Ep. 163 PART 1 - 2022 World Championship Speech Critiques-Mas

Nice.

The 2022 World Championship. Taking a look at the top three. Now before we dive in, before we get officially started, first, Mark Brown, my brother. Welcome.

Hey, good to be here.

My friend Mike Davis, world class speaking coach. Tedx coach, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for bringing me in, Darren. Love to do this with you guys every year. This is fun.

Nice, nice, nice. So first quick disclaimer before we dive in. Here's a disclaimer. The results are the results. We're not here. We're not going by the judges form. We're here from decades of world class coaching for the audience to win. What did we like? What were some. Mark, you know David Brooks did a program magic moments. What were some of the magic moments? And let's show them to you to dissect them. If you're watching this, whether you're watching it live with us. Cool. Thank you for being here or watching the replay. Take notes because we're going to give some specific time codes. So each of the speeches I've taken literally specific time codes Mark and Mike use utily they do that as well. So you're going to get the insights from this Mark. Mike, it took I don't know, two, three hours last night to go through specifically step by step. The results were the results. We're not here to say we disagree. We agree. It's not about that. It's about what can we learn from this? What did they do right? And if they asked us for coaching, what would we have recommended that maybe they could have done better. Now disclaimer. Mark typed pipe it on this or Mike, if I was to watch my own speech, I would have some critiquing to do as well. You're in the moment. It's the world championship. There's pressure on. So make no mistake, mine was not perfect. I had a great connection with the audience. The connection was awesome. However, it was not perfect. There were things I would change. So I just want to say that right up front. Mark, your thoughts?

Yeah. And what we offer today is not going to be directed at the three winners. It's really hopefully educational for everyone who is here, those who are alive who will hear the podcast later on. But what we share will be our observations of things we may have done poorly because I won this title 27 years ago and I've learned so much since then. So the goal is for, for all of us to learn and benefit from these critiques.

Mike Davis, your thoughts before we dive in.

They finished 1, 2 and 3. That's pretty good. We're just, again, it's pointing out what they did. Well, as we always like to say, it's stage time. We're going to tell you what you did. Well, because if we don't, if somebody doesn't point it out, you might stop doing it. And then how could you make it even better? Mark?

Yeah. One quick thought. We encourage comments in the chat. When you do make comments, please make sure they're being made to everyone, not just the panelists and hosts. All right, so double check in the blue box in the chat, make sure it does not say host and panelists. It says everyone. Okay? Thank you so much.

All right, so.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, Ahas, let's dive right in.

All right, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us, Mark. I don't know. I'm just so excited and I'm excited about the notes. I went through it. I relived the whole experience. Mike Davis, your thoughts?

My thoughts are. If I could. We're going to jump right into an audience participation question. I'm going to show you a quick slide in the chat box and unfortunately, if you're listening to this, you won't see, but we'll describe the picture in a moment. Tell us which one is more visually appealing to you on this slide. Is it the top? If it. If you like the top picture better, and I'm not talking about the speaker per se, but just the whole image. If you like the top picture better, put a 1 in the chat box. If you like the second one, put a two. Can you see those two pictures visually? Which one do you find more appealing as an audience member? One or two.

A lot of twos coming in right now. I see a couple of ones, but twos are dominant. Interesting.

Yes. And I can ask the question a little better. Which one do you feel more connected to? 1 or 2? That's a better question.

Better question.

Better question. Which one? Because they're both very handsome young men. That wasn't the question. We both know. We know that already. Which one grabs your attention and connects with you before the contest? Here's the third year we've done the virtual, and this year was a hybrid situation. We just naturally think it's more of an advantage to be in person visually. We found because of the way the camera was placed, it was an advantage to be online. Who would have thought?

Yeah, didn't see that one coming. So this is the first time, if you're listening, this is the first time it was a hybrid contest, meaning some of the contestants were virtual and some of the contestants were live. And the downside of being live is they locked the cameras down. They did not follow. There was no close ups. You could not see the micro expressions on their face. Now being there live, you have a different connection. It feels different. So look, there's advantages to both. But bottom line, if you couldn't be there, you did it virtual. If you could be there, you probably wanted to be there for all the love in the room. Mark, you know what?

I have not been in a virtual contest, but I can see why number two was the more prominent answer today. Because if one thing I tell you appealed to me was the visual sense of seeing the micro expressions on someone's face. But that was just my opinion of how those two images work.

We do have a question from Marion. How many judges were in person and how many were online? I believe they were all in the room.

No idea. No idea.

I think they had some virtual ones, but I'm not sure it was asked. I think it was Nazir asked, why are we only critiquing the top three? Because only the top three are online that you can watch. And we wanted people to be able to go back. So be ready to take notes whether you want to type it in or write it down. Because we're going to give you specific time code. So we're going to show you some of the clips, but some of them we're just going to give you the time code as the example. So in that situation, we wanted Nazir. We wanted people to be able to go back and study and watch it, because that's important. Also we're going to go. We can go deeper on three than we could if we did eight. So I would rather go deeper on three than surface level on eight. And sometimes in the past that's what we've done. And I just. Anyway, I'm excited to go deep on these. And my last disclaimer. It's easier to critique than to craft. New foundational phrase. It's easier to critique than to craft. It's easy for us from our experience to sit back and critique and be nitpicky than it is to Craft it. So kudos to the top three for the work, the effort they did, the coaching they got, the many clubs they went to and tested it and tweaked it. So they have done hours. It's very easy for us to sit back and be, ew. This could have been better. Mike, do you want to start? Three, two, one.

Sure. Yeah. Alexandra did point out that half of the judges were virtual, and he should know. He's one of the people we're evaluating today, so thank you, Alexandra.

Maybe we'll bring him up after.

Yeah. I'll jump in with some comments right away about Masa. First thing that jumped out about him was that this is a likable to me as a kid, so I'm going to say likable young man, I mean, immediately has this huge smile on his face, even though the camera was far back. And I loved his suit. It's something different. It wasn't traditional. I didn't find it to be a distraction at all. So he came out. And what each of the three speakers did, too, is because of the way the introduction went this year, you were to acknowledge the. The contest chair welcomed you, you thanked the speakers, thanked the chair, and then waited until she replied. All three of our speakers did a fabulous job of using silence. They did not move forward until she acknowledged them and they commanded the stage, whether virtually or in person. That was impressive because so many people get the jitters. The nerves are already at a high level and they're jumping in and they waited. I thought that showed how they owned the stage right away.

Andy, why the English accent when being nitpicky? I don't know, Andy. Maybe you inspired me, but I think of Patricia Fripp, because Patricia says specificity builds credibility. And if you're listening to this or you're not involved in Toastmasters this year, you're just getting some insights. What we're saying here is this is the first year that they required that you thank the contest master, and the contest master refers back to you so you know that you were heard. So this is also for the virtual people to make sure they're audible so that communication is going both ways before the speech begins. So as a formality, the time does not start there.

One of the aspects about Moss that I liked is he established his foundational phrase early. Behind every action, there's a story. Go find out. That was repeated at least three times, and that was the wisdom from his father. So that's what he needed. And it helped to change in the story arc where he undergoes a transformation that changed his perspective, in this case on his mother and the relationship between them. So we saw an effective change from start to finish. Finish. Terrific humor in there. I love the heartless mother disorder at the 349. Mark, by the way, we're going to try to timestamp our comments so when you go back and watch this or listen to it, you'll know what part of the speech we're talking about.

Mike, just to clarify, that one. So it's a comedy rule of three. And he said he named two literal disorders and then he created the third one, the disobedient disorder. Oh, you're talking about the 345. That's when he did avoid. Avoid I eat. Oh, the heartless mother disorder. So he established it. Just FYI, he established that creating disorders because he was studying psychology. So he established that, you know, labeling people. His mother didn't like he was labeling people, and then he labels her. So it's a callback to earlier, Mike.

Yeah, and that was one of the points I struggle with a little bit. Even watching Massa's speech a second time, I felt there were possibly two messages in here. It was his father when he talked about, see what was behind. Okay, behind every action there's a story. Go find it. But he also hit this label concept pretty hard, and there was some confusion there for me to say, which one of these does he want me to walk away with? Even though he did end at the 7:19. Mark, he asked, are you labeling someone? I wasn't clear there. And I struggled a little bit with that.

Yeah. So I'm going to show a quick clip and let me point out two things before I show this. So if you're taking notes at 58 seconds, he does a great job establishing dad is on one side, mom is on the other. The person who is mean and tough is on one side of the stage. And dad, who loves him and is nurturing, is on the other side of the stage. I really like how he did that on the same clip. Here's what I didn't like. And Mark, you know, and Mike, this is one of the things we teach is if you're taking notes, characters don't make eye contact with the audience. A character only talks to the other character. So if you're talking to a young boy, you. The focus is here. They don't look around. Because what you're implying, if you're looking around, is that the child, the person they're talking to is moving or them being Disrespectful and looking away while they're talking to them. It's subtle. We're being picky. This is just one of the aspects we're teaching. So let me show this clip, and then you guys can piggyback on that. So I'm going to play it 44 seconds. So at 58 seconds, notice how we establish the stage. But then notice at 1:32, the character is in dialogue but looking around. Check it out.

Me. There are two gifts that unite us. And my mom once told me, stop crying and toughen up contest. Share friends. Do you feel the contrast?

So he's talking about dad established on one side and mom on the other side. Now he's even doing this, which is great use of stage anchoring. But watch his eyes when he delivers dialogue.

Growing up, I wish that my tough mama was more like dad, loving and caring. She never gave me a hug, never said, I love you instead.

So even the I love you, he's starting to look around.

She'd be rough and tough. You see, in 2012, I pursued a psychology degree. Tough mama disagreed. She said, son better become a doctor.

So notice how son he looks at the character and then he looks around. And here's where that loses emotional connection in the emotional connection. So that takes us out and almost confuses us. Mark or Mike. Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I agree. There were several times he seemed to begin a conversation with characters. Now, his dad was the most consistent. Dad almost always looked at him, and it was brilliant. He had the same posture, the same attitude. So Dad's character was wonderfully established, both when he was downstairs and upstairs in the bedroom on the bed. Was there Wonderful. But there were times his eyes would then go to the audience as if maybe he was concerned. I don't want to lose the audience by being in character, but our recommendation is if you're having a conversation, have the conversation with the character, then come to the audience so we can see the result and the reaction and the emotion associated with that particular conversation between two characters.

Yeah. And that reminds of the other and some of the members pointed out in the chat box. One of the keys to being in a hybrid environment is you can't forget there's a camera with an audience on the other end. And I didn't see ever making a point to talk to the camera. We love to see speakers do that, especially when they're making their key point. Step forward and look into that camera, even if it is at the back of the room. Because now your virtual audience feels like, oh, you're talking to me. And I never got that sense. But also, same with the dialogue. If you want people to feel like they're watching a scene, you can't look at the audience in order for this to experience that it's contradictory. But watch a speaker who expertly does that, comments here is the other characters back and forth and never does look at the camera until they make the point.

We're so used to watching film and television. It's almost like watching a scene in a play or on a film as a scene plays out when the scene ends and you can interact with the audience as well. And Michael, you mentioned the camera. I always say this, the camera. In this particular scenario, the camera is another individual in the room. And hybrid meetings are becoming commonplace. Now. I had one earlier this year for an insurance company and they had a camera in the back of the room and happily a light to shine on the stage so I could be well lit for the camera. But I had to be very aware and conscious that the camera was there and deliberately address that camera at certain times. So, yes, it's always wise to remember the camera is someone in the room and in dialogue have that conversation personally and then come back to the audience and follow through. Darren.

All right, got another clip here. So at 4:07, if you're taking notes, he had a good rule of three. What I love about this rule of three, it's not just for a laugh. It's establishing his emotion and how he feels. He's avoiding his mom. So she does this, I avoid her. She does this, I avoid her. She offers me food, I eat it, laugh, laugh, laugh. And then I avoid her. So it's the fact that he's avoiding her. Now watch this. I think this is a huge opportunity where he could have really grabbed us and brought us in. And it's when he notices his mom crying. So I'll show you what he did and how I would have advised. So if you're taking notes, this is at about 4:32.

Wait, wait, wait. My tough mama never cries. Anyway, in my room for half an hour, my dad knocks.

Okay, so it's a little before that. My bad. I avoid.

When she offered me my favorite food, I ate.

I like to smile too.

Then I avoid. And after three weeks of avoiding her, one evening I came home and was going up to my room, but I noticed that Mama was sitting in the living room. Mama's eyes had tears. Wait, wait, wait. My.

Okay, so in this situation, I would prefer he stop on the stairs and look, wait. So he told us he noticed his mama crying. I would have suggested, let us witness you noticing your mama crying and hear the internal dialogue. Mark, your thoughts?

Yeah, that's good. Actually, very often the action that we take will reinforce the point we want to make. The action we take will reinforce the point we make. And as Darren says, if he's already halfway up the stairs and he goes, wait, wait. His mom crying. Tough Mama never cries. Well, okay. And then he goes up. So we see he gets a realization, and he decides not to be concerned. He goes upstairs, and then his dad comes and counsels him on what he should have done in response to his mom. And that was the moment where everything shifted.

Yeah, that's a key point. And Mark brings up the most important word there is moment. We preach this in stage time frequently. It's all about moments. That moment actually sets up another moment where he gets a shift in his whole interaction with his mother and their relationship. Darren, can you go to 6, 10, and play that for about 15 seconds?

Yep.

You'll get close enough.

The moment on the stairs would set up what you're about to see.

Close enough. There you go.

Listening and understanding helped me discover the story behind mom's actions. See, Mama cared for me in the best ways that she knew how. Though her love was unconventional, it was unconditional.

Great writing.

Her love was unconventional, but it was unconditional. Tweetable moment. That sums it up right there.

Yep.

One thought about that, though. Darren, could you play that clip again just for a second? That's that piece where he delivers a beautiful bit of writing.

Yep. I think I know where you're going with this. I got the same thing written down.

In the best ways that she knew how. Though her love was unconventional, it was unconventional right there.

My recommendation, a line like that, you hold your ground, you face your audience, and you emote to them. The movement dilutes the message.

Yep. Don't move on key lines. I learned it from you, Mark.

I appreciate that. We recommend you do not move on a key line. You stand your ground, establish a connection with that audience, and then let that line drop. And I always recommend a line like that. My line is, put some air around it. A pause before, deliver the line, and then a pause after. Let that line sit there that the audience fears. So when you move, it's one distraction. When you don't pause before it, a second distraction. When you don't pause after it, it's as if you can blow by the line. I'm not saying he did but for any presentation, any key line you establish in your presentation, put some air around it, stand your ground and deliver it from that spot to give the audience a reason to key in on that line.

Darren, here's what wasn't clear, I get it. But here's what I think would have been powerful is the fact that he never really clarifies that the reason she was crying is because he's been avoiding her.

Right, right.

It's implied. But I would love to hear, son, why are you avoiding me? Or just that sets up the conversation. So I get it. But something like that I just think would be powerful. We don't hear her talk much and I think that would have been a powerful clarifier that that was the avoidance was the reason she was crying and.

Why I think that would be good. Darren, My last thought on that particular piece is this. Moss was very skillful at establishing certain movements as well. When dad spoke in a certain posture and when Ma said, he used this gesture, Aaron gesture for you, that movement a few times to show he wasn't concerned. And when he saw mom crying, he also went and went upstairs. But having him understand now why she was crying, it magnifies the contrast between the depths of her love, him avoiding her, and his nonchalance, almost dismissive and. And contrast also gives us a clearer picture of what's happening. There was a comment in the chat by Colin when he said he considered a triad a good time for a set of three with unconditional being the third. I'm going to disagree with you, Colin, on the conditional unconditional. I think those two are in such direct contrast, adding a third could muddy the water and muddle the impact. So from my perspective, the unconditional and unconventional was a perfect contrast in that particular scenario. Now, we love our triads, but for me personally, in that particular case, I wouldn't recommend a triad. But that's my opinion. Only my opinion. Right?

Agree wholeheartedly, Mark. We have to be careful with all of these rules we've established in speaking is we don't have to use three every time. And when we're talking about a foundational idea, the shorter and the more rhythmic, the better it would dilute it if we added anything to it.

Reason why I always say when we are selective, we will be effective. The key is to select when is appropriate to do a triad. When do I use a pair? When do I use contrast? When do I use dialogue? When do I use normalization? When do I. When we are selective, we will be effective when we are selected will be effective. I do have one comment on the establishment of the two gifts. If I'm going too far ahead, Ari, you can stop me right now. But I will confess I was fooled early on in the speech, at the very beginning when mass began, he talked about two gifts. Title my brain is prepared to hear them. His dad told him there are two gifts that unite us. But he doesn't tell us what those two gifts are. So when tough mama says, don't stop crying, Toughen up. And he asks, do I see the contrast? I will confess I didn't, because I had nothing to contrast toughen up against. I don't know that was deliberate or not, but I thought I would hear what those two gifts were. And because he didn't state them, I said, okay, I'm going to get them soon enough. And I got two gifts soon enough. My dad was loving and caring. So for the whole speech, my brain went, dad, loving and caring are the two gifts. Mom is Tough Mama quit crying, toughen up. And then he reveals, no, it's a listening ear and a loving heart. So I was under the wrong impression of what those two gifts were for half of the speech for two reasons. One, they weren't fully established when he first mentioned two gifts that unite us. And two, he told about loving and caring twice. So I made the assumption those are the two gifts. Again, my Jamaican brain is going here. So perhaps no one else saw it that way, but that was where I was led. Now, when he did establish a listening ear and a caring heart are the gifts that unite us. And his movement was synchronous with what he said at the beginning. I totally got that. But this time around, early on, I was misled regarding what those two gifts were.

I had the same thing, Mark. At 59 seconds, he asked the question, do you feel the contrast? And I put, no, yeah, against what question? And he rushed through it. He didn't let us even think about it. And that's very typical. A lot of folks do it. And we're always telling speakers, slow it down. Ask your question. Let us think about it.

And I had a 6:40. I did love the happy ending. I love that it's like a Disney movie, Mark. But I still would have loved to have heard his mother be a part of that rather than just her hugging.

Yeah.

So again, dialogue, in my opinion, missing. I love the message. Behind every action, there's a story. And here's a bonus, too. It tied into the convention theme this year, which is we're all Storytellers. All right, so I love the message. I didn't love the last words linger. His last words were, there are two gifts that unite us. I would have rather he reiterated the main message and then asked us to listen.

And yes, listening ear, loving heart.

You know, listen with a loving heart and you will be united or be united. But you must listen. You must have a loving heart. You know, something like that. Rather than there are two gifts that unite us. I thought that was. It could have been stronger.

One last thought regarding use of stage, which very helpful to us. Early on, he established that he went in 2012 to study psychology. I didn't bookmark or didn't time stamp that particular statement. But at 3:10. And he moved to his right, audience left, which we see as the past in time. Cool. I love that. However, when you say 2012, I began to study. Some people are going to do math or maths. Okay, 2012, it was 10 years ago. Was he 18? I'm 20. So he's 32 years old. Maybe. I don't know. Then later, at 3:10, he says, At 19, I had my first great heartbreak. But he moves to his left, our stage right. He's going to the past, but he's moving to the future. Visually, we see the past to our left. That's audience left, speaker right. We see future, audience right, speaker left. He went from going to college to study psychology to be 19 years old at the very opposite end of the stage. He had no place else to go. So visually, it was a bit confusing. As far as timelines go, the established rule of thumb is as a presenter, when you go to your past, you move to your right, audience left. You progress to your future. You go along to your left, audience right. So we see time passing as an audience from left to right. That's it.

What was the sound that he said when he said like meh? It wasn't meh, but what was the.

Like an eh.

Eh?

Yeah.

I didn't know how to spell that, so. But what I liked is the brevity and we got it and the emotion behind it. It was very brief, very succinct, and we understood his mindset. That's awesome. 5 minutes and 18 seconds. When he finally agrees with his dad to go down and talk to his mom, he says, fine, I'll try. Now this is being super specific and picky, but I think he could have just done fine. I don't think he needed. I'll try because we're trying to conserve words. There's nothing wrong with works, it's the same attitude, but I just think, fine. And then he went down and it would have saved him a couple words. Any other thoughts on the two gifts?

Last thought regarding staging visually. Mom is downstairs in the living room crying and Mass and dad are upstairs on his bed getting with counsel in the same physical space on stage. If you look at 5:22 on the video, around 5:22, he's having this talk with his dad in the same place that mom was crying. As we present, let's think about establishing physical locations on the stage. That'll make it very clear to the audience what's taking place, who's there, and as far as possible, if you want to reserve a certain spot for a certain person, a certain activity, that's great. But think about how we can use Stage effectively. We did a podcast on Stageology several months ago. Go back to our podcast and look at that particular episode. We talk in more detail about blocking and setting the scenes on stage for character for the audience. I do want to respond to what Mary's voice said about culturally, some cultures read right to left and up and down. That is true. That is true. I use that thought within the confines of an English speaking contest with Toastmasters, a North American organization, realizing that we have to make concessions in a case like that. We're in an Asian country where the culture was different. Yes, I would certainly stress that there. So I should have. I should have clarified that within the confines of the contest, in this particular case, it is wise to apply that standard. That's all. Thank you.

All right, Mike, anything else on mas?

No, that's. It was pointed out. And this is for all the in person presenters. They were limited. They couldn't use the stage the way you normally would with a moving camera or with not having to think about a camera. So that was a restriction they all had to deal with.

They shrunk the stage.

Yes.

Can you see the power of this level of feedback? Can you see how it could be a game changer for your presentations? Feedback like this on your stories and your presentations. If you'd like to work with us, we got two options. Number one, go right now to get a speaking coach. You'll see the whole team there and the options of working with each of us one on one. Or number two, check out stage time, go to the special offer mentioned in this podcast, darrenlive.com ti and work with us and be a part of the weekly calls where we coach our members and give them this level of feedback. So join us whichever option works best for you. And we'll see you next week. Join us next week for part two, where we dissect Alexand's speech, who came in second in the world in the 2022 World Championship of Public Speaking. He knocked it out of the park. He's also a Stage Time member, so he joined us for the call. So check it out. Join us next week for part two.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, Ahas? Let's dive right in.