His high school buddies called him stupid. His friends and family told him he was crazy. He had never set foot in a comedy club, had no connections in the speaking world, and by his own admission, he wasn't funny.
Now Darren LaCroix flies all over the world doing what he loves for a living. He is a world champion of public speaking, a keynote speaker, a speaking coach, and the founder of Stage Time University. And those same friends who once called him stupid? They call him lucky.
In this special episode of Speak Arizona, Darren sat down with host Matthew Malan for a live coaching session that turned into a masterclass. Matthew, a Speak Arizona editor and Toastmasters competitor who has been on his own journey from lifelong stutterer to division-level speaker, brought his contest speech to the table. What followed was a real-time breakdown of world-class speaking principles that most people never learn.
It Starts With a Decision
Before the techniques. Before the coaching. Before the trophies. There is a decision.
"If you want to be world class, it's a decision," Darren said. "Once you decide, you do and think and act differently. And I think a lot of people want to be great. They want to be world class, but they haven't decided to be world class."
For Darren, that decision came in 1992. He wanted to be a comedian. He didn't know any comedians. He had never been inside a comedy club. But he walked up to the headliner after a show, introduced himself, and asked what he needed to do.
The comedian asked if he was funny. Darren said no. The comedian said good.
That night changed the trajectory of his life. He went on to join four Toastmasters clubs simultaneously. He performed at comedy clubs at night and spoke at Toastmasters meetings during the day. He drove two and a half hours from Boston to Portland, Maine to go on stage for five minutes for free, then drove back and went to his day job the next morning.
His friends thought he was wasting his time. His mentors were impressed.
"Same activity, different perspective," Darren said. "You want to be a mentor magnet? Be that person willing to do the work, willing to be uncomfortable. Now a mentor wants to help you because you're the exception."
Go Do a Hundred Speeches
When new speakers come to Darren and tell him they want to be world class, his first piece of advice surprises them.
Go do a hundred speeches. Then come back.
It's not that there's nothing to teach. It's that speaking is both a science and an art. The science gives you the exercises and the principles. The art is working it out on stage. And you can't skip that part.
"You're going to work a lot of kinks out, but you're also going to find your own voice," Darren said. "And it's in finding your voice and your perspective that makes you funny and makes you insightful."
Darren knows this from experience. When he was preparing for the world championship, he watched 10 years of competition footage. That was 90 world-class speeches. He studied the difference between first place and second place. He looked for the tiny distinctions that made all the difference.
But all that study only worked because it sat on top of thousands of hours of stage time. The research sharpened what the reps had already built.
Don't Tell Us. Take Us.
When Darren brought the first draft of his championship speech to his coach, Mark Brown, he was narrating his stories. Telling the audience what happened instead of putting them in the moment.
Mark pushed him to rewrite.
Version one sounded like this: "I went home to tell my parents I wanted to be a comedian and they were speechless."
That tells the story. But it doesn't take you there.
Version two: "Mom, dad, I want to be a comedian." Then silence.
Now you're standing in that room. Now you feel the weight of what just happened.
"Great speeches come from great stories," Darren said. "Great stories come from emotional moments."
He coached Matthew on the same principle during the episode. Matthew's contest speech includes a powerful section about being bullied as a child. But he was telling the audience he was bullied rather than creating a scene. Darren pushed him to find a specific moment, step into it, and let the audience live it with him.
Don't say you were called names. Let us hear them. Don't tell us it hurt. Let us see your face when it happened. That's where the connection lives.
Talk Like You're Having Coffee
One of the most practical takeaways from the conversation was about language. Darren used the word "you" or "your" 34 times in his championship speech. Nobody noticed. But everyone felt connected to him.
He asked Matthew a simple question. Would you rather the audience think, "Wow, Matt's a great speaker"? Or would you rather they think, "Wow, it felt like Matt was speaking right to me"?
The answer is obvious. But most speakers use language that works against that goal. "Ladies and gentlemen." "How many of you." Those are audience phrases. They create distance.
"If you and I were having coffee, I would never look at you over coffee and say, 'Ladies and gentlemen,'" Darren said. "You need to use the language of a one-on-one conversation."
Replace "how many of you" with "have you." Replace crowd language with coffee language. The audience won't notice the shift, but they will feel closer to you.
Create the Scene
Darren broke down the anatomy of a great story setup using one of his own. He described walking into the convention center on the morning of the world championship. Two thousand chairs. The smell of coffee brewing in the back of the room. Tension in the air. Then his dad walks up and says he can't find his seat.
Visual. Auditory. Kinesthetic. Smell.
"The smell is actually the most powerful," Darren said. "Scientifically it's proven."
He admitted the coffee wasn't actually there. But it didn't matter. Everyone has been in a meeting room that smelled like coffee. The emotional truth of the scene was real, even if the coffee wasn't.
This is the principle Darren teaches in his coaching: invite the audience into the scene with sensory details, then let a moment of dialogue carry the emotional weight. One physical detail. One line of dialogue. One reaction on your face. That's all it takes to turn narration into a story people feel.
If You're Not Coachable, There Is No Cure
The episode also touched on something Darren is passionate about: the gap between well-meaning feedback and world-class coaching.
In his championship speech, Darren intentionally fell on his face and stayed down for a long beat. When he asked Toastmasters for feedback, they told him he stayed down too long. When he brought it to Mark Brown, his coach said the exact opposite. Stay down longer.
"Well-meaning people giving you feedback is not the same as a coach who understands the craft at the highest level," Darren said.
That gap is why he built Stage Time University. Weekly coaching calls with world-class coaches. Story digs to help speakers find the message buried inside their experiences. Live feedback on scripts and videos. The missing link, in his view, between good and unforgettable.
But none of it works without one thing.
"If you're not coachable, there is no cure."
A Dream Isn't Something You Wish For
Darren closed with the same message he started with. Decide. Not someday. Not when you're ready. Now.
"When I forget about myself and I focus on helping the audience from my life experience, that's when it works," he said. "A dream isn't something you wish for. It's something you work for."
About Darren LaCroix
Darren LaCroix is the 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking from Toastmasters International, selected from over 30,000 contestants. He is a keynote speaker, speaking coach, and founder of Stage Time University, where he helps good presenters become unforgettable. His championship speech "Ouch!" is available on YouTube.
Connect with Darren:
- Website: darrenLaCroix.com
- Stage Time University: stagetimeuniversity.com
About Matthew Malan
Matthew Malan is a Speak Arizona editor and Toastmasters competitor who hosted this episode. A lifelong stutterer who went mute for two years, Matthew has transformed into a division-level speech contestant and emerging voice in the Arizona speaking community. Hear more of his story in his own episode on going from a childhood stutter to the contest stage and in the conversation about the mentor who believed in him first.
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