Everyone has unique journey in toastmasters. I’d like to share with you mine.
Some people join toastmaster for pretty girls or handsome boys, some people join toastmaster for networking or gossip. Please don’t try to correlate to yourself, I just made them up as a joke. What I want to point out is I’m here to learn. The top three things for me to join toastmaster is to improve public speaking, leadership and communication. This could be proved in my P1 speech- the first speech I delivered in toastmaster –A life-time learner.
For the first thing I want to improve- public speaking, this is the most obvious thing because this is the way toastmaster organize every meeting or event, every moment we have someone to speak in the stage. The stage is never empty. One feeling I’ve gotten is public speaking is different than presentation with ppt. When I stand here without any ppt or notes in my hand, it’s so easy to get nervous. The most common result was I forgot what I wanted to say. Later on I know this is called stage fright. No matter how well I memorize my script, stage fright will make me forget it. So the first thing is to overcome the stage fright. Old driver always told me, be nervous is normal, the only way to improve is practice practice practice. To me the reason to cause stage fright is the concern about the performance, the fear of losing face ("being ashamed" is better although this expression is grammatically correct).
Interestingly after I lost face in a speech contest, I have no face to lose anymore. Even though I didn’t improve a lot, I continued to forget my words on the stage, I didn’t feel awkward. And the most dramatic thing happen, the stage fright has gone! So enjoy the chance of losing face. I still need to be well prepared and I need to know what I want to say, but the chance of forgetting words is less now so I enjoy public speaking more.
The second thing I want to improve is leadership. How I can improve leadership without leading anybody? I lead myself! I took our past international President Mohammed’s advice to ask myself every morning:” Is leadership in me?” I started to explore more practical meaning of leadership.
Leadership is the courage to voice out your ideas for best result, instead of following others’ opinion. I was born for thinking in my own way. It’s easier for me to disagree than agree with others. Leadership is about setting goals and achieving it. I set my goal to finish Competent Communication manual this year. Now I have done eight projects, pretty close to my goal. Leadership is about delegation. My mother-in-law cooks much better than me, I show my appreciation to her and she enjoys cooking for us, then I have more time to prepare for my speech contest. I want to continue this lifetime journey to become a leader. Leadership is in me!
The third thing is about communication. How often would you communicate with many people at the same time? The most fascinating thing on this stage is I can communicate with all of you at the same time. And thank you for focusing on my speech. I can tell from your nodding heads, laugh, claps, even silence that I have passed my message and made good communication with you. It’s not like this in the beginning, but the true response of the audience is the best feedback on my performance. I can instantly feel how I did. When the audience sitting with cross hand like this, with confusion in their face. I know I need to improve.
Toastmaster has two tracks of education program, a communication track and a leadership track, and both will be achieved mainly through public speaking practice. It is the right place for me to improve public speaking, leadership and communication. Let alone many other gains like a good mentor, friendship with fellow members. It’s such a rewarding journey that I really regret joining too late. Fortunately I found one secret tip quickly- be faceless and keep fighting! For me, the elder, the more faceless, so I became faceless sooner than if I was younger. I want to continue this rewarding journey to achieve my DTM, distinguished toastmaster! Keep fighting!
Distinguished guests, congratulations to your first step to join toastmaster event. Please come more often and give it a try. You’re worth it!
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