After 2 semifinals of extreme awesomeness, how could the final be better? Undoubtedly it would be like the final if the Rugby or Football World Cup: emotional for the team and supporters but hardly the best the players have done.
The semifinal speeches have been honed within an inch of their lives. Their points are needles, their edges razors, and their curves smooth and so sexy. Emotions have been driven home so hard and often that they've popped out the other side. How can even toastmasters be expected to put so much into a speech at club, area, division, district, and semifinal level and then throw it away and deliver another speech even better?
Chris Woo stood in front of 3000 and said this is more than I can endure, toastmasters deserve more than I can give today, all I can give is my apology for not being good enough.
And everyone in that great hall wanted to hug him. We've been there, we've felt it, we've lived it. During our icebreaker or at a competition maybe. For me it was Your Body Speaks" in the Compotent Communicator manual. It turned out better than I could have hoped, and so did Chris's speech.
His integrity, sincerity, and raw talent shone through the speech. Dananjaya delivered the best speech on the day, but Chris delivered the truest speech. He wooed the audience with his vulnerability, commitment, and bravery.
We're all looking foward to the second date Chris, please don't let us down.
On social media and in conversation, people have been asking each other about Chris Woo. Was he for real, was it a play for sympathy, why didn't he pull out so his runner-up could have a go, how could he go to the semifinals without a second speech ready?
ReplyDeleteThese questions miss what Chris gave his live audience during the contest: his complete and total sincerity. Those who say he seemed rehearsed forget that he is, in fact, a world-class speaker. As soon as he decided to tell the audience he had no speech, he would have been scribbling down ideas on how to do it, so of course the speech seemed prepared. But he hadn't put his usual time into it - his lack of body language, repetition of "actually", and weak finish showed that. I believe the speech was genuinely what he claimed it was, an acknowledgement of his supporters and apology for being unable to perform.
Why wasn't Chris's second speech ready? Who knows. Maybe some personal circumstance affected his preparation time. (The coach of another contestant, Alain Washnevsky, has just today posted a moving account on Facebook of helping Alain prepare even as work commitments took him out of the country for a lengthy period.) Maybe he was simply overwhelmed by the pressure. As the contestant from Brunei, an hour's flight away, Chris must have felt tremendous pressure to represent the locals well. I have no doubt that he fully intended to do so, until he got scared or lost faith or whatever it was that happened inside his head at 3am on the morning of the contest.
Why didn't he pull out? Well, can you imagine being the semifinalist in that position? If the crisis of faith was as late as Chris said it was - and I don't see why he would lie about that - there would not have been enough time to contact his runner-up and ask them to compete in the final that morning. Pulling out at that stage would likely have left the final short one contestant, and left the audience feeling cheated. In the circumstances, turning up to explain himself was the best thing Chris could have done. It showed his integrity and respect for his audience - Toastmasters who have all had that unprepared, unworthy feeling at one time or another, and who deserved to have the chance to understand Chris's decision.
One other thing. I believe the contest chair, International President-elect Mohammed Murad, knew the position that Chris was in. In the post-contest interview, he referred to Chris's hobbies as the subject of "a good chat" that the two of them had had earlier. My guess is that Chris went to Mohammed early in the morning, explained his situation, tried to pull out, and was persuaded to turn up and do the best he could. If that's the case, huge respect to Mohammed. Mentoring a terrified person to the stage where they agree to give it a go is one of the greatest things a leader can do.
Every Toastmaster deserved to hear Chris Woo's message: never quit; your supporters are there for you. I'm glad and grateful that I got to hear it live.