How Has Chats Toastmasters Benefited You?
In October of 2001, I didn’t know a lick about speaking…I now know 2 ½ licks. I joined CHATS because I didn’t think I should get nervous just before giving presentations to investors or during important meetings. Little did I know, three months after I joined, Joel would “volunteer” me to speak in the upcoming Tall Tales speaking competition. With help from the club, I won the club contest. With a little more help from the club, I won the area contest. Begging the club for more help, I won the division contest. Pleading for help from the club, I placed 3rd in Arizona. After only six months as a CHATS member, I spoke ten times including my ice-breaker and four of those speeches were given in front of large groups on stage with a microphone…I didn’t even know how to attached it!
During my ice-breaker, I remember vividly talking to the audience and talking to myself at the same time. Needless to say, talking to your self while speaking can be slightly distracting and I don’t recommend doing it without supervision. I didn’t like the sound of my voice and wondered if the members were bored while I was speaking. I knew what a good speaker sounded like, but that is not how I sounded. I thought that if I could “introduce myself” to the audience as a good speaker, I could keep it up for another six minutes…it seemed to work. After being introduced, I ran up to shake the Toastmasters hand with lots of energy and then told a captivating story that I had perfectly memorized down to each inflection and eyebrow twitch. If I could convince the audience during the first 20 seconds that I was actually good…maybe I could convince myself! I leaned that I only had to memorize my introductory joke, story, or tie back to put both the audience and myself at ease and the rest would follow. I also learned that the audience didn’t know what I was about to say, so how could they know if I messed up? They never caught me!
In 2002 I served as a club officer and learned how the club functioned. In 2003 I was the president of the club and learned how to speak off the cuff and build energy in the room (best experience a speaker can get in the world). I didn’t miss a single meeting for 12 months and getting nervous before speaking was a thing of the past – mission accomplished.
Today, I do not have any ambition to speak professionally, but as a sales trainer…keynote speeches can’t be avoided. During the past three years, I’ve given many presentations to groups over several hundred people and sometimes getting paid up to $5,000.00 for only two hours. More importantly, I’m confident that I can speak in front of anybody, anytime, anywhere without losing five pounds of sweat when I’m done.
I think the original question was, “How has Chats Toastmasters benefited me?” Hmm…It changed my life.
Regards,
Marc
