I’ve been visiting some Toastmasters meetings recently. It’s part of my commitment to spend at least a little time each year for personal development. I figure, being able to do better public speaking will always be helpful to me no matter what happens to Lowe Studio in the coming years.
While I’m not a great orator (is that the right word?), I wouldn’t count myself that bad. In fact, I don’t think I fear public speaking anymore these days. I’ve done it so many times it doesn’t phase me so much anymore…plus I think all my years making a fool of myself on stage for my bands has cured me of any fear being in front of audiences. I actually quite enjoy being the center of attention sometimes to be perfectly honest.
I DO mess up though. I think I occasionally screw myself up when I lose my train of thought while speaking and then it’s game over — I lose all composure when that happens. That’s where it gets ugly. So I hope an organization like Toastmasters could help.
I had heard good things about Toastmasters for years. My friend and former boss used to go to Toastmaster meetings and she always used to report back about how impressive it was. She was always spending break times doing speech homework. Homework?!! Yuck. It looked really time consuming.
My wife had interest in it. She said it was actually quite a popular organization in Hong Kong. Some of the best speakers in my BNI networking group are Toastmasters.
Yadda yadda yadda. So I had built up a pretty impressive impression of what a Toastmaster meeting might actually be like.
As it turns out, I’ve been to 2 Toastmaster clubs now and I’m not all that wow’ed just yet. I mean, each club seems to have about a little less than half of the members being great speakers. But the rest of the group are individuals being english-second-language people. Not that that’s a bad thing (my wife wanted to join just to improve her English), but I’m not so sure I want to invest so much time and energy going to a meeting where I have to support half the group? Selfish, I know. It might be the case where ESL members can contribute to my learning as well… but it’s still something I have to think about.
Verdict is out. I’m going to visit more Toastmasters groups and try find a club where I might be surrounded by speakers that will put my skills to shame. It can’t be that hard to find one can it?
LoweStudio Inc was founded by me, Raphael Lowe, a Honolulu based illustrator and web designer. I presently design and manage a few dozen commercial websites, but my main focus these days is acting as the head developer for Kapiolani Community College and teaching
You overcame your fear because you spoke to a lot of people..how I wish I could do that..
Well, it wasn’t all that hard to do. I just put myself out in a situation that I wasn’t always comfortable with and just ran with it. It helps to have something riding on my ability to speak too…my business survival depends on it.