Interview with the world champion of public speaking

The world champion Vikas Jhingran is to my right
How often does one get a chance to meet and converse with a world champion and for free at that.

Public speaking is a passion with me. I am a member of Toastmaster's International.

In 2007 the world championship of public speaking was won by Vikas Jhingran. He is of Indian descent like me and a role model and inspiration to me.

Recently I had a chance to listen to some of his speeches and meet him in person at a District conference.

He repeated the speeches he made at the District and Regional level. The final award winning speech was screened.

In between and before the speeches he talked briefly about how he utilized his unique background to his immense advantage. For e.g. he fully exploited his Indian heritage by using speech topics that his rivals would not have had the opportunity to live and retell,thereby ensuring he stood out. All the three speeches in the world championship contest featured incidents from his life experiences in India.

His message to every one in the room was this. Reflect on what makes you unique, value your differences and exploit them to your advantage. Be yourself. Do not simply copy other person's style.

Know yourself - was a key theme he stressed throughout his presentation.

He shared some world championship secrets with us much to our privilege.

Vikas used the lessons he learned from turning around his academic career from an average student to an A lister who got into the MIT in creating a system that continues to serve him well in academia.

After he made many mistakes and attempted to copy other speakers' styles in his initial stint with Toastmaster's he replicated the model that he had used in academia in his speeches with tremenduous success.

The model is this. He found out that the reason he fared poorly in exams was that he was not cut out for all night cramming the day before the exam like others in his circle were. He discovered his strengths and weaknesses and used it to his advantage.

In his speaking engagements he does not listen to the two speeches made immediately before his. He also goes into a contest never focussing on the win.

I was bowled over by it. Not only is he an entertaining speaker with a great message but as was evident he is also the message.

He is a celebrity and it was no surprise to see him literally mobbed.

Still I was able to get a few minutes to interview him.

Q) How did you discover your passion for public speaking?

Vikas) It was not immediately apparent that I had a passion for it. I was working as a junior engineer and on one occasion badly wanted to make a client presentation. I was told I could not as I did not have good presentation skills. I enrolled in Toastmaster's and discovered within a few months that my self confidence and self image had grown a lot. In conversations with my colleagues I created more favorable impressions.

Seeing tangible benefits in Toastmasters motivated me to continue participating in Toastmasters. It lead to a virtuous cycle of self improvement.

Q) How did you go about preparing for the world championship?

Vikas) Mentoring is very important. You cannot go it alone.

I watched the sppeches of all the participants in world championship finals over the past 10 years.

I received mentoring support from previous world champions such as Darren LaCroix.

It is important to keep in mind that I did not blindly copy their styles.

I had my own style and picked and choose only those strategies that helped fine tune my style. In all I would say I discarded 90% of what the experts had to say.

But the remaining 10% was extremely valuable.

I also choose mentors who possessed qualities that I admired and which I wanted to emulate directly.

I worked with Mary Mallowney who is a tremenduously talented writer. Writing is my strength and I wish to improve it.

I also worked with Dave Safacone who besides being a great writer is also a speaker that was a world championship runner up.

Finally a tremenduous amount of hardwork. I must have practised my world championship winning speech at least 30 times.

Q) How has you life changed after winning the world championship

Vikas) I receive lot more requests to speak. I appreciate the speaking opportunities and meeting new people.

I am also more well known at MIT.

My advisor appreciates my achievement tremenduously.

MIT has a reputation for engineering. This achievemnt of mine underscores the fact that engineers can be great communicators too.

Q) What is your muse that gets you the great content for your speeches?
Vikas) I am a creative writer and poet. I used some of the material from my poetry for my speeches.

I also reflect on life experiences.

Draw on experiences that leave an emotional impact on you.

Beginning speakers are afraid to use emotions in their speeches. Great speakers use emotions to make a connection with the audiences.

In a speech I once made, a girl sitting in the front row was so moved by what I said she started crying. I later walked up to her and thanked her.

It is tremenduously motivating to see you make an emotional connection with your audiences.

Q) Any other words of advice for aspiring world champions?

Vikas) Compete in as many contests as you can.

Find your own style and then look to experts to refine it. Do not simply copy other speakers' styles.

Find out what works for you and what does not.

Experiment.

For the world championship speech I used a question to conclude my speech. All others elaborated on what point the audiences should take home in their conclusions.

Q) Any peculiarly Indian challenges?

Vikas)My pronunciation. For e.g. between using the V and W letters.

Slow down. Many Indians tend to speak way too fast. Slow down.