How David Henderson, Toastmasters’ 2010 World Champion of Public Speaking, soared to the top.
“We all fall down. That’s the bad news. No matter how far you fall, love will lift you up.” With these words, attorney David Henderson, a Toastmaster from San Antonio, Texas, rose above 30,000 contestants from 113 countries to win the final round of what’s possibly the world’s largest speech contest: the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking.
Henderson presented his winning speech, titled “The Aviators,” to a rapt audience Aug. 14 in Palm Desert, California. Nine finalists delivered five- to seven-minute presentations on wide-ranging topics. A panel of 14 judges voted on the winner; criteria included content, organization and delivery.
Henderson’s winning speech could have gone down in flames. Yet the one-year member of San Antonio’s Sociable Toastmasters club managed to pull it off. From costume choice to emotional content to dangerous physical maneuvers, Henderson’s speech presented challenges rivaled only by the feats of his opponents. This experienced trial lawyer steered his speech straight through all the calculated risks, proving that skill and talent mixed with courage can lead to success.
When is a Costume a Good Idea?
The first risk Henderson faced was the costume he designed. In a field of conservatively dressed opponents, Henderson wore an aviator helmet, goggles, bomber jacket and a long “Snoopy” scarf.
“I didn’t know if people were going to think coming out with the helmet and the goggles was ridiculous,” he says. “I didn’t know how people would feel about the bomber jacket … or the use of the scarf as a prop.”
Leery of using props in competition, Henderson says, “I’m actually skeptical of people doing things that are gimmicky. I think there’s a really fine line with props.” Nevertheless, he decided to wear the costume, because it helped to delineate his characters and storyline.
The Speech’s Engine: A Powerful Story
Exploring a theme of coping with loss, Henderson told a story about the death of a childhood friend named Jackie. He repeated one sentence three times during his speech: “Sooner or later, we all fall down.” The story wove its way around this phrase, showing three different stages of how people respond to loss. At first, he used the example of children, who have no understanding of “falling down,” because they can’t fully comprehend the permanence of loss. The second time Henderson delivered that line, it was to teach the audience how to recover from grief with an intact heart. And the last time he said it, Henderson explained how his love had helped the girl, Jackie, bravely face her own death.
With a heartrending story to tell, Henderson even managed to insert some well-placed humor. He said he felt jokes were needed to keep the audience from becoming overwhelmed. “If you make them hurt too much and don’t provide some relief, they’ll hold it against you.”
Taking a Tumble
Even while making the audience laugh, he knew he needed to find a way to drop them down to a somber mood quickly. “The speech had to move from being sad to being happy, but by the time I got the audience to be invested in Jackie, I didn’t have time to trail it down slowly.”
Henderson was stumped by the problem. And so, the day before the championship round, he made the decision to add a physical maneuver to his speech – falling to the floor – to illustrate his key message that “We all fall down.”
He didn’t know what was going to happen when he performed it during the contest. “The problem is, if you don’t go all the way, it just looks like you did something really goofy. So you have to actually fall.”
It was a calculated risk. “There was a point where I was losing my balance, and I’m crashing onto the floor,” he says. “So I’m thinking, I may actually hurt myself… And I don’t know if the mike will come dislodged and there will be some kind of weird feedback. I made a sound after I fell to make sure the mike still worked before I stood back up.”
Henderson joined the competition for the same reason he joined Toastmasters - to learn. “When you learn a Toastmasters skill, you’re supposed to use that skill in your everyday speech.” Contest skills, he says, are no different. They should come out of Toastmasters skills that are applicable in everyday life. Henderson’s winning speech proved that Toastmasters skills can carry you through your everyday life, and they can also help you soar to new heights.
This is a condensed version of the article “A Death-Defying Flight to Victory” in the November issue of the Toastmaster magazine.
Beth Black is an associate editor of the Toastmaster magazine. Contact her at bblack@toastmasters.org.
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