Two Speeches, Two Best Speaker Awards

Jude Anker joined our club in November 2009. She had a goal to bang out some great speeches — and so far she’s had tremendous success. Her first two times at the podium she won best speaker of the day. Not bad for a beginner!

I sat down with Jude to talk about her second speech, titled, “What is Beauty?”

Her speech, which was about how people define beauty in a multitude of ways, was successful because she got to the point, she wasn’t afraid to show her vulnerability, and she chose to deliver the speech in a very informal, almost conversational manner.

What no one could have guessed after having heard her speak was that at 10:00 pm the night before, she threw away the speech she had been working on for a week and started completely over.

When I asked her why she told me, “The original speech was about my difficult relationship with my dad. While I was trying to keep the speech upbeat, the darkness of it is what kept showing through. I asked my nine year old to listen to me practice and when it was over she came up to me, gave me a big hug, and told me she loved me, like she felt a little sad for me. It was then I was like, whoa, I’m not ready to talk about this.”

Afterward, Jude started watching the Grammys and flipping through a People magazine while she tried to gather her thoughts.

Watching Lady Ga Ga on tv and reading about Nicole Kidman in People gave her the idea to talk about something she might discuss with her girlfriends.

She wrote the speech in less than an hour, but felt more connected to this “superficial” story than to the one about her dad.

She says it’s because, “Jumping into something superficial actually took me to a deeper place of vulnerability. In the speech about my dad, I realized I was trying to hide myself at the same time I was trying to reveal myself. It simply didn’t work.”

When I asked Jude why she decided to write a whole new speech instead of giving up her slot and trying another time, she told me, “I didn’t think it would be too nice to give up the spot. I’m committed to Toastmasters and I knew I had to buck up and see if I could do it. I was prepared to fall on my face or get sucked into a jack rabbit hole. Luckily that didn’t happen.”

Jude just launched her own website, mitzeke.com that’s all about her “journey to discover her soul’s purpose.”

She’s looking forward to her next speech. As are we all!