Two years later - tips from a Speaker Slam Grand Slam alum

Two years ago today, I became the #2 Inspirational Speaker of the Year at the Speaker Slam Grand Slam. The Grand Slam is happening again this Sat Nov 22 at the CBC Glenn Gould Studio in downtown Toronto - I’ll be in the audience and I’m SO excited.

Last week, one of the competitors asked me if I have any tips for the Grand Slam, because as they put it, “you crushed yours.” (🥹)

It was heartwarming to hear, because I so clearly remember watching so many past Speaker Slam and Grand Slam speech videos as part of my prep - so it’s amazing to think that a new season of competitors might watch my video as part of theirs.

I gave them two tips I used:

1) Rehearse your speech all the way through, but if you make a mistake, don’t stop and start over unless you truly can’t go on. Instead, practice continuing it even when you make a mistake - practice how to recover from it and keep things moving if something doesn’t go how you planned. You’ll get used to what that feels like, and build confidence that on stage, you can keep it going if you need to, even with a mistake.

2) Once you have the memorization part down, rehearse your gestures and movements in a mirror. This felt SO weird to me and I put it off forever, but it really helped to see how it’ll all look/come together - and you have the control of deciding whether a certain gesture or movement fits what you’re saying or not.

Speaker Slam’s tag line is “one speech can change your life” and I feel like I’m living proof of that. Win or lose, competitor or audience member, I truly believe Speaker Slam, @thedanshaikh and @therinarovinelli are changing lives. I can’t wait to watch the best speakers from this year share their Legacy stories and follow their journeys from here.

Because I know even though it’s the end of the year’s competitions, it’s just the beginning for all of them. ✨

There’s still a few in-person tickets left and plenty of livestream ones! Get yours at speakerslam.org/events 🥳🎉🙌🏽