Dear contest chair, fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests,

Once upon a time, I played a game called we’re wolf with some friends. There are wolves and people in the game. Either the people kill all the wolves to win, or wolves kill all the people, but we don’t kill with guns, we kill with words.

In one game, there left three players including myself. I was so sure who the only wolf was that I urged the other human player to vote with me. The player had doubt in me and trusted the wolf’s nice words. They voted me out together! Finally, the wolves won again.

How sad I was! How upset I was! Why the player didn’t just listen to me!

Dear audience, have you ever had the same feeling?

When you regard some information as important, will you expect that people exposed to that information fully absorb it?

I did exactly this in the game and failed, then I was not nice to the players. You know what? I was killed right in the next round!

This shows the reality: while learning how to communicate well is hard, actually getting anyone to listen is much harder.

Dear audience, do you have a solution?

My solution is that all communication should start from being nice.

To be nice is to respect. I didn’t realize this until I have a kid.

How many of you have kids? Put them all together, you will get my kid.

Talking to little kids can be frustrating sometimes - they just wouldn’t listen. When we stood straightly and talk to our son, he would not follow; But if we lowered our body and kept the same height as our kid, no matter what we want to communicate, he started to listen and response. There is no need to raise our voice and yell around.

You see, being nice and respecting makes my life easier.

Even if we are on the weaker side, being nice can also win us respect. Living in a metropolis like Shanghai, we all cross the streets many times a day. What would you do before you cross the street? (very good) When I am crossing the street and a car stopped and waited, I will give the driver a thumb-up to show my respect to her nice behavior. I think both of us will feel better for the day.

Don’t you agree? Being nice makes my life happier.

To be nice is to be positive. We all want a relaxed, no-tension environment. But sometime there is a conflict and there can be opinions I disagree like in the wolves game. To be nice is particularly necessary in these situations. For example, in a Toastmasters meeting, my evaluator may use some strong words on my speech, I may feel uncomfortable. But I should still give my appreciation. Anyway, the evaluator is another human being, just like myself. She just intended to help me regardless of which word she uses in her evaluation. We all need forgive and improve. If we can share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation, we are all fine.

Being nice and positive helps build a friendly community.

The wolf’s game continued, and I as a dead player, observed the different behaviors from the other players. Finally, I see something there: the long-lived players always start the communication from

Being nice!

Contest chair.