I’ve recently joined an organization whose purpose is the teaching of public speaking skills and the development in each member of leadership abilities. For those of you who know me you’ll easily see how both skill sets might come handy to me. I am not a confident person as you might very well have figured out by now. I also am someone who’s changing his worldview, mostly on what I want in life, how I can achieve it, and how I can get help getting the results I want. That last part for me is very difficult, not because I am arrogant, that I might be, but because I’m really not that smart and it’s very hard for me to learn and I don’t like to show that side of myself. How I’m dealing with this will be the subject of another post, maybe next week.
Now, all that been said I’d like to talk more about this wonderful organization that is Toastmasters. First things first. Toastmasters was founded in 1905 by Ralph C. Smedley while he worked as education director at the YMCA in Bloomington Illinois, USA. There he saw the need to teach young men speaking abilities, how to conduct meetings, plan programs and leadership. I will not elaborate here on the history, you can check it out by yourselves following this link, suffice it to say that since then Toastmasters International has grown to a worldwide organization with more than 280,000 members in some 14,000 clubs in 116 countries, a big success.
My first experience with Toastmasters was on february of this year when I attended a meeting as a walkin. I arrived a little late so I didn’t get to see the start of the session. I was immediately mesmerized. The diversity of the people was complete, but yet they all seemed no only at ease, but in sync with what was going on. They all presented their speeches, they were evaluated by one of their peers, given advice on what they did right and what they could do better, and there was absolute camaraderie yet there was complete order. I was hooked. I returned the following week as an walkin again to see the complete development of a session, I was so impressed again that by the end of the evening I was subscribing to become a member.
As Toastmasters primary goal is to teach we are not only there to socialize, we are there to learn. More experienced members teach newer ones by serving as mentors and evaluators, and we also get a set of manuals where we can find the different skills that we must learn in every step of our self paced learning. In the month and a half I’ve been a member I’ve given one speech, my icebreaker, which is the first one that a new member gives and where he makes an official presentation of himself to the club and invites. I’ve also had the opportunity to act as Toastmaster for the night, which means I had to host the meeting, which is a challenge on itself of leadership, organization skills and speaking skills, all of my shortcomings were graciously accepted by my colleagues and not one of them rolled her eyes, or stood up and left, so I would like to thank them for that.
As I ready myself to present my second speech tonight, march the 29th. 2016, I am really excited to do this, which would seem odd. As poll after poll show how the fear of public speaking is amongst the most prevalent of all, in some cases topping the fear of death, which inspired Jerry Seinfeld, funny person amongst funny persons, to write the joke that says “the average person, if you have to be in a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy”. So, I’m starting to see myself a little bit differently, because if it only takes one meeting a week for six weeks to make me get rid of this “big fear” either it’s easier than I thought to get rid of my fears or in the end it was not such a big deal to me and it’s something I rather like. I’m thinking the latter.
There you have it for today. If you’d like to face your fear of public speaking, would like to learn the skill and also pick up some leadership resources, check out your local Toastmasters club, if you live in Mexico City you can come to mine, Club BIAM, you’re more than welcome. As always I’d love to see your comments down below.
