Living out loud

Last night, I won!

3 years ago, I joined the Eagle Toastmasters club, in Wallingford, CT. My goal then was simply to stop panicking when speaking in public, and to avoid the "deer in the headlights" reaction which would come over me when I looked out at an audience and realized they were looking back.

I've mostly gotten past that. Oh, there's still a little twinge from time to time, but I now realize that there'll always be a twinge, and it isn't fatal. I know that I'll probably always be anxious when trying something new, and the way to alleviate that is to go out and do it anyway.¹

I made a commitment to myself this year to enter the twice-yearly contest that Toastmasters has. I always hated competing as a child, and refused to enter contests of any kind. "I never win, so what's the point?" I used to say.

But, as a Toastmaster, I knew I needed to do it, because it would push me to a new level. I got my CTM², but I knew there was more. And I knew that winning wasn't the only way to get something good out of competing. I've been in a few contests, so I know that's true. Any movement forward is a good thing!

So last night was the club contest: Humor, and an Evaluation contest. For humor, I had to give a 6-7 minute speech, a story, not just a string of one-liners. Mine was called "Don't try this at home," about the perils of Do It Yourself home-fixing up.

The Evaluation contest is a little different. The evaluation, or feedback portion is an important part of the club meeting. That's a 2-3 minute presentation given at the end of the meeting, one for every speech given that night. Evaluators are assigned in advance, so they can work with the speaker to make sure they give useful feedback.

So, Toastmasters made a contest out of it. One volunteer gives a speech. The contestants take notes, and then have 5 minutes after the speech to quickly outline an oral presentation. Then the notes are taken away and all contestants but the first leave the room. Then, one by one, all contestants evaluate the same speech. That way the judges are comparing apples to apples.

Last year I won the evaluation contest.

This year I won both contests!
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1 Thanks, Susan Jeffers!
2 Competent Toastmaster (first achievement award in Toastmasters)
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