A mentor can make a real difference. A mentor in Toastmasters serves as Promoter in Toastmaster Journey.
In August 2016, right after I did my P1 speech, our president introduced the education system to me and became my mentor.
Two weeks before the autumn speech contest, he texted me: "Lixing, I hope you could join this autumn speech contest. It is a great opportunity for you to speed up your growth. Both Chinese and English are OK." Let me think: I just finished my p1 speech, maybe Chinese is OK, anyway it's only seven minutes. I can write and recite my speech.
Unfortunately the speech contest result wasn't good. It was awful. (Look at member who know this, say "You know that."). I stood still and forgot my words. The full room colleagues stared at me. I was scared. Then the audience started to clap to break the silent. But my brain was still blank. I kept repeating myself with tears in my eyes for 2 minutes. That was the longest 2 minutes in my life. That was the most awkward moment in my life! What would you do in such embarrassing situation? I pretended to be OK with my fake smile. After the speech contest, my mentor came to me and said: “it was OK”. He was the only person noticed my sadness.
Time passed quickly. It was time to lift our flag in the beginning of 2017 in one of our regular meeting. In the table topic session, many members come to the stage to commit their goal. Most shining ones committed to finish their Competent Communicator by the end of the year. My mentor looked at me and gave me a hint to come to the stage. But I had no courage to commit anything publicly. I hadn't done any speech since my failure speech contest. I felt bad to disappoint my mentor, so I texted him in WeChat after the meeting: "I want to be a dark horse in our club. I commit to finish my CC too, but please, don't keep screenshot! "Great! I bear it in mind," he reply, "register speech online first. It can prod you not to be lazy!"
Time flied. I was time for spring speech contest. I was afraid of speech contest but my pride wouldn't allow me to live with my image of stage fright. I reached out to my mentor. He revised my script and shared his contest tips with me. I practiced harder and survived (pause)with great improvement! I hoped my mentor was there but he wasn't. However I received his encouragement through wechat. I was quite surprise. A mentor watches your growth!
The 3rd time my mentor approached me to join speech contest, he said: "I expect you to advance to area level. In order to make this breakthrough, besides my revision to your script, there are two additional steps: 1. attend champion sharing on "how to prepare humorous speech", 2. be a demo speaker at area level." I had never thought about that and hadn't written my script yet. I said: "That is impossible, I know my level in our club." But I still followed his instruction. I wrote my failure speech contest. Every time when I rehearsal, I cried. Even one year later that failure still hurt me and I was not cured by time. Luckily enough, one month later, by finishing all my assignment, I won the club championship. There are always chances that all people better than you are absent and you become the champion. More importantly, I fully recovered from my failure! Now if I forget my words, fine!
It was my mentor who pushed me to join speech contest, helped me try again, and put high expectation on me. He provides personalized and Unconditional support to empower me to reach my goals. He definitely help me progress at a higher rate than I could without his encouragement and support.
As a mentee, I shared my goal with him, follow his instruction and report my progress to him. I gain self-confidence, aim higher and become better.
I believe my story is Justine normal example of Toastmasters' long history of mentoring program. It won't be hard to find a mentor like mine in our DOW magic. Both mentor and mentee will define how profound the impact will be. Find your mentor and be coachable. He or she will be promotor in your toastmaster journey.
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