My Toastmastering Journey

How it Started

In 2015 I enrolled myself in my organization’s Corporate Toastmasters club. A corporate club is limited to the employees of a particular organization. So, I always wanted to be a part of a community club to network with people from various backgrounds. That is when I got to know about Madras Toastmasters Club, where people from various age groups and professions meet during Sunday mornings to improve their communication and leadership skills. My husband became a member and had good feedback to share about the club. Little did I know that, this club was going to be a second home for me in the next few years and was going to bring about a big change in my timid and introverted personality.

My Home Club

During the 2015 floods in Chennai, when it was raining heavily and the streets were water-logged, my husband started on a Sunday morning to attend the Toastmasters meeting. I was pretty sure that the meeting was not going to happen and most probably the building might be under water. To my surprise, he returned in the afternoon. Yes! The meeting did happen amidst that heavy rain. There were a bunch of passionate Toastmasters who were running the club and would never cancel even a single meeting at any circumstance. I was impressed and went as a guest for two weeks and then did not give a second thought but became a member.

What is Toastmasters Organization?

Well, after all this hype (LOL), let me briefly explain on what this non-profit organization called ‘Toastmasters’ is all about. It is an educational organization started in 1924 that helps us enhance our public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs, and is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado. The current membership strength is 2,80,000 across 144 countries.

What do we do in a Toastmasters meeting? There are three segments in any Toastmasters meeting namely, ‘Prepared Speech’, ‘Table Topics’ and ‘Evaluation’ segments. Every member is assigned a mentor who will guide them to become better speakers and leaders. The prepared speech segment helps the members to prepare and deliver a 5-7 minutes speech, while the table topic segment helps in improving our impromptu speaking skills. A topic is given on the spot and the speaker should organize their thoughts and deliver a 1 to 2 minutes speech. The evaluation segment is the part where the prepared speeches are evaluated against predefined project objectives. The members are given opportunity to organize contests/events at various levels like ‘Club’, ‘Area’, ‘Division’, ‘District’ etc. and take up roles in all levels to enhance their leadership skills.

As a Guest

During the first two weeks when I visited as a guest, I was called on stage and asked to participate in the table topics segment. I felt butterflies in my stomach and could not utter a single word with confidence. The moment I entered the meeting hall filled with around 40 members and guests, I felt extremely uncomfortable. I felt too small about myself to even approach them and talk to them. Little did I know that, a few years later I was going to welcome the guests as a ‘Vice President-Membership’ of the club and persuade several guests to become members.

My First Prepared Speech

It was an ice-breaker where I had to introduce myself to the audience. The below picture shows a snippet of how nervous I was to face the audience and deliver a speech. My hands were shivering and wet. I was breathless. I felt as if I had forgotten my script and all my preparations made no sense. But still I successfully completed my speech with good feedback from my evaluator (Well, they always encourage you, when it comes to your first speech 😊). With the continuous encouragement from my mentor, my husband and the evaluators, I was able to quickly progress to my next few speeches focussing on organizing the speech, using visual aids, focussing on body language and vocal variety, writing a script to persuade the audience with power etc. These pictures will speak for themselves on how I was slowly able to gain confidence on stage. As it is famously said, “Practice Makes Perfect”, the Toastmasters forum gave me the stage to practice and sculpt my public speaking skills.

My First Prepared Speech - 2016

My third prepared speech - 2016My fifth speech - 2016

 

My Seventh Speech - 2017

The below picture shows a snapshot from my latest prepared speech (April 2023) on the importance of asking questions. It was a humorous speech that earned me ‘the best speaker of the day’ ribbon. The icing on the cake was that it was a special meeting for ‘Tamil New Year’s Day’.

My Latest Humorous Speech – April 2023Tamil New Year’s Day 2023 – Special Meeting

 

Representing my club in the Division for the International Speech Contest 2023. In action, on stage with a sword at Kamaraj Engineering College Virudhunagar 😉

 

An Unforgettable Speech:

Even though I had represented by club in the Area and Division a few times for various contests, I would still call my 10^th Speech (CC10) an unforgettable one. Why? I was 9 months pregnant when I delivered this 12-minute-long speech. I was in my maternity leave (in office) and it was the last Toastmasters meeting I was going to attend before my delivery. However, I had only one more project to complete my ‘Competent Communicator’ manual. The objective of the last project is to ‘Inspire the audience’. The then VP-Education of our club persuaded me to give my last speech in the coming week and then go on maternity leave. I took my ML two weeks ahead of my due date because I could not talk continuously during the office meetings. I was becoming breathless very often due to severe contractions (Braxton Hicks). The ask from our VP-E was almost impossible for me because all the other speeches were only 5 to 7 minutes long, but the last one is the longest (10 to 12 minutes). With all the encouragement, persuasion and support from my husband, ex-comm members and my mentor, I dared to give my final speech during my ninth month of pregnancy. I was hardly able to speak four words without becoming breathless, but I am still not able to believe the fact that I was able to deliver a 12-minute-long speech without any contractions and breathlessness. I guess, when the will is strong, it just happens. The picture in the right is me receiving the best speaker ribbon after delivering my speech during my ninth month of pregnancy. The picture in the left shows me receiving my CC completion certificate a month after my delivery. My speech focussed on inspiring the audience and persuading them to cultivate the habit of reading books.

Why do I consider this as my best speech? Even today some of the old members remember this speech and ask me about the names of the books I had recommended in my speech. I strongly believe that the biggest success of a speaker is to change the lives of the audience with their ability to persuade.

 

After My Maternity Break:

Things were not the same when I came back after the break. There were several new members and many old members had left. I could hardly attend the meetings having an infant at home. I still remember in 2018 when our VP-Education - TM Madhupriya requested me to conduct the table topics segment for a special meeting on Women’s Day, I carried my 3-month-old infant along with my mother and performed the role. I had to leave immediately after the table topics segment as my little one could no longer stay there in a new place. It looked as if both my public speaking and leadership tracks had to be started from square one. I felt that I was no more that confident speaker. However, the seniors in our club did not give up on me. They kept persuading me to attend meetings and take up speeches and roles. Attending meetings meant that I had to request some one to take care of my little one until I would be back. I felt guilty and seldom did that. And then came an unexpected twist. The lockdown!

 

The Lockdown:

‘Toastmasters’ is all about seeing people, shaking hands, smiling at each other, networking, speaking on stage etc. If you are wondering how we survived the lockdown, yes! You guessed it right. We moved to online meetings on Zoom. Though it would not give us the same feeling of attending in-person meetings, it was still good enough. Something is always better than nothing 😊. It was in fact a blessing in disguise for me. I could have my little one on my lap and attend meetings, give speeches, take up roles and managed to do many of the important ex-comm roles during the lock down.

I was back with a bang on both public speaking and leadership tracks. I managed to win a few contests during this period. Though winning a contest is exciting, loosing is equally painful. In one of the Area-Contests, I still remember how my two-year-old knocked on the door and screamed loudly when I was delivering my speech, and I panicked and totally forgot my script and managed to get a third place (there were only four contestants 😉). My learning from that failure was that, a good speaker should not be distracted by the external distractions. Every time I lost, I would ponder upon the reasons and come up with a few learnings and takeaways from the contest and contestants. Even though the other contestants are my competitors for the day, there are several of them who inspire me, and I consider them as my mentors. Therefore, in my world, when I step into a contest, there is no way that I would lose. I would either win or learn.

I strongly believe that failures are more precious than successes, if we choose to learn from them. A few years later in 2023 during the ISC club contest, I faced a similar situation (external distraction). When I was delivering my speech, our meeting room’s care taker entered and asked if he can bring the tea. I was distracted for a second, but my previous learning helped me handle this gracefully and I was qualified for the next level. That is why, I keep saying that success can only make us happy, but failures can groom us into better speakers if we choose to learn from our mistakes.

Even today I feel the same butterflies in my stomach when my name is read out during a contest. My hands and legs start shivering. My heart beats so loudly that someone standing near me will be able to hear my palpitations.  But the difference now is that, I know that this adrenaline rush will only help me perform well. In fact, I secretly started enjoying this and started developing an addiction towards this adrenaline rush 😊.

Trophies received so far in Toastmasters Contests - International Speech, Humorous Speech, Table Topics and Evaluation.

 

My Leadership Journey

In 2016, even though I was doing good with my speeches, I did not dare to take up ex-comm roles and start my leadership journey. I gave myself excuses that a being a mother of a 4-year-old, and being a software engineer and a Toastmaster, itself is overwhelming. Performing ex-comm roles on top of this is almost impossible and I cannot do this with commitment. My husband was progressing well in his leadership journey. I was suffering from a severe ‘identity crisis’. People always referred to me as his wife. Many of them did not even know my name. I felt like I was non-existent in the club. My husband was the treasurer of the club and during the ex-comm meetings, I used to wait outside for my husband. Some of the seniors took pity on me and asked me to take up the ‘Sergeant at Arms’ role so that I need not wait outside. I can instead stay inside the hall and attend the meeting as an ex-comm member. Honestly, this is how my leadership journey started. When I look back now after all these years, I have performed almost all the roles in the ex-comm. As a president I was able to drive my club to achieve the prestigious ‘President Distinguished’ club award and the toughest award called the ‘Golden Gavel’. Though I had aimed and vigorously worked for these two club awards with my team, the two other individual awards as a president of the club from District 120 were totally unexpected – (‘Extra Mile’ and ‘20-20 Award’).

Support System:

After my delivery, there were days I had thought of quitting Toastmasters. But my husband renewed my membership, even though I could not attend the meetings. He kept telling me that building a skill is not easy and I should not quit Toastmasters at any cost. Starting from reviewing my speeches/recordings and providing feedback to helping me out with the leadership roles, he had always been supportive in this journey. He is in fact a treasure of knowledge when it comes to the leadership track. I used him like a dictionary when I was the president of the club 😊.

Detailed feedback and Suggestions from TM Madhupriya (our Area Director) and my husband (past division director) for my division level – ISC speech 2023

 

Played the Contest Master role for the Area Contest - 2019

 

Played the Contest Master Role for the Area Contest – 2019

Attended the OTP as an Immediate Past President

International Speech Contestant - Represented the club in the Division conference 2023

Conclusion

For the guests and new members of our club, who look at me as if I was born with talent, I always tell them, how I had failed several times and endured a lot to get there. Success is always easily visible, while the failures are invisible and seldom valued and spoken about. I believe that enduring failures and learning from them is also a part of that exciting journey.

Learning any new skill requires patience, endurance, curiosity and finally that fire to become a better version of ourselves. Public speaking and leadership skills are no exceptions.