Page 22 - 2019 March Voices

FIELD NOTES
Value Change: A Key
to Winning Speech Contests
Joe Anthony, DTM
You’ve prepared. You’ve practiced. And now,
over the course of seven minutes, you’ll take
the audience on a journey that’s guaranteed to
change their lives. You speak eloquently. You use
open body language and natural movement. You
utilize thoughtful appeal and foreshadowing.
You even remember to say “Fellow Toastmasters
and Honored Guests” at the 30-second mark.
And your Call To Action? It’s not just a simple
summary with a cute quote at the end. It’s an
atomic bomb of wit and wordplay. A WMD of
truth so clear they’ll hear it in Baker. You drop it,
and you watch the audience absorb the impact.
You smile. You bow. And you hear. . .
Crickets. A void of silence, while the room
digests your message. A spattering of polite golf
claps. And then the Toastmaster begins reading
the introduction for the next speaker. Later, in
polite words, the evaluator says your speech was
good, but it wasn’t great. It was technically correct,
but unimpressive. It was well-planned. It hit every
mark. It achieved every written objective. But
it was somehow flat. Dull. Unremarkable. It just
didn’t. . . move anyone, emotionally.
Have you heard a speech that fulfilled its
purpose, had all the right information, and yet
it just didn’t have that certain spark? Have you
been the one delivering that speech? If your
story falls flat with the audience and you can’t
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understand why, ask yourself this fundamental
question: Did I demonstrate a Value Change?
Robert McKee, author of Story, says that if
nothing changes in value, the scene is a non-event.
Your speeches, which are 7-minute stories,
must also change in value to be emotionally
compelling. Values like Hate or Ignorance
must move to their natural opposite, Love or
Wisdom, by the end of your story. Compelling
events move from Bondage to Freedom. Chaos
to Calm. Negative to Positive. Or vice-versa.
Because it’s the change itself that excites the
audience. The change in you, the speaker and
the main character, is what we’re all watching
for. As the protagonist of your story, if you hold
the exact same opinions and values from the
first sentence to the last, then you might as well
have been reading from a phonebook for all the
audience cares.
What does Value Change in a Toastmaster
speech look like? The most common Value
Change in a winning speech is a journey of
Ignorance to Wisdom. Go to Youtube and watch
the 1st place International Speech winners, and
you can see the underlying structure of their
stories by watching for the Value Change. As the
speaker begins they’ll share a misconception
that was making their life miserable, sometimes
for years (Value Held: Ignorance) and they’ll