I’ve been a member of a toastmasters club for several months now. I’ve made about 6 speeches and am almost finished with my competent communicators booklet (10 speeches) -still, I’ve got a lot to look forward too. This same time last year I had no idea what toastmasters was. When I finally figured out what toastmasters was, after reading about it on a blog, the first image that popped into my head was the support group from fightclub where Bob was giving Tyler Durden a big hug. Was toastmasters going to be like that? Oh god, is this going to be the cheesiest most embarrassing event I’ve ever signed up for!?

I decided to try it out anyway and see for myself – I’d just heard too many good things about it, I had to try. My first day at toastmasters came and went. I hadn’t made a speech during the first run, but I got to watch other people stutter and stammer over their words. It felt gratifying to know that I could go in, watch a meeting, and then decide I wasn’t interested after all. After agreeing with myself that I could benefit from the consist exposure to public speaking, I decided to fork out the cash (22 bux) and join.

Soon it was time for my first speech, The Icebreaker. Turns out, it was a super challenge to get up there and talk in front of a group of people – I could feel myself acting nervous, and that feeling would make me even more nervous! I was no better than the other people I had previously seen tripping over their words. But that’s why I was there – to feel those feelings and eventually get over them. It felt bad to know I had made a fool of myself in front of a bunch of strangers who I’d have to see again next week, but it felt great to know that I would eventually get over all of the nervousness that came with the anticipation of having to speak in public. It’s also helpful to know that pretty much every one in the club had already made a fool of themselves in front of me while I was an untouchable guest watching from the bleachers.

Six speeches in, I’m no longer a newbie and will talk it out with the best of them. Of course I still get nervous, but when I take the stage, I make my butterflies fly in line as I conduct the audience with confidence. All my focus is on embracing and entangling my audience so I often times just loose track of the nervousness, since that’s not my focus – a side effect to that is that I also often loose track of time, which gets me disqualified every now and then when it comes to voting for “best speaker” since we have time limits.

There’s a certain awesomeness one has to have in order to consistently deliver an outstanding formal speech, and although I’m not nearly close to that point, I am working to acquire that ability.  Meanwhile, I’ve learned to really enjoy the opportunity to talk to several people at once in presentation format. It is an opportunity, as a matter of fact. For me, it’s a chance to influence others in a positive way and possibly even help them out in their own lives. I can say that now, after looking back on my previous speeches, but initially I just wanted to speak better. Looking back on things, I’ve noticed that all of my speeches tend to talk about how we can improve our lives – yah know, the same kind of things that I talk about on this blog. The topics I talk about here are constantly reflected in my life.

Occasionally, I’ll get that feeling as if I’m in lecture mode too often. So rather than running from this idea of lecturing, I try to focus on talking about how doing this or that has helped my life out, or I talk about an experience that I’ve learned from and try to make my speeches more dynamic to involve the audience. If you look at other speeches made in the club, you’ll hear a lot of talk about politics, planes, memorable stories, interviews, poems, food, family and the like. But, though I’ve tried, I can’t seem to pull myself away from those motivational self-helpish topics. Sometimes I get self-conscious in a negative way and worry that I’m boring the audience with my ideas – ideas that they would probably laugh and scoff at had they seen it in book form on the self-help shelf at the local Barnes and Nobles. That kind of thinking definitely doesn’t help make the most of this opportunity.

After awhile, I began to think that I should stop trying to satisfy opinions that I’m only guessing my fellow toastmasters have, and should embrace my passion instead and just keep getting better at it. I had to dump all the negative thoughts out, put a face on them, and then counter them  just like I’d described in a previous post. I had to be just a little bit selfish and almost completely ignore what the audience may or may not think about my topics – these were just ideas in my own head after all, I hadn’t actually gone out and asked any of the club members if they liked my topics or not. So I persisted and gave my topics a little more passion and sincerity.

Last week I gave an eight minute speech. Though I was disqualified for going over my time limit (7 minutes 30 seconds), I could’ve gone even longer. Thankfully, as I love getting feedback, I was fortunate enough to have three separate evaluators for my speech. Each of them said that the speech was really passionate and I seemed to be really passionate about the topic I was talking about. That was music to my ears. I wasn’t exactly well prepared for the speaking part of my speech -I’d signed up at the last minute to give a speech since we were low on speakers- but, I knew my topic very well. I spoke about Unstoppable Passion.

During the evaluations, I saw different reactions to my speech. Some people loved my speech and wanted to hear more, other people liked the speech and wanted me to prove that I practice what I preach or encourage other people to do. I actually had one evaluator call me out. “I want to know how you follow your own advice.” Wow, I know that reaction. That’s the reaction I give when I think someone else is probably full of crap. Yes we all know that good advice, by itself, is good advice. But we also know that it’s hard to take advice from someone who does the complete opposite of they preach. If someone were to try to sell you a cheap watch, telling you how awesome the watch was and how it was top of the line, while they were wearing a completely different non-cheap watch, you’d probably be reluctant to buy what they were selling. “Why aren’t you wearing one of those watches?” That would probably be the first question you’d ask them.

While being evaluated, I was put on the spot. No longer was the evaluation about my speaking technique, my presence, my voice tone, or hand gestures. Now, everyone wanted to know if I was a fraud! How am I going to answer this persons plea for proof?

I asked myself the same question recently, but in a different context. How can I start a blog about “upthinking”, being positive and reaching goals, without having some sort of credibility or proof for my audience?

While I don’t think that it’s necessary to walk the walk in order to show other people how to get from point A to point B, I think I sleep better at night knowing that I have given someone else PROOF, knowing that I practice what I preach, knowing that I’ve set a good example for someone else to follow.

On the other hand, if I don’t personally follow the path that I basically suggest that others follow, I feel like a liar and a negative influence. Lets take religion or Christianity for an example: If I’m a Christian preaching about Christianity but doing non-Christian things in my free time, what kind of example does that leave for the potential Christians? Because of my own personal folly, I give the religion a bad name and a rotten taste to outsiders. No one is perfect, and we all screw up, but we need to realize that regardless of what we do or how we do something, we’re probably influencing someone somewhere out there.

Thankfully, as I had previously considered this question myself, I came up with some concrete evidence for a rebuttal to the question, “How do you follow your own advice.” In fact, while the evaluator was asking me that question, I had a smile on my face. I was smiling because I knew that I had then hooked the audience. I knew that I had influenced the audience past the point where my tone of voice, posture, hand gestures, and speaking techniques mattered. I hit a soft spot for that whole room.

This is good. It’s especially good since, in a couple of weeks, I’m going to give them a prepared speech which explains how I have recently and deliberately chose to live with an unstoppable passion for a particular goal(s), and have succeeded. I already knew that I had to “be the change that [I] want to see in the world”. Proof! I know that half my audience are skeptics to most of the things I talk about, but this solid proof will bring them back from skeptic land into a land of potential, a land where I can better provide positive influence.

I couldn’t begin to explain how gratifying it is to know you’ve influenced someone in a positive way. But, I can tell you that it’s an amazing feeling every. single. time. Before I left the toastmasters meeting, someone passed me a note saying that my speech had touched their heart and their mind. YES!!!! That is what I live for right there.

image credit: James Hoang