.

Effective um, uh public speaking

By Carolin Vesely

More than the fear of disease or even fear of death, it’s glossophobia that has the world wetting its pants.

In fact, fear of public speaking is so prevalent, there’s a worldwide organization – 200,000 members in 70 countries – working to stem this tongue-tied tide.

“We cure the phobia,” Ted Corcoran, incoming president of Toastmasters International, told us during the Region IV Conference held in downtown Winnipeg over the weekend.

Corcoran, who traveled from Dublin, Ireland, was among 255 delegates from across North America who gathered in the Radisson Hotel to hone their oratory skills and select a finalist for next month’s world championship, to be held in Atlanta.

To uncover some Toastmaster tips for overcoming glossophobia and improving your oral aptitude, we turned to Darren LaCroix, 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking.

During his keynote address Saturday, the failed Boston businessman-who credits Toastmasters for the fact that he now makes his living with his mouth as a paid motivational speaker, stand-up comic and author-shared a videotaped excerpt of that award winning speech.

It was titled Ouch! (How I went from Chump to Champ) and two minutes into it, LaCroix literally fell on his face.

He face-planted on purpose to make a point:

“Anyone who’s ever accomplished anything has fallen on their face,” he told the luncheon crowd. We learn from the ‘ouch.’ We have to be ‘ouch’ masters. Even if you fall on your face, you move forward.”

LaCroix also shared the video of his first (pre-Toastmasters) attempt at public speaking – open mike night at Stitches comedy club in Boston in 1992.

He fell on his face that time, and not on purpose.

But he got one laugh-when he goofed up a joke.

“I believe in that moment, when I got that laugh, I learned everything I needed to know about public speaking,” LaCroix recalls. “In that moment I forgot about the jokes and the strangers who were judging me and I opened up and just became myself.”

Of course, he also went out and joined four Toastmaster clubs to learn the trick of effective public speaking, which, he points out, you are not born with, but you can acquire with effort.

And the willingness to fall on your face.

Chump-turned-champ LaCroix offers these top three habits public speakers must adopt.

• Never turn down “stage time” – an opportunity to speak in public.
• Record yourself every time.
• Be humble. Toastmasters, over its 80-year history, has developed an effective system, Don’t think you have a better one.

Also, perfect the timing of your pauses, make your point and have a twinkle in your eye.

Those are the traits, LaCroix says the world public-speaking champions he studied have in common.

Rigatoni, you knucklehead

LaCroix also offers these “funny words” for budding orators. “When you humorize, you humanize,” he says.

• kumquat, knickers, whack, knack, knuckle, heckle, conniption, kabob, pickle, sickle, salami, swami, macaroni, rigatoni.

Why Toastmasters?

“I had been promoted to a position where I’d be speaking in front of people daily. Toastmasters gave me the confidence to speak in front of crowds of any size, from three people to 2,000.”
~ Winnipegger Jack Gillespie, 31-year Toastmaster and International president 1991-92.

“I was in a computer engineering program and recognized that I had to differentiate myself so that I stood out somehow.”
~ Jeff Siebenm 26, six-year Toastmaster from Edmonton.