Every time after a contest, when I look back and analyze everything from my preparation to the outcome, I come up with learnings for the coming years to progress as a speaker irrespective of whether I had lost or won.
What did I do Differently?
All these years my focus was on my script and my presentation. I was conscious of the humorous punches, body gestures, vocal variety, pauses, etc. But this time I decided to shift my focus from me and my script to the audience.
Apart from my script sheet, I prepared a sheet that I called as 'Audience Perception Sheet'. Eg:- When I wrote, 'My mother was a government employee.' in my script sheet, I wrote, 'She is probably from a middle-class family.' in my audience perception sheet. 'I will give you 4 samples of my 5-year-old's questions to show that my struggle is real.' - Script Sheet. 'This is probably self-deprecating humor, and the next few minutes might be about a little girl's curiosity.' - Audience Perception Sheet. I should say that this approach did work. It helped me give unexpected twists in the script keeping in mind the audience and their perceptions.
Challenges and Learnings
During my speech and the other speeches, the audience was so silent that I could not infer if our jokes were working or not. It was probably because most of them were role players and speakers and had their own duties in mind. However, during the break, some of them came to me and said that my speech was relatable and that they enjoyed it. So, my learning this year is that a silent audience does not always mean that your jokes are not working.
Mike Carr's (World Champion 2020) insights during last year's District conference really helped me with my preparation to focus on the audience this year. 'Your message to the audience is more important than the score from the judges or your trophy. If you are lucky, you will have both.' I was lucky this time :)