By Douglas Kruger
LAST week, a merry band of debaters filed into the States Assembly, ties knotted, wits at the ready. But these were no grizzled politicians.
Drawn from schools across the Island, they were there to argue among themselves, making liberal use of gestures and dramatic voice modulation, in a brilliant initiative by the Jersey Youth Assembly. And they acquitted themselves with panache, arguing up a well-reasoned storm. There is more talent in the Island than we realise.
Growing up, I would never have had the chance to debate in the main chamber of a parliamentary building. How incredibly cool that it’s possible here! And well done to the convenors for making the experience special.
I got to share some tips and techniques used by professional speakers, and I opened with a simple point: “A good speaker is just a terrible one who kept trying, despite every mistake.” The most common errors are simple: blanking on a word here, clicking on a wrong slide there. Turning up at the venue a month early. Actually, I’ve done that twice.
Over my own 25-year speaking career, I’ve experienced every embarrassing disaster imaginable. Some are buried deep under a blanket of trauma and denial. But here are a handful that I can actually talk about.
I once got halfway through a rousing motivational speech based on the metaphor of a hamster wheel, when someone in my Kenyan audience stuck up a hand and asked: “But what exactly is a hamster?” Brought proceedings to a screeching halt. I was forced to explain my clever metaphor about “spinning in place”, and recalibrate my entire talk on the fly.
Once, in Hong Kong, I was told that a translator would be on stage with me.
“Just speak the way you normally would.”
Terrible advice. Turns out I was supposed to pause every ten seconds or so and wait for him to catch up.
I got a full five minutes in before the guy tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to stop.
I then served as an awkward-looking place-holder on the stage, maintaining a polite silence while he recounted everything I’d just said, right from the start. Once I realised how this would work, I then had to edit my speech down to half its original length. Again, on the fly.
Still not the worst thing that’s ever befallen a speaker. I once saw a man swallow a bee, live on stage, in the middle of a Toastmasters contest speech. He couldn’t go on. Wasn’t exactly a picnic for the bee, either.
Then there’s the sort of issue that no public-speaking course on the face of the earth can prepare you for.
For instance, what if you’re due to take to the stage in five minutes, but the handle breaks off the inside of the cubicle door in the loo, trapping you inside? Do you try to scrape under the stall door like Indiana Jones? Or vault over, like a prize horse in a steeple chase? You will, of course, discover that there is no reception on your phone.
And speaking of loos, if you’re wearing a light tan suit, never lean against the counter to wash your hands just before a speech. Counters can be wet. You won’t believe where the water stain ends up. Your only option is to pull a Mr Bean with the hand drier, and that’s not a pretty sight.
Then there was the day of the Great Thumbnails Incident. I had two speeches in one day, in separate cities, and arrived just in time for my second presentation.
The IT guy, who knew all this, was supposed to load my slides while I greeted the audience. So fully believing this would happen on the screen, I took to the floor and launched into a stirring opening.
Instead of launching my slides, my new friend opted to display the comprehensive and colourful collection of inappropriate imagery saved on his thumb drive. Out of interest, a photo that takes up one square inch on a laptop monitor can fill several meters of real estate when projected onto an auditorium-sized screen. Every pucker and freckle.
Of course, with my back to the audience, I was the last to know about it. My first clue was the simultaneous collective gasping of some 200 people. So I turned around to see what they were looking at. Imagine my surprise.
Oh, and once, I delivered a dramatic gesture from the stage, and hurled my clicker over the heads of audience members, all the way to the far side of an auditorium, where it crashed to the floor and smashed into a thousand tiny shards. That was two minutes in. Only 58 to go.
Weird things happen under pressure. Memorable things. Things that make therapists very wealthy.
But once you realise that the odd embarrassing moment is not anomalous, but actually inevitable, and therefore not really such a big deal, you learn to let go a little. Even enjoy the process.
And boy did our young speakers ever enjoy the process. There are real leaders budding in Jersey. Genuine talent. Who knows what formidable futures were launched last week? And we must salute the wonderful organisers of the Jersey Youth Assembly for making it happen.
And to the young debaters: keep going. And also keep a diary of the most memorable moments.
Douglas Kruger is a Hall of Fame Speaker, and five-times winner of the SA Championships for Public Speaking. His books are all available via Amazon and Audible.
