The International Speaker Slam, which previously took place in New York, Munich, Vienna, and Hamburg, was hosted in Stuttgart, the home of Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, for the first time on Friday, June 15. Sixty-six participants from 14 nations survived the tough pre-selection from over 200 applications and dueled in the emotional final in the night from Friday to Saturday. Sixty-six speakers - that means a world record and a 6-hour firework of emotions, inspirations, deep thoughts, and entertainment. It was even the first multilingual speaker slam.
The finalists were selected the day before at the 1st Silent Speaker Battle. After an initial pre-selection, the participants had to compete against each other in this new and challenging format. The exceptionally high quality of the participating speakers made a selection very difficult. In the end, 66 inspiring personalities in the final meant the speaker slam set a new world record for most speakers and longest slam.
The 6-hour event was broadcast live worldwide on the Internet and recorded for TV. The jury consisted of representatives from business, television, radio and a book publisher as well as Europe's largest speaker agency, social media experts and last year's winner, Janis McDavid, the German Nick Vujicic.
With his speech "Keep Fighting for Your Dreams" the German-American Franz-Philippe Przybyl inspired both the audience and the jury. He is now a world record holder and winner of the Speaker's Excellence Award of the 1st International Speaker Slam in Stuttgart.
In his emotional speech, he painted analogies to victory and defeat. The unconditional will to persevere, and the ability to shift one's supposed performance limits are inherent in every human being.
He also invited the audience to make a solemn vow never to give up again. Almost all those present accepted the invitation and committed themselves before the world to remove the word "to quit" from their vocabulary.
Franz-Philippe Przybyl accepted the Speaker's Excellence Award from speaker icon Hermann Scherer, who has trained nearly 40 of Germany's top 100 speakers.
"I am thrilled about this award," said the prizewinner. "Especially because of the many high-quality speakers in this slam it is a hard-won honor.“
The newly crowned world record holder Franz-Philippe Przybyl will make his next appearance on June 27 in Miami at the 1-day workshop Goal Getting 2019. The internationally sought-after speaker and trainer has inquiries from Europe, North America, and Asia.
