Latest / The Action Catalyst / REMASTERED: I See Something, with Dananjaya Hettiarachchi (Speaking, Storytelling, Success, Personal Development)

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REMASTERED: I See Something, with Dananjaya Hettiarachchi (Speaking, Storytelling, Success, Personal Development) · The Action Catalyst

• 0:00
  Host: He is the 2014 World Champion of Public Speaking for
• 0:05
  Toastmasters International, Dananjaya Hettiarachchi. He is
• 0:10
  awesome. He's a TEDx speaker and is among a handful of human
• 0:14
  resource development consultants in the Asia Pacific region that
• 0:17
  specializes in performance prediction. Dananjaya, thank
• 0:22
  you for being with us.
• 0:24
  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: Pleasure to be on board.
• 0:25
  Host: Can you just talk to us a little bit about what is it like
• 0:28
  competing at the World Championship of public speaking?
• 0:33
  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: It's an amazing experience, because I
• 0:36
  come from South Asia, so for us, stepping onto that stage is
• 0:40
  massive, because, you know, English is our third language,
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  it's been a dream come true.
• 0:47
  Host: That's awesome. And I want to apologize, it's going to be a
• 0:49
  little fuzzy, because Dananjaya is in Sri Lanka, and so we're
• 0:54
  catching him on Skype. So let me ask you this question, what do
• 0:57
  you think is the hardest part of being in the contest?
• 1:02
  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: I think the hardest part for me
• 1:04
  throughout the years was being comfortable with who I am. For a
• 1:08
  long time, I wanted to emulate speakers from the West because I
• 1:14
  thought that was the way to win the world championship. But for
• 1:18
  me, I actually discovered my, you know, moment of glory when I
• 1:24
  decided to stop competing and just start being myself. And
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  that was the hardest part. I think it took me 10 years just
• 1:33
  to be myself on stage.
• 1:35
  Host: How many times had you entered the contest before? I'm
• 1:38
  just curious.
• 1:39
  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: Well, I started competing in 2006.
• 1:42
  Host: Tell us a little bit about how did you develop the speech,
• 1:45
  and when did you start to tell that story?
• 1:47
  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: Okay, the first cut of the speech, I
• 1:49
  did it at TEDx speech. Now, what I wanted to give to the audience
• 1:55
  was, well, there are some people in life that can't figure out
• 2:00
  what they're good at finding themselves. So if you look at my
• 2:03
  life, I think every achievement that I've achieved in my adult
• 2:07
  life has been because of the influence of others. And
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  whenever I wanted to give up, they do step in and made me not
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  make that decision. When you associate the right people, you
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  can achieve great things in life. I did this speech in
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  schools. I did it for children, but a great response. So I
• 2:26
  wanted to make this into a five, seven minute speech. It took me
• 2:31
  a year to do that. The challenge is complicated more because in
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  this part of the world, we speak generally faster and the West we
• 2:42
  seek at about 160 165 words per minute. It just complicated even
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  more, it's not just about cutting back, it's about also
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  slowing down. You have to really pick the most impactful
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  sentences words, because you need to not only cut back, but
• 3:01
  you gotta take more time. You know, a lot of speakers start
• 3:05
  this speech with a title or a topic. I always start with my
• 3:10
  message. And what I do that I take a lot of time on the
• 3:13
  message. Once I got my message down, I have two principles. A,
• 3:17
  it has to be simple. B, it has to be inspirational. So until I
• 3:22
  get that phrase why I don't concentrate about anything else,
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  I just concentrate about what's my short and inspirational
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  message. And then what I do is I start to layer that message with
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  stories that I feel really add value to that message. And then
• 3:39
  it's about building upwards from that method. So that's the
• 3:42
  process I actually take.
• 3:45
  Host: What are some of the other were there any big lessons that
• 3:47
  you learned in terms of, like, specific practical presentation
• 3:50
  skills?
• 3:51
  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: I think there were three major lessons
• 3:54
  that I've learned. The first is, I wasn't a very big fan of
• 3:59
  repetition. I consciously try to position my message my key first
• 4:04
  at least three times within the speech. So I say once, I say
• 4:09
  twice, and the third time before I say it, the audience is
• 4:15
  finished saying so I actively get the audience's some constant
• 4:20
  involvement into my speech. Number two, I wasn't a heavy fan
• 4:25
  of props. I never liked to use props on my speech, but I used
• 4:31
  props and then for me, that enhanced my speech. It gave my
• 4:34
  speech a more visual and kinesthetic element that really
• 4:39
  enhanced what I was actually saying. Third thing that I
• 4:42
  learned, make it about the audience. I had a pool approach,
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  where the audience was getting pulled into my speech, as
• 4:49
  opposed to me, kind of trusting down advice or, you know,
• 4:52
  pushing content down to them. So those are three things that I
• 4:55
  learned.
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  Host: So repetition, props and allowing for a pull message
• 5:00
  instead of a push message. How do you create a pull message
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  instead of a push message?
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  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: What I normally do is, it has to do
• 5:07
  with how you construct the story. Now, there are two types
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  of stories, right? A is where you become the hero of your
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  story, where you're the hero of the story throughout, generally,
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  when you're the hero of your story throughout, it becomes a
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  push message. But what I like to do with my stories, and in all
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  of my speeches, I play the role of the Miller then, then it is
• 5:29
  about the audience kind of coming into the speech that I
• 5:33
  experiment, that kind of figure out who this guy is. And it
• 5:37
  becomes more of like I need to dissect this individual in this
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  team, I normally start off either the anti hero or the
• 5:45
  failure in the speech, because, as I always say, people connect
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  in failure more than in success. I take some time to explore
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  failure. I make sure that I connect with my audience through
• 6:00
  my failures, and that really pulls the audience to me. But if
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  I become the hero of my speech from the very beginning, what
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  happens is, then it's about, okay, I've done something really
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  great, and you guys need to now listen to me go and do this. And
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  that then becomes a push message.
• 6:20
  Host: Hmm, so last little question, you know, after you
• 6:24
  win the world championship of public speaking, what's next?
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  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: Well, so my Toastmaster career has now
• 6:30
  ended. Now my next, next thing is to just be a motivational
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  speaker and an inspirational speaker for this part of the
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  world, and I've got to now unlearn being a world champion
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  and learn again how to, you know, start from scratch and
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  being a paid motivational, inspirational speaker, and make
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  this into a business model full of success. So I'm back to
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  square one. I'm learning again, and I'm looking to achieve my
• 6:58
  goal in the next 10 years.
• 7:00
  Host: Dananjaya Hettiarachchi, thanks for being on the show.
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  Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: Thank you very much.