And the blue ribbon goes to ...

Me!

The blue ribbon is an award to the best speaker for prepared speeches during a Toastmasters meeting, and it looks like this. 

It was a much needed boost in morale after a 11-month Toastmaster journey, and it would not have been possible had I done my speech in my 'home' club.  Thanks to the magnanimity of the club that hosted me, I received the most encouraging evaluation (from one of the best evaluator in Singapore!) and feedback from fellow toastmasters and guests, and the privilege of speaking in front of an open-minded audience.  In fact the decision and motivation to start this blog has a lot to with this evening.

Following is my speech for my Competent Communicator Project 9 (Persuade With Power):

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PROTECT YOURSELF FROM PERSUASION (7min 17sec)

How many of you have been cheated before? 

[* only 2 hands, when I had expected the whole room!!! The lukewarm response has caused me to panic, and I tried to recover ...*]

What a smart audience!  [* Is there a less 'patronizing' and 'puky' way to recover? *] 

But are you sure only 2 of you have been cheated of your money, your time and your trust in your life time?  [* Try as I might to show speech relevance, it's still the same 2 hands.  Wait a minute, 2 out of 11 is only about 18% ... oh YK you've got a long speech, just move on*]

How many of you want to be cheated again? [* Zero. Sure, if 9 out of 11 don’t think they have been cheated, this question no longer applies.  This question was meant to filter out the hostile audience who might want to stump me.  What’s worse: hostile audience or indifferent audience? *]

The diehard optimists among us may believe that everything comes with a silver lining in the lessons learnt.

But life is too short to learn all lessons on our own, and by the time we see light at the end of the tunnel, we might have reached the end of the tunnel.

Mr Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen.  Persuasion is not just about a toastmaster doing her project 9. [* it’s supposed to be funny, but audience didn’t think so *]

People study and make a living out of it.  Every day we are subjected to persuasion: advertisements, propaganda, scams, frauds.  To begin protecting ourselves from the invasion of persuasion, we have to recognize how vulnerable we are to persuasion - How we are hardwired, brought up and born with these weaknesses.

Ladies, have you ever been teased by your male partners and friends about ‘that time of the month’ whenever you get too 'emotional’?  Guess what gentlemen, you too have ‘that time of the month’ -  because we are all born with hormones!  [* establishing this as a fact from an endocrinology standpoint actually took up the bulk of my research ... rest of the info I have at my fingertips *]
Hormones swing our moods, evoke our emotions: our cravings and greed, fear and love, and lust and libidos.

Come on, how many men can resist the temptation of free food, free lodging, and free sex from 2 gorgeous Swedish girls?  Not even the shrewdest and most careful founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange, who’s now in prison having fallen into the honey traps.  Nina Wang and her fengshui master lover, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills - they all go to show that all the wealth, fame, power & influence in the world will not spare you from moments of weaknesses.

If you go home and look around your house, chances are you will find things you don't need!  People rush to grab the ’good deals’ whenever there is ‘Buy 1 get 1 free’ and ‘call within the next 10min’? All impulse of greed combined with The Scarcity Principle.

Second weakness lies in the way we are brought up to fear, trust and respect authority.  How many of you have watched the Leonardo DiCaprio movie ‘Catch Me If You Can?’  [* COOL, almost everyone! *]

Based on real life conman Frank Abagnale Jr, who managed to get away by dressing up as doctor, pilot, lecturer, attorney and security officer.  Notice something in common?  These are all figures of authority that people don’t normally question.

Adolf Hitler - How many was killed by his own hands? Just 1 – himself.  How many were killed as a result of his propaganda machine?  Estimated 5 to 14 million.  Is it just because Germans fear authority the most?  What about genocides across history: Nan King Massacre, Rwanda, Khmer Rouge?

Decades of psychology research such as the Stanford Prison Experiment has shown our 3^rd weakness – we are hardwired with Herd Behavior.  We need to belong, we need to conform.  Over 60% will faithfully follow without questioning, the other 30 over % might question but will soon succumb to peer pressure.

All it took was for the first few German officers to start off the killing, and waves and waves of German soldiers would just follow - amounting to the holocaust.  The same goes for Nan King Massacre, Rwanda, Khmer Rouge and all other genocides.

Knowing how vulnerable we are, there are 3 ways to protect ourselves.   [* it's getting kind of odd that I have yet to see the green light from the timer for the 5 minute mark - having already wasted time in the beginning repeating my question.  Something warned me to accelerate to keep within time limits - so I condensed my points and just 'force-fed' them to the audience as anaphora’s of triads *]

We can 1^st empower ourselves with knowledge.  Know your needs and your impulses.  Know your rationale and your rights.  Know that you can always say ‘no’.  Even if you find it uncomfortable to say no, try saying ‘Let me sleep on it’.  That will buy you time for the emotions to calm down.  Please repeat after me - ‘Let me sleep on it’.   [* YOOHOO, the audience actually repeated! even if it was just to humor me! and even if someone pointed out that this is sheer 'persuasion'! *]

Second, since we cannot know everything, always ask questions.  Question the fine prints, question the assumptions,  question even the authority.  [* and that's when I got the red light for 7 min - PHEW - just enough time to wrap up* ]

Finally, listen to your inner voice.  When things look too good to be true, when things smell fishy, when a doubt fleets across your mind, that’s your inner voice warning you. 

To be forewarned is to be forearmed.  What’s your inner voice telling you now?  

Mr Toastmaster ...

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YK’s 2-Cents: 

On the 'vote winning' factors:

1) It was based on my life time of observations, of lessons learnt, and I earnestly want to share them, to give back to the club that has offered me refuge and redemption.  I supposed enough members of the audience had finally felt my concern for them. 

2) As it was a logos-driven speech, it was to my advantage to have an audience of good listeners that paid more attention to the logos, and less attention to my low ethos (overlooking the weak initial response) and pathos (weak delivery).   My message and my intention has a chance to hit home.  

Had I done it in my home club where the audience is predominantly members who depend on persuasion for a living, my intention to warn audience from being 'the next sucker' will get in the way of their business development.   It will turn into a challenge of facing a hostile audience (I can still remember the diabolical sneers on some faces during earlier projects (and some sneers are perpetual).   The voting over there is also solely based on ethos, and they will see to it the blue ribbon always go to somebody deemed likeable to them.

3) Research and selection of examples and illustrations which were familiar to the audience

Areas for improvement:

1) To expect the unexpected whenever I plan to do Q&A or pass control to the floor - I was too taken-a-back by the unexpected initial response and panicked.

2) Even though I know the facts at my fingertips, I should have rehearsed more than 4 times.  It was enough preparation to give me a feel of the timing to mitigate the sudden 'red light'.   Still I didn't have enough 'cool' to use vocal variety after the impromptu self-editing.

3) Pathos pathos pathos!  LOTS of room for improvement in terms of delivery.  It was not a big room with only a 11-member audience, and yet the evaluator had problem hearing me.  Voice projection definitely needs more work.


I am thankful to Mr Ng (rhetoric@singnet.com.sg), my evaluator.  This speech is dedicated to him.