Epilogue: The Three Speeches
The author reiterates that he won the World Championship of Public Speaking in 2007, and wishes to share with the reader the three speeches he delivered in the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final round, along with the insights that are associated to writing and delivering them.
2007 was not the first year he competed - the previous year he had taken third place in one of the ten semifinals. And in comparing himself to those who had surpassed him, he recognized that the difference wasn't in their speaking skills, but in the speeches they delivered. They were simply more impactful and connected on a more emotional level.
Quarterfinals
His first speech, called "Perfect," is about taking control of your life. As an Indian, he decided to start with the topic of marriage, as many westerners are chagrinned by the notion of an arranged marriage and do not realize that people in such relationships are often entirely happy. More to the point, while western marriages often begin with people expecting the relationship to make them happy without any effort on their part, arranged marriages requires each partner to accept the responsibility of working to achieve happiness.
The final emotion he was going for was "empowerment" - to make people feel that they are able to make the best of life, even when they are in situations they did not choose for themselves. The notion of working to achieve happiness in an arranged marriage is a springboard to encouraging a perspective that can be applied in other areas of life.
He recognized that he needed to avoid seeming critical of western marriages, as this would provoke a defensive reaction. So it would not be a comparison-contrast, but merely his own story of making the best of an arranged marriage. Since the audience was primarily westerners, he could count on them to make the comparisons on their own, without his coaching them to do so.
He also recognized that conflict in a relationship was a way to add drama to his story - such that he would begin with themes of helplessness and struggle and end with the theme of success and empowerment.
He shares two versions of the speech - an earlier version that contains very little conflict and a gradual transition from one emotion to the next, then the second which introduced more conflict and swung back and forth between the emotional states. Naturally ,the second was more effective - it won the semifinals.
Semifinals
The second speech, called "Postcard," followed a similar inspirational theme: people often go through life without making much of an effort to live life to the fullest and are stuck in the mundane.
He begins the speech talking about the Taj Mahal - how everyone he meets seems to assume that, as an Indian, he had visited it. The conversation that followed when he admitted he had not became so tiresome that he began saying that he had, though he could only describe it from a postcard he had seen.
This transitions to another story about an uncle to whom he had been close as a child, but saw only infrequently as an adult, and who died unexpectedly - or more aptly regret he felt at not taking the opportunity to spend more time with his uncle while he was alive.
Both of these stories impress upon the audience that there are places and people whom we fail to adequately appreciate in our everyday lives, and that it is worth the effort to invest the time in going out of our way to have these emotional experiences.
Again, he presents a draft along with the final version. The draft lacked emotional impact, and there was nothing to tie the two topics together, and it also tended to leave the audience with a negative final emotion of regret. By cutting out the poem at the end and simply leaving the audience with the sense of a missed opportunity, rather than the regret that follows, the final emotion would be one of wistful desire to make the most of the moment, rather than regret for failing to have done so.
He admits that this is unusual, and that many speeches try to come to a firmer resolution - but if the speaker's purpose is to ask someone to make a change in their lives, leaving them with a very contented feeling is likely not a good approach, because contentment leads to inertia. It was therefore important for him to leave something unresolved, to arouse a sense of discontent, to impart a desire to act.
Finals
The finals of the World Championship would be a contest between ten speakers, all of whom had won the previous two rounds, and all of whom were capable and accomplished speakers. He hadn't counted on making it this far in the competition, and was faced with the task of writing one of the most powerful speeches of his life in the space of two weeks.
"The Swami's Question" is a speech that encourages a person to seek the right path in life by considering the kind of person they wish to be, rather than consulting in the supernatural or many of the various hucksters who claim to offer the answer to life.
In the speech, his mother brings a swami to consult with him because he is not sure if he should take advantage of an opportunity to travel abroad to attend college. The question the swami asked him to meditate upon is "who are you?" - which caused him to think about what he wanted to achieve in life.
The second part of the speech transitions to speak of other problems he encountered, at a time in life he was feeling lost. He remembered to meditate on the same question, and the answers became clear.
A gimmick he used in the speech was holding an envelope in his hands, pretending it was a congratulatory letter for something he had achieved, but never disclosing the content. Through the speech he would gaze at the envelope when speaking of achieving a goal, and at the end he held it up as an indication that contemplating the swami's question had enabled him to achieve success in life. He never did tell the audience what was in the envelope - as the specifics were immaterial, he just needed a symbol of accomplishment to use in the speech.
Conclusions
In the conclusion, the author returns to the power that a great speech can have on a person's life. He mentions that he gets emails about the speeches he had delivered, even years ago, from people who wish to thank him for the words and ideas that led them to make a positive change in their lives. A good speech can do that.