Speech

2-2 Connect With Your Audience

This project focuses on different audience types and how to address them effectively.

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to practice the skills needed to connect with an unfamiliar audience.

Overview: Develop a 5- to 7-minute speech on a topic that is unfamiliar to the majority of your audience. Because you deliver this speech in your Toastmasters club, you are familiar with the audience members’ preferences and personalities. Selecting a topic that is new or unfamiliar to your club members will allow you to practice adapting as you present. As you speak, monitor the audience’s reaction to your topic and adapt as necessary to maintain engagement.

Speech timings: 5:00, 6:00, 7:00

Script

You’re on a warm beach in California, looking over the sea. When suddenly, at the corner of your eye, a tall, blonde, handsome 25-year old man catches your attention. He is running past you. His hair would rival a lion’s mane, he has a perfect tan and his muscles are chiseled, just like Arnold. He has a beautiful smile and an enchanting gaze, you are ready to run after him, propose and spend the rest of your life with this god. When you realise he is accompanied by an equally sexy girl, a water polo athlete. And you think, dang, and slam your ice cream in the sand, you just lost your appetite. The worst thing is, you thought he winked at you.

Who was this incredible specimen of a man? It seemed like he had been gene-edited out of Gattaca. You guessed it, it wasn’t me, this was my big brother, older than me by 2min, so you could call him my twin!

Now imagine, how hard your life is, when your twin brother is better than you at everything. He was better at every sport, running faster, jumping higher, lifting more. He was the sexy one, girls were crazy about him. Unfortunately, we were non-identical, schade. I was the loser that all the girls asked if my brother liked them. Yes I had female attention, but not the one I wanted. He was so popular among girls that my mom even thought I was gay at some point!

Growing up, we couldn’t be any different. He had the physical attributes, while I was better at school, not because I was smart, I just didn’t have girls to take care of or friends to entertain. Everything opposed us: at football, I was a defender, he was a striker, he had long hair, I had short, he was an optimist, I was a pessimist, his favourite colour was blue, mine was green, his stuffed toy was a cat, mine a dog, he looked like my father, I looked like my mother. This often led to conflict, we had such opposing views on life, daily habits and what each other should be doing. That’s one thing to know about twins, we will always have an opinion on what the other should be doing.

After high school, again, we went opposite ways. He had a scholarship to play college soccer in California, in one of the best schools on the West coast. I had to pay to study in cold, rainy and expensive London. We came to be known as the American and the British twin. When my parents talked about their children, just like The Office TV series, everybody preferred the American version.

Indeed, I was kind of the crappy Chinese knockoff, but it taught me a lot. I was always that little bit more driven as I didn’t have this innate ability nor talent. Being the eternal underdog, I was always trying to prove myself to my family and my twin. And sports was our main marker of success between ourselves. This was one of the main reasons why I decided to take a gap year in Switzerland, to do my military service in the special forces. I thought, that’ll show him. But little did I know that guns are legal in the US and he didn’t have to go through months of mud and Swiss-German insults to shoot one.

Now, I like to think that we are different and mature enough not to compare ourselves too much. But, to be honest, I kept being the boring one, getting a stable job coding, moving to Berlin and going to Toastmasters every week and to top it all off, I have a German girlfriend. He, on the other hand, got a fiery latino girlfriend, goes on holidays to Mexico, sells real estate to Trump loving millionaires, and now, of course, earns more than me.

Looking back, I never had any resentment, I actually really wanted my brother to do well. With hindsight, having a twin was the best thing that happened to us. It really pushed us to succeed. Always having that competitor next to us instilled a winning mentality: playing chess, football in the playground, pillow fights, I lost all of them, of course.

Also, having a 365 days a year sleepover is the best thing that can happen to a kid. We always had somebody to play with, somebody to talk to and annoy. We also had activities that brought us together: idolising Federer winning Wimbledon, singing Eminem at the top of our voices, like real Detroit gangsters. But the best part was annoying our mom: we felt like Luke and Leia (not sure who is who), fighting agains the Galactic Empire and Darth Vader (our mom). I can tell you, we destroyed a lot of Death Stars.

People say that twins have a telepathic link. I disagree, I think that a very real connection is formed when you spend 18 years of your life with someone. There is a reason why having twins in China is good luck. My advice for all you soon-to-be parents over here, when gene editing really becomes a thing in a few years, make sure to choose twins, you’ll get funny kids, who’ll grow up to be badasses.