“I never knew it would become so all-consuming.

I was one of the contestants in the 2008 WCPS, filmed by Paul and Brian and their crew. When you watch the movie you’ll see bits of me.

I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know what to expect, but there’s one thing I hope it captures – the sheer insanity of it all. See, that version of me that you’ll see on the screen isn’t so much me as it is a man possessed.

Like most contestants, I entered with the hope that I’d contend, but never seriously thinking I’d make it all the way to the final. I did, though, and along the way I experienced something I never expected – the thrill, the fear, the excitement, the pressure and the insanity of competition.

Some of you might have entered the speech contest. If so, then you’ve experienced the early levels of the contest. For years that was all I’d experienced too, and it was a great buzz. I won district on my fourth attempt, and when I compete at Region I felt pressured, but didn’t expect to win, mostly because I’d never even seen a Region contest before. Winning Region was an overwhelming surprise.

But that was nothing compared to preparing for the finals. After winning Region you really start to think about what’s at stake – a one in ten chance to hold the trophy, to be one of Toastmasters’ rock stars, to hold the title of World Champion of Public Speaking. Once you start thinking about that, then the nerves kick in. The fear. The realization of what’s st stake. That’s where you start to feel the insanity.

The insanity takes many forms. For one thing, you achieve an odd level of celebrity – not quite at the level of a local newscaster, but maybe at the level of someone who was a one-day champion on Jeopardy. Suddenly, every Toastmaster in your district knows who you are, they’re cheering you on. And, this being an educational organization, they want to help. I was invited to practice in front of countless audiences, I received help and feedback from district officers and from past World Champions. Heck, in my year I had a documentary film crew come to my home. It sure was good for my ego.

But, there was the insanity.

My wife can attest to this. Heck, it became her entry in the humorous speech contest that Fall. I woke up in the morning thinking about The Speech. I thought about it in the car. I thought about it at work. I thought about it over dinner. I thought about it as I went to sleep at night. I thought about it when I woke up in the middle of the night. It was my stalker. I had Post-It notepads all over the place to write down ideas. I watched past contests on DVD. In the two months between my Region victory and the Final, The Speech consumed me. I lost sleep, I couldn’t eat, and I lost ten pounds. I wrote a gazillion drafts of speeches, and tossed out a gazillion minus one. After all that, stepping up on the stage was almost a relief.

It wasn’t until a year later that I really appreciated how insane it all was. I, along with many tennis fans, watched Serena Williams melt down at the US Open semifinals, going ballistic against a linesperson. I was surrounded by people lambasting her for actions, but all I could think of was…the insanity. Competition can bring out the best in us, but it also can so fixate us on a singularity of purpose that we lose sight of normality. Williams’ explosion seemed wholly rational to me, because this was her world, this event, this moment. Her insanity was driven by her focus, just as was mine.

I often refer to my summer of competition in the WCPS as my “lost summer”. It went by so fast, I accomplished nothing else that summer, and it feels like a blur. However, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I’m excited to look forward to SpeakEasy, to see what it all looked like from the outside, and maybe to relive it a little. However it turns out, I hope you enjoy Paul and Brian’s window into the insanity. For those of us who participated it was a blast.”

There’s still plenty of work to do – the music needs to be added, needs to be cleaned up here and there… but when we leaned on our stars (competitors) and let them tell their stories, it’s powerful stuff. The World Championships of Public Speaking was so compelling in and of itself, we just had to get out of the way. Yep, I’m giving this rough cut, and the progress we’ve made, one of these:

Tonight, we see a long awaited new cut of the film, beginning to end. Chris Leong was all over it over the holiday season. After tonight, we’ll be seeing the finish line, even after we give him our notes to work on. We’ve had all sorts of new ideas to solve some narrative problems over the break, so we may be bringing those to the editing room. I’m sure Chris’ Jack Russell Terrier, Bolt, will have some editorial suggestions as well.

We’ll keep you posted on our progress tomorrow – fingers crossed. But it’s thrilling that the world’s only documentary film about the fear of public speaking and the World Championships of Public Speaking will finally arrive in 2010.

Either way, we sure hope we’re feeling this, just a little tiny bit, as we talk to audiences after screenings of the film.

2010, peoples. What else is going on in 2010? Anybody got any big plans they want to leave in the comments section?

2010. The year we make contact. (I look at the star-child on this poster and imagine it being our film. I’m kooky like that.)