My Toastmasters Journey

I wanted to share my public speaking improvement progress with you.

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As I am trying to live by example of what I teach, I am embarking on this journey beginning in the position of being terrified of standing up in front of an audience to... who knows where.

First ever toast masters meeting:

I remember sitting in my car for about 20 minutes building up the courage to go to my first ever toastmasters meeting. I decided that it was the right thing to do as I wanted to begin improving myself. A few minutes into the meeting it was announced that it was time to do the introductions, this meant going around the room and doing a 20 seconds introduction and if I remember rightly, we had to talk about our favourite children’s show as a kid.

Even the anticipation of this began my heart racing, worrying about what was I going to say what will people think of me if I mess up. There were about 25 people, so it was about 5 minutes before it got to my turn. As I had time to think I manage to introduce myself and talk about scooby doo being my favourite cartoon as child and how I liked to try and figure out who was the villain in the costume but rarely got it right. I DID IT! Looking back now I find it hard to believe that something so simple seemed so frightening. I don’t recall what happened in the remainder of the meeting, but I went to a few more and then covid hit.

Returning after hiatus

Toastmasters do a thing called table topics. This is an improv section of the evening when as your name is called to give a speech you are provided with a topic as you walk to the front, so you have to think on the spot. The speeches should last between 1 and 2 minutes. My name was called and the table topics masters said “we are heading into a recession and due to this I heard a story of people re-using things to save money, one of which was people using bath water to water the garden, what would you re-use?”

I walked to the front, I was still nervous about public speaking and this was my first attempt in over two years. I shook the toastmasters’ hand and then introduced myself and went completely blank! I had no idea what to say, so I began delaying. Saying that I had never managed to reach the minimum required time and this time I was going to so I will waste time and walk back and fourth on the stage like I am doing now! Eventually one thing popped into my head – clothes. I just ran with it, talking about how I would end up using my best clothes as everyday clothes, then eventually I would use them as my manual work and gardening clothes and hopefully wouldn’t need to recycle them back into my best clothes if things got too bad!

I sat down and the guy behind me leaned forward and said something along the lines of “wow I’d never thought of re-using clothes before!” The old me would have gotten embarrassed and taken that personally thinking that the guy was a dick for saying that but I just laughed. It wasn’t a great speech but I did the best I could and that’s what mattered. The timer said that my speech was 1 minute 19 seconds, I managed to hit the minimum time!

North Avon speakers club – 20th October 2022

I received an email from another branch of toastmaster saying they were back in person, this was the club I was very briefly a member of and was grateful they were holding meetings again. The email asked me if I would give a 3-5 minute speech on what has changed for me since the last time we met.

I arrived that evening without much time to spare I sat in the car and I was really nervous about giving this speech as it would be the longest on I had given, I rarely feel anxious at all any more but this was an occasion that I had to rely on eft tapping. That calmed me enough to allow me to take action and I headed up to the room the meeting was being held. It came to my turn and I headed to the front of the room. This was a very personal story I was about to share. I talked about how up until a couple of years ago I’d really struggled with anxiety and OCD. How during the winter lockdown I had full blown existential crisis and the lead me to finding the work of my mentor (it is always darkest before the dawn.) I gave a brief overview of my recovery and that I am now a calm, optimistic and happy person.

Although I showed myself to be very vulnerable, I realised that it was a non-judgemental environment and they were grateful that I shared my experience. (vulnerability + taking action = courage. Regardless of the outcome.)

17th November 2022 – ‘Energies role in the recovery from anxiety’

I was asked via email if I would like to give another speech of my choosing between 5 and 7 minutes long. This was my first opportunity to practice articulating some of what I had been learning for the past couple of years to an audience. I knew what I what I wanted to talk about - how energy within the body is misunderstood.

I didn’t write the speech up because I knew so much about this subject after going over it over and over in my recovery, as repetition is how we learn I felt fairly confident that I could deliver a speech on the subject. I tried to rehearse it a couple of times on my drive to the event but kept losing track of what I was saying or how this point would move into the next section of the speech. I thought to myself ‘maybe I should have written it down!’

My speech was the second of the night following an experienced speaker who was on his way to Southampton soon to compete in the national speaking championships, he delivered a brilliant engaging speech which was a pleasure to watch. My subconscious mind kept throwing the thought at me ‘how are you going to follow that!’ I talked over the top of that thought with I don’t need to be perfect; he was a novice once and I will do just fine!’ I checked the agenda for the evening and noticed that my speech wasn’t set for 5-7 minutes but 8-10 minutes. Thankfully I know a lot about this subject so wasn’t too concerned about adding some extra sections in order to beef the time up. I did however quickly scribble down some a few key points to keep the talk moving in the right order if I did need to refer to it.

I was introduced, went to the front and began my speech. Nicola Tesla said “if you want to understand the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” I have found this to be absolutely true in the recovery from anxiety. I began the speech nervously and looked at my notes within the first 30 seconds. I explained the programming we received as children when were taught to hold down our emotions and explained that this emotional energy get stored within the body as trauma and the key to our emotional freedom is to everything we can to bring this energy and allow it to release from the body be that through facing fears, meditations, breathwork or allowing yourself to be triggered. And when this energy is discharged those feeling don’t really occur anymore. I then shared some stories from my own experience to help visualize what I was saying. The further speech went on the more comfortable I felt and the speech was flowing nicely, I got a couple of laughs and I managed to pull a few quotes out from famous figures to help empathize the points. The speech last 9.5 minutes and by the end I was actually quite enjoying engaging the audience and being the centre of attention.

21st January 2023

This is the first time that I can say I wasn’t really nervous in the build up to my speech, I spent the day pretty relaxed and just had a brief rehearsal of what I was planning on talking about this evening. I purposely kept my mind off what I was going to say as drove to the meeting location, usually I would rehearse the speech out loud in the car a couple of times but this time I wanted to see what would come up if I wasn’t that prepared.

I arrived and parked up, there was a tiny bit of nerves but compared to every other time it was nothing, the thought of public speaking is now moving from scary to exciting! I just got out with no hesitation and made my way into the building.

We started with a longer than usual warm up, about a minutes long, as it was a very cold evening the toastmaster asked us about a time you were very warm. I spoke about my trips to Spain last year and my naivety about going to the beach in the middle of summer without an umbrella, I think I was the only one.

My speech was second, I followed Philip, an excellent speaker who competes in National toastmasters competitions. Co-incidentally I also followed him the last time I gave a speech. This time something had changed, I didn’t feel insecure about being on after him, although I knew he was the far more experienced speaker. I wasn’t competing with him I was just doing the best I could. As I was called to the front, my heart did begin to speed up a bit. I told myself, “this is excitement!” I stood at the front looking out on the crowd and finally remembered the official speech opening “Toastmaster, toastmasters and very welcome guests.”

I called my speech ‘do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy’. I briefly recapped the last speech I gave as this was a kind of conclusion to that one. This speech was about how anxiety disorders come on when we think and worry too much to tell us we are exhausted and need to recharge our biology. By realising that we don’t need to be right it takes so much pressure of us but we are programmed from a very young age that we need to be right and in control of everything. We even have debate clubs in school to ensure that we know how to argue with each other, this leads to us being opinionated, stubborn adults and explains the mess that is the ‘culture war.’ I went on to explain that our opinions are just that though, opinions, based on our experiences and the way we were programmed to see the world. I engaged the audience by giving an examples, “does anyone here not have an opinion on Donald Trump?” Nobodies hand went up.

As I hadn’t prepared all that well I was kind of hoping for the green light which indicated the minimum time for a speech but it wasn’t up yet. So I paused for a second and thoughts I was going to blank. When I remembered something Eckhart Tolle said “the mind has become a monster.” This lead me to concluding by speaking about spiritual traditions and how a goal is to transcend the ego. This brought comfortably onto the amber light where I concluded my speech. I was happy with the feedback it was positive but I still have things to work on. I want to be more animated, own the stage more and vary the tone of voice I use to be more captivating but overall, I was happy.

2nd February 2023

I am now an official member again. As such I knew that I would soon be expected to fill roles in the running of the evenings rather than just giving speeches. My intention for this evenings meeting was to sit there passively and take in what all the members were doing in the completing of their roles. This didn’t quite work out I saw the two evening hosts point over at me and one came over and asked, “Chris can you do the table topics evaluations tonight?” I think this is one of the most difficult roles at the club, I said what my plan was but he walked away and told the other person I would do it lol!

So near the end of the evening it was my time to evaluate, I hadn’t really had chance to become nervous because I was so focused on scribbling down notes from the table topics (impromptu speaking). Then I was called to the front “And now welcome Chris with no fewer than 12 speeches to evaluate!” I stepped to the front made a joke about how I said no but here I am anyway and began. The evaluations flowed out of me surprising easily, I was quite shocked how words just come to you when you don’t think too much. I stumbled a little on a few evaluations as I found it hard to make sufficient notes for the newcomers, as I always try and say positive things but a few people I could really see the nerves and inexperience coming through, just like I was to begin with! So in one particular evaluation I mentioned I could see his nerves and hesitation etc so concluded with, but there is obviously a really good speaker under the surface, this brought a smile from him which pleased me as I thought I was a little hard on him.

I got two set of applauses for my evaluation as I think the experienced members know just how hard it as a new member being thrown in the deep end and asked to complete that task. I am so glad he volunteered me even after my reluctance now though as I feel more confident in performing any of the roles in the future and I really enjoyed it! Next time I shouldn’t let my ego try and talk me out of doing things that will enhance my life!

16th February 2023

Tonight’s session felt like a bit of step back, beginning with the fact that I was to repeat an early speech “energies role in the recovery from anxiety again.” I was nervous leading up to this speech, I believe I was putting additional pressure on myself as this time I was incorporating feedback from the previous analysis so therefore this time it needed to be ‘better.’

I was called up to the stage and as I began speaking the nervous feeling just didn’t subside like it usually does, I managed to bring some of the feedback into the presentation used the stage more had more animated hand movements but the actual content of the speech I actually struggled to bring into my mind. I missed a lot of talking points that I wanted to bring in and was just grabbing for things to say. I finished my speech with over a minute left on the maximum speaking time. Honestly I was just glad for it to be over. Some of the feedback said that I looked nervous was touching my face, being jittery which I agree with but some other feedback was that it was great, a really positive message and delivered well. It’s all constructive feedback to bring into my future speeches and I am grateful for it. It did feel like a step back in performance but I am really beginning to stop caring what others think of my speeches and want to do well for myself and not for the recognition of anyone else so that’s a major positive.

16th March 2023

I was coerced by the chairman to be ‘THE toastmaster’ this evening. My role? To run the whole evening. Let's just say I thought this was a little out of my depth, on the toastmaster progress route this role was the one to be taken on when you are the most experienced. But as I am living what I preech I decided I would take the invitation on, does it matter if I mess up? Will everyone mock me for being out of my depth? Of course not! It is a supportive and friendly environment. So as I tell others: take action and see what happens without being attached to any outcome.

I arrived just on time and I had actually been feeling ill that day. In a way it was good as it gave me no time to get nervous about the evening as I actually had to run into the room to make it on time. The evening itself was actually not very note worthy. I was introduced as toastmasters yes man as I would always fill whatever role was asked of me, I’ll take that as a compliment! I felt nervous for about 2 minutes as I began to run the evening and then that subsided. The evening went smoothly and after about 5 minutes I loved being the centre of attention and running the show. It’s amazing how much a story can change in your head if you don’t listen to your ego and try new things! After the evening I received a message in the group chat saying “Chris’ first attempt at toastmaster was a confident and faultless.” I’ll take that!

18th May 2023

Due to life circumstances I had to take a little hiatus so this was my first meeting after the break. My role this evening was to be the table topics evaluator, a role I had completed competently once before. So as the evening began it's conclusion I started my evaluation of all the impromptu speaking that had taken place over the course of the evening. I am beginning to feel fairly confident when on stage completing the duties during a meeting and believed I had done a good job. I got some laughs moved around the stage and was very engaging. It wasn't until afterwards when the evaluator of my evaluation stood at the stage and said "you seemed to focus more on the content of what had been said than saying what the speakers did well and could have improved on" that I realised I had kind of missed the point! I thought back to my previous time in this role and remembered that I had completed it very differently then.

I will be honest this dug at me a little, poking that old perfectionist mindset and caring what people thought of me. Fortunately I quickly put into action what I teach, accepted I'm not perfect, realised everyone wants me to succeed and probably aren't judging me negatively and even if they are it doesn't really matter. I patted myself on the back for trying my best, took on board the feedback as to improve for next time!

25th May 2023

I have now joined a second club so I will be attending weekly meeting rather than fortnightly as practice makes perfect the more regular we do things the better we get!

I chose to be the table topics master tonight. So I had quite a nice introduction to the club of leading the part of the night and didn't give a speech myself. I made a change that had never been done at the club before which was to give the 1st time guests a little heads up what their speech was going to be as I know exactly how scary and difficult it is to stand in front of a crowd with no preparation and talk about a subject that we have no idea about. The members seemed to like that I did this and mentioned perhaps doing more of it in future, it's about helping people feel comfortable speaking, not scaring them off :)

1st June 2023

Tonight was the first time that my responsibility was to evaluate another members speech.

This speech was an 'icebreaker' which is the first official speech at a club with the purpose of getting to know the speaker and allow them to get their first taste of giving a speech. This speech is usually quite personal and about the themselves as this is the easiest thing to talk about.

I was called aside by the vice president of education before the speech to warn me that the this was not your typical icebreaker, it was political and that the speaker was very opinionated and a little brash. He told me that she practiced the speech with him yesterday and it was way over the allotted time. I try and have as few opinions as possible now adays so was not looking forward to assessing it to be honest.

I stood on the stage announced the name of the speech "if (speakers name) was president and welcomed her to the stage. I was immediately shocked at her speaking ability she had a projection behind her to back up what she was saying and spoke this true passion and confidence. Referring to the board but it did not become a distraction as she engaged with the audience so well. She was so into the role that I thought that really could have been a political debate. The thought then came up, "how am I supposed to assess and help her improve this speech, she is a far more experience speaker that I am!." Of course I quickly ignored this thought before it became a focus or a source of insecurity and began really looking for something that she could work on. Her speech concluded at the exact maximum time limit which in itself was an achievement after what I had been told before hand.

I stood back on the stage and recapped and praised everything she had done well. Then I came to the thing I thought she could have worked on, I suggested it seemed a little like a lecture and that she could have ask the audience more questions to use this as a kind of problem, agreement, solution format to feel like the audience is part of this and on her side. "who thinks we were too dependent on Russia for our energy needs? hands up. Yes I agree, this is what I would do instead..."

The analyzer of my analysis (yes I know, toastmasters is very structured) said to the speaker to take the lecture comment with a pinch of salt so I don't think he agreed with what I said but that's fine it was a subjective comment.

Overall it was something very new to me and I didn't particularly enjoy it but I think it will become easier with practice, like everything does.

8th June 2023

Tonight I was at my 'new' club to deliver my first prepared speech for them. I was the first speaker of the night, I was a little nervous sat there awaiting my name to be called but nothing like the heart pounding, sweaty handed mess I was before my first speeches.

I titled the speech 'keep your mouth closed' I spoke about the importance of nose breathing for our health, CO2 is not a waste product but actually the gas that allows oxygen to separated from red blood cells so it can be released into the blood stream. I had a lot of different information, scientific points and specifics to remember so I held some notes. I stumbled my words a couple of times but overall I definitely feel I am making progress with my overall delivery.

The feedback is always critical as no matter how good you become there is always room for improvement. My evaluator noticed that I was moving around but without purpose due to nerves and suggested I should only move if it is with purpose. He also said that there were too many concepts and I needed to take more pauses. So next time I will try and build a better image of a few points rather than a small amount of information about a lot of points.

The second part of the night was extremely enjoyable though. I was brought up to stage to do an impromptu speech and for the first time I felt extremely calm and was able to just be myself. I was asked to "tell us about a silly misadventure."

I spoke about when I was in Brisbane and jumped off a bridge into a river resulting a pretty decent tale. I got a lot of laughs, I was really using my body to animate the picture, had excellent vocal variety etc. The timer of the speech said he forgot to time it because he was so engaged in the story. And for the first time, I was voted the best table topics speaker and received a nice ribbon for doing so! I felt that tonight was a real benchmark in feeling confident in my own ability to deliver a compelling speech.

15th June 2023

I was asked to do another evaluation tonight, not really wanting to I agreed anyway as the only way to get better at something is to practice.

I evaluated another icebreaker and this one was much better, it helped that the new member was quite as experienced of a speaker as the last member I evaluated. This time I actually managed to find things that could be improved upon, namely always keeping eye contact with the audience and slowing down and taking a pause. It was clear she was very nervous and I applauded her courage!

Its funny how taking action can quickly change the stories in our minds, I went from thinking I really don't like doing evaluations to "I might volunteer to do another one next week!" and that came from just three minutes of discomfort.

22nd June 2023

I took on the table topics evaluator role again tonight, I've started to get a feeling of self confidence and assurance now, which is nice. I delivered the evaluation for almost 9 minutes although the target time was a maximum of 6 minutes, so as far as timing goes not great but as far actually enjoying being up on the stage and making the most of it, what a change!

The speech got a lot of laughs, I felt comfortable was using a whole range of vocal variety compared to the monotone I had when first joining the club and was told by a few people after how much they enjoyed it, I lost out on the best evaluator to another member who is also the person responsible for coaching members so I wasn't disappointed. I am happy that my progress as a speaking appears to be accelerating though!

13th June 2023

My only speaking participation tonight was table topics. I was asked "what is something you learned the hard way?" It appears my brain is starting to work in less rigid ways now, I immediately went to golf which was a literal take on the question rather than than learning a lesson. I told a story of how I learned to play golf and was being cussed by people behind and really struggled, this wasn't a true story but the point of table topics is to have you think on your feet and tell a story out of nothing. I felt pretty comfortable and demonstrated swing technique up on stage, was quite enjoyable actually.

27th June 2023

Tonight I volunteered to be the time keeper for the first time, this is normally the first role that people do within the club as it should be quite easy. Easy if you pay attention that is, which I didn't do an overly great job at! A couple of times I for got to turn the appropriate indicating light on and once completely forgot to start the timer and just guessed how long the speech was! I told everyone this and just laughed at myself stating "I only had 1 job!" Not a role I particularly enjoyed and wont be volunteering again for it anytime soon.

I spoke in the table topics about AI and its potential for both good and bad within the world, I counted the votes and didn't receive any myself and the winner was a brand new guest.

3rd August 2023

I was thrown into it tonight, I walked in and got a look from the president of 'ahhh Chris you can do this!' I was asked to evaluate an icebreaker which I didn't mind doing. There were actually 3 icebreakers this evening and the first two were very good, It was like they had been speaking for years. Then the speaker I was evaluating came onto the stage, I lovely lady who had recently moved to the UK from Nigeria. I have to admit she really struggled with her speech about living with 9 siblings and spent half the time apologizing and not knowing what to say, I felt for her as I know how hard it can be. Unfortunately I struggled to find things that she had done well and the story didn't really give me much to talk about either, you can't tell a brand new member that they are not good though, so I gave some encouraging words and and said she performed a little better than reality as it was obvious she needed some confidence. I really struggled with the analysis and made a mess of it myself as I didn't have much to work with.

I also had a tough subject for the table topics as well - 'Performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports' I almost just said no! and walked of the stage. Instead I said what sort of a question is that! and just rambled for a minute or so before gratefully seeing the green timing light and being able to sit down. I used to analyze everything I said at meeting almost compulsively but with repetition I have become desensitized, tonight probably was a meeting where some reflection might have been appropriate but I just thought, oh I don't care if it wasn't good! what a lovely change of attitude that is coming into my life :).

7th September 2023

I was asked to complete the general evaluator role tonight and to enter the practice table topics contest neither of which I felt comfortable doing but what an opportunity for some ERP.

All the table topics contestants left the room and were brought in one by one. I was called in walked to the stage and was given the same topic as all the contestants 'I'm ready when you aren't." This was tough topic being extremely vague. So I went with talking about the Greyhound I am fostering 'Peanut.' Mentioning how he wasn't ready for adoption but I was ready to foster and support him readying him for adoption. Talked for almost the entire limit of 2 mins 30 seconds. Not an excellent speech by any means but I did it and it could have been much worse.

The general evaluator role is to evaluate how the whole evening went and to evaluate the evaluators. The meeting ran well over so I was given two minutes to do this, I took four and was being given signals by the timer to wrap it up. It's crazy that I used to hate being in front of an audience and would get of the stage as quick as possible to now where I happily over run because I enjoy it so much! It was easier that I thought, not really a surprise as I've seen it done so many times, guess I shouldn't have listened to my minds story of how it was a role only for experts...

14th September 2023

Tonight I decided to be an evaluator as this is an area that I can improve greatly in. I evaluator a ladies speech about AI in health care, the evaluation went fine, the point of her speech was to use vocal variety so I suggested that it would have been better to use a story rather than a fact based speech as there wasn't much opportunity for excitement or variety not much more to say.

The table topics was an interesting one, we were given a scenario and then had to pick an animal out of a hat to act out that scenario. Mine was how would this animal make a good detective and I pick... rhino! probably one of the worst detective animals possible, so I worked around it a bit and said instead of the rhino being a detective he was an enforcer who make in and plowed through the room taking out the targets. It was a fun topic.

21st September 2023

Well after the practice competition I entered a couple of weeks ago I thought, why not throw my hat in the ring and give it a go in the actual competition. We were asked to talk about the most important time that you took control in your life. I spoke about how I took control of my mental health, was a pretty easy talk as it's one of the most important things to me. There were 5 contestants and I finished second! I was very pleased with this as I beat a couple of very experienced speakers and lost only to Phil, who has never lost and competition at this level and has competed at a high level so it was the best I could have hoped for. I thought I was just making up the numbers. It's crazy the difference between what our minds tell us will happen and reality! Loved it looking forward to the next one.

5th October 2023

I was asked to take the general evaluators role again tonight summing up the evening. All the roles are getting easier now but I still find this one hard as I have to evaluate the evaluators, who are normally very experienced and I have to try and find things they can improve on which isn't easy to do! After the meeting finished I was thinking to myself that I didn't do a particularly good job, the next day the a message in the group chat said how my evaluation wasn't just great but it was superb and lots of people agreed with this! perhaps I was being to hard on myself!

26th October 2023

I've decided I want to start powering through my speeches rather than accepting roles. Tonight I gave a speech to complete level 2 of 'pathways' It was a speech that everyone has to give "talk about a time that you were a protege" This was pretty easy for me as I spoke about being mentored to become a therapist. As I am extremely passionate about this I had so much to say but the time quickly ran out. I spoke for 8 minutes and 10 seconds, 40 seconds over the maximum time. It appeared that no one minded though as what i was talking about was new to everyone and many mentioned afterwards that it was very interesting. Some of the feedback in my evaluation was that I should vary my vocal tone more and use more pauses for affect. I will look to take this on board for the next one.