---
title: "Winner of the HS Rhetoric Contest | Sonja Hällfors | Negotiator 118"
titleOriginal: "HS retoriikkatentin voittaja | Sonja Hällfors | Neuvottelija 118"
episodeNumber: "118"
guest: "Sonja Hällfors"
datePublished: 2022-01-19
duration: "23:31"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6cESZSZXXY"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["negotiation","leadership_governance"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. The publisher published no chapter marks for this episode, so none are listed here. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. The speech at the centre of the episode is performed in Finnish and is not reproduced or translated on this page. The episode was recorded days after the contest and in the run-up to the January 2022 county elections, whose subject matter the speech uses."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/150-hs-retoriikkatentin-voittaja-sonja-hallfors-neuvottelija-118"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep118-hs-retoriikkatentin-voittaja-sonja-hallfors/
---
# Winner of the HS Rhetoric Contest | Sonja Hällfors | Negotiator 118

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Summary

Sonja Hällfors, who had just won Helsingin Sanomat's rhetoric contest, delivers her winning speech again in the studio, and it is then taken apart structure by structure. The task was tight: one minute, a position both for and against a county tax, and a quotation from the band Eppu Normaali. Hällfors says openly that she thought this her worst speech of the contest and that the decisive move was breaking the rules at the end. The most interesting part concerns stage nerves: she makes an explicit point that nervousness should not be equated with weakness, and that it is worth a winner saying so out loud.

## Breaking the brief, last

The move that won was departing from the rules at the close. It works for a specific reason: by that point the speech had shown it could meet the brief, so the departure reads as a choice rather than a failure. The same ending placed earlier would have been a mistake.

## Her own worst speech

Hällfors rates this the weakest of her contest performances, and it is the one that won. That gap between a performer's internal reading and the judged result is the most useful thing in the episode for anyone who speaks in public.

## Nerves are not weakness

An obvious statement that almost nobody in a winning position makes. Coming from someone who has just taken the prize it carries information that the same sentence from anyone else does not.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [HS retoriikkatentin voittaja | Sonja Hällfors | Neuvottelija 118](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6cESZSZXXY).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/150-hs-retoriikkatentin-voittaja-sonja-hallfors-neuvottelija-118).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep118-hs-retoriikkatentin-voittaja-sonja-hallfors/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/tools/ep118-hs-retoriikkatentin-voittaja-sonja-hallfors/).

## Explore the ideas in depth

- [Negotiation Strategy, Leverage and Power: Reading the Counterparty You Actually Have](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/negotiation-strategy-leverage-and-power/): A negotiation guide from the co-author of Neuvotteluvalta — the sources of leverage, BATNA and anchoring in practice, using information asymmetry, breaking deadlocks, and what to do when the counterparty negotiates on power rather than consensus. Grounded in Neuvottelija conversations and two decades of negotiation writing.
- [New Negotiation Power: The Definitive English Framework](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/new-negotiation-power-framework/): The authoritative English presentation of Sami Miettinen and Juhana Torkki's New Negotiation Power framework: Power, Analytics, Interaction and Principles; preparation, roles, team design, trust and long-term negotiation performance.

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Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Winner of the HS Rhetoric Contest | Sonja Hällfors | Negotiator 118, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep118-hs-retoriikkatentin-voittaja-sonja-hallfors/, 2022-01-19. For quotes include episode 118 and timestamp.