When I was in my second year of high school, I joined this inter-school extemporaneous speech competition, or “extempo” as my mom called it. Extempo, as the word suggests, is a form of speech that is not memorized or prepared beforehand. Before your turn, you’d pick a rolled-up sheet of paper from a bowl. That sheet contained a question or topic and you’re given three minutes to prepare a 3-minute speech on the topic.
It’s a nerve-wracking situation to be in because you never really know what you would get. Honestly, I don’t know why I got myself into them; I’d be in at least one of those competitions every year. But in hindsight, it’s probably where I learned to bullshit my way out of papers and class presentations years later. So I guess it was worth it.
Anyway, the question I got that year wasn’t that spectacular. It was about technology and how I saw it shaping our city. I wasn’t too hot about it, and I knew the moment I said “thank you” and took a bow that my performance wasn’t that great. But when you’re on stage, with the lights beaming at you, and the audience staring, you’re just glad it’s over at that point.
We were in this large air-conditioned auditorium and in the audience were all the contestants’ parents and some of our classmates. My mom wasn’t there because she would always get too scared and nervous to watch these things, even more scared than I would be. But my dad was and he saw the whole thing.
Usually, I would be excited to see him after a competition, especially if I had won. But this time, although they didn’t announce the winners until later that day, I already knew it was a long shot for me the moment I exited the stage.
So as we were walking to the car from the auditorium to get some lunch before they announced the winners, I knew there were two possibilities: either he would criticize my performance, which would suck or he would praise me, which would also suck because I knew I didn’t deserve it. Oddly, I got neither of those.
Instead, he asked me, “How do you feel about your answer? Do you stand by it?”
I thought for a moment and said, “Yeah, I think so. I wouldn’t change it.”
“OK, that’s good,” he replied.
And I think there’s an important lesson to be learned here about whose opinion matters the most.