the speech completely differently, and took a more curious intellectual appraoch to it, as if she was actually being taught something. Maybe she was already aware and onboard with the slave-volunteer loophole, so it was too obvious to be funny.

My girlfriend told me that it sounds like the punchline is yet to come.

These responses left me in limbo, so I tossed the introductory joke around and it became obvious that the reaction my parents gave was a bit of an anomaly. They were primed for the speech, they knew a little of what was coming, they also know me and yes, they are also my parents - I hope I have their complete trust. Whereas a toastmasters audience out in the rain, filled with 50% strangers from Poland or any other country, and some guys in suits looking important... that is a very different audience.

The possibility of experiencing something truly uncomfortble was present. Having spent so much time preparing and for the premise, motive and intentions of the speech to be completely lost on the audience, I think I would have been left with feelings akin to actually being an enslaved volunteer.

And previous experience has taught me that delivering speeches to Toastmasters audiences, things are usually much funnier in my head. Because I'm an insane bastard. With the date approaching, I had to change the intro quickly.

The goal of my speech was to give everyone a good time, for them to relax, laugh, find it funny. It was at this point I started to realise that for the audience to find it funny, they have to know it's funny. They cannot get to the end still wondering if they are being told a joke, or actually told how to do something. I have to guide them.

I think the problem with the initial opening is that it puts the audience on the back foot. "Tonight I'm going to teach you how to build an empire" is almost confrontational. "I'm the authority, you're the pupils", and there's a tension baked in before the joke has even landed. If they aren't already primed to laugh, they won't. The "volunteers" line only works if the audience already knows they're in a comedy - which is why it may work (or a variation of it) in a comedy setting. Otherwise it either flies over their head or lands as accidental absurdity rather than deliberate wit. My parents' reaction was real, but it was also an anomaly. They know me, they were primed, they were already on my side. I think it's safer to presume, that the audience will be cold and you'll have to warm them up. And well, it was raining.