You Can Open Your Soul to Give It All You’ve Got and Still Lose

When they announced my name for 3rd place, my heart sank. 

I felt disappointed, discouraged, and in a way, rejected.

I’ve competed in public speaking competitions for years and specifically, the Toastmasters International Speech a couple of times. Yesterday, I was back on stage for the Division level contest.

This is the furthest I’ve made it.

Of course, this year is different because they moved the contests to take place over Zoom and any contestant, public speaker, or fellow Toastmaster can tell you—

It is NOT the same to have a contest virtually

• You lose the stage’s speaking area

• You lose the full body language

• You lose great acoustics 

• You lose the way public speaking makes you feel alive

• You lose physical props if you want one

• You lose the high feelings of enthusiasm and low feelings of sadness in your story

• You lose the humor because the audience is muted so you can’t hear if people are laughing

• You lose the meaningful eye contact you make with the people in the first few rows 

• You lose the energy of the audience

• You lose the spirit of a contest 
  

Despite all of that, I brought my highest energy self to the front of my Macbook webcam and created the closest thing to a real contest.

Look, I know why I lost 

More than anything, I was eager to connect with my audience. Candidly, these days I’m eager to connect with anyone.

One of the best ways to connect with people is to be vulnerable. It’s to share difficult times and how you got through them.

So I opened my soul to the virtual audience, nearly 100 strangers about my upbringing from the Native Indian reservation in New Mexico to the way my father treated me since I was young. My speech was about finding home in movement. 

I know I lost because my speech lacked a clear, tight message. I did not include a clear audience take away.

Stupid mistake.

What I feel I gained in connection, I lost in clarity. 

There are other things I gained

I would not have made it to the division level if it wasn’t for the support of my home club, Advanced Public Speakers in FiDi.

In the evenings, they set up practice Zoom sessions to check backgrounds, how we sounded, and what some hand gestures looked like on screen.

In our meetings, my club has a pattern of giving honest feedback on what was great and what could use improvement. This includes feedback that is hard to hear.

Crafting this speech and preparing to present it was not easy. I wasn’t in a clear mental headspace for about a week. It was frustrating to prepare a speech over Zoom when the magic of a speech is in the live experience.

However, feeling the support of my club really carried me. I feel like I’ve built a stronger relationship with them. I feel closer even though we’re all farther apart.

Now What?

It’s a day later and I’m still defeated. 

But I’m also wide awake because I believe failure is always a wake up call.

It’s life telling us that we haven’t done our best yet.

Not yet.