World Championship of Public Speaking: Part 1

[Music] RONALD MELVIN: This is one of the most important things of my life. RYAN AVERY: I dreamed big, and that's what it took for me to get to where I am right now. DIANE PARKER: I'm in this to win it, and I'm gonna go all the way. KENNY RAY MORGAN: This is my moment, man. If I'm going to do it, I wanna do it now. ANNOUNCER: And the 2012 World Champion of Public Speaking... [Music] [Music] ANDREW KNEEBONE: Fear of speaking is a common thing that everyone goes through. And so I decided that Toastmasters - give it a shot and teach myself to speak in public. My club, they said, "Why don't you go in competitions?" I didn't even know there were such a thing as competitions for public speaking, but then the bug sort of bit, and I really liked the sport of competing. RYAN AVERY: It's 30,000 people all over the world who all have a message, who all have a speech. It goes from the club, then the area, then the division, then the district, then the semi-finals, and now it's the top 9 speakers. Best speakers in the world. [Music] [Music] JESSICA CARDER: Thank you all for being here, um, we're all very, very excited for the world championship tomorrow. KENNY RAY MORGAN: When I was a kid, I wanted to be on stage in some capacity, and so speaking became a passion of mine, and I yearn now to be able to speak to the world. RONALD MELVIN: I am not a good reader. I have dyslexia. But I am a storyteller, and Toastmasters allowed me to tell my stories by speaking them to people, because I could not really write. RYAN AVERY: I enjoy speaking so much, I love motivating people and I want to remind people my age that we can do anything. JESSICA CARDER: We're going to go ahead and draw for speaking order right now. [Music] [Music] ANDREW KNEEBONE: I have no idea what it is. That would be number 1. JESSICA CARDER: The focus and the preparation for this always blows me away. They're fiercely competitive. MARIO LEWIS: It is one of the grandest stages you'll ever be on. An audience of 25,000, projectors everywhere. For 5-7 minutes your face is in absolute primetime. So for me, I don't take this opportunity lightly. KENNY RAY MORGAN:: The speech for the finals has to be totally different than the semi-finals. PALANIAPPA SUBRAMANIAM: I haven't actually finished writing my speech, I only have a basic framework because I was focusing on the first speech, so there's a lot of work to do now. JESSICA CARDER: Over the next 24 hours most of them will lock themselves in their room, and really just walk through their speech again and again and again. ANDREW KNEEBONE: My biggest fear for the competition is that I don't prepare enough. I don't have a fear of the moment I get on stage. I aim to prepare. [Music] ANDREW KNEEBONE: [Practicing speech] This story is about passion, obsession and blood. [To camera] I'm on first tomorrow, so I've got to come out hard. You've got to - I'm the first speaker. I would prefer to be somewhere else, yeah, but I'm not, and again it's the luck of the draw, so I'll give it my best. KENNY RAY MORGAN: Before I even do a speech, I have to have a reason for giving that speech. I don't just randomly throw speeches together. Anybody can do a speech but I think the passion that you have behind it in connecting with your audience makes a great speech. CHELSEA AVERY: Trust Is A Must, Ryan Avery. Oh, he's so handsome. RYAN AVERY: You have an obligation as a speaker to go up there and not just say something that you care about but something that can really change the lives of people. I love this next speech - it's called 'Trust Is A Must'. It means so much to me. It's how I started off my relationship with my wife. "Chelsea, I promise." RANDY HARVEY: I think that's much better- RYAN AVERY: Oh, you do? RANDY HARVEY: -and I think that's a much stronger conclusion. CHELSEA AVERY: So when you read it, it was literally 6 minutes flat, when we just read it through? RANDY HARVEY: Yup, that was 6 minutes. CHELSEA AVERY: Okay. KENNY RAY MORGAN: I keep this baby with me all the time. If I would have brought this with me last year I would have known I was going overtime. See I had to abort my ending last year. But I think I got this speech down enough where I can finish it in like 6:50, 6:48. I don't even want to get close to going overtime. CHELSEA AVERY: We've worked our butts off to get here - since January. RYAN AVERY: Yup. CHELSEA AVERY: And have fun with it. RYAN AVERY: I know. CHELSEA AVERY: We've worked really hard, we're well prepared, you're a rockstar. You're a great speaker, with a good message, so have fun with it. RYAN AVERY: Bam. [Music] ANNOUNCER: Let the speech contest begin. [Music] RONALD MELVIN: My best is winning. It's not coming in second, it's blowing this thing out of the window.