Manoj Vasudevan is one of the most humble great speaker I know.
And he just became World Champion of Public Speaking. ((https://twitter.com/Toastmasters/status/901315034357223424))
I am so happy for him and it is so well deserved.
(Toastmasters have a staggering 352,000 members so to be voted the best is an almost unimaginable feat.)
I have learnt a lot about speaking from Manoj and am happy and proud to be able to call him a friend. (We both live in Singapore).
Manoj and I did a session together just a couple of months ago at APSS (AsiaSpeakers.org) on: “How to craft a keynote”.
In today’s post I want to share some of the things that Manoj has thought me about speaking.
1) Craft your speech.
Manoj approach to speaking is very much that of a craftsman, he works and works and works on his stories until they are the best they can be.
Many speakers are happy when they have a good story and then just stick to telling that story, instead of seeing how it can always become better, always be told better.
That is why Manoj is the world champion and not them…
2) Keep your stories simple.
Simple doesn’t mean bad. Simple means good. All great speeches have simple, easy to understand messages. Manoj is an expert in delivering a speech that has a simple message that people take to their hearts.
Many speakers try to make things complicated, complex or difficult. It’s like if they think that making things harder to understand makes the speaker look like an expert. It doesn’t it makes the speaker look like a fool.
Manoj understands that the key to an audiences heart is to deliver a speech with a simple, but profound, message.
That is why Manoj is the world champion and not them…
3) Be yourself and open yourself up to the audience.
Manoj has this ability to tell personal stories in a way that makes the audience instantly like him. They are full of humour, (often of the self deprecating kind), full of warmth and full of heart.
Many speakers seems to think that they need to communicte some kind of “guru”, “rockstar”, “celebrity” status in order to gain respect. You do not. In todays world people actually are no so impressed with that kind of behaviour anymore. People want to listen to real people.
That is why Manoj is the world champion and not them…
I could go on forever, but I will stop at 3 examples, because Manoj is also a master of following the rhetorical rules of speaking and storytelling (where one of the rules is to always give examples in threes), so to show that I have learnt and listen to him I will keep my list to three too… 😉
If you ever get a chance to listen to Manoj speak I urge you to learn from him.
Congratulations to the newest world champion of public speaking, my friend and fellow public speaking colleague Manoj Vasudevan!
