Does the thought of speaking in public make you anxious? Want some tips on how to deal with the butterflies in your stomach? Come to the Toast I.T. Toastmasters Open House on Oct 10, 2006 for a fun, informative session!

I'm giving one of the Toastmasters International educational modules called "Taking the Terror out of Talk". It will be part of the 229th meeting of Toast I.T. Toastmasters, so you'll also get to see a little bit of what Toastmasters is like.

This is free, so come on over!

Toast I.T. Toastmasters
Metro Hall
55 John Street, Toronto, Ontario (map)
Oct 10, 2006 (Tuesday)
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

(And even if you're a polished public speaker, come anyway to show support and share tips! ;) )

Photo credit: Cherie, Creative Commons Attribution License, from Flickr.

On Technorati: toastit, toastmasters, speaking

They remarked once again on my lack of energy. I was too low-key for them. I decided not to use sugar-high-enthusiasm because I want to learn how to talk to suits. I'm good at enthusiasm. I can bounce up and down, wave pompoms, whatever. I need to learn how to speak to people's serious sides, not just amuse them with my antics and my enthusiasm. I need to learn how to provoke thought and establish credibility. I'm not going to be this young forever, and I want to learn how to speak properly by the time I need it!

Fortunately my evaluator also pointed out that I used a pleasant pace - accessible! - not like my usual rush of words. Still, this is the second time I've tried my serious voice on Toast I.T., and the reaction's always been iffy. They like me breathless with enthusiasm, bubbly, sparkling - but I'm more than that! I'm having a hard time getting past this with Toast I.T., even if I wear a blazer and glasses and everything. I want to be both. I want to blend seriousness and joy.

Maybe I can save my "low-key" voice for IBM Toastmasters. Hmm...

The three- to five-minute roleplay situation for me seemed constrained and unnatural. This is strange because I'm perfectly fine with elevator pitches. I think I just need to get better at roleplaying.

I should probably have tried selling something concrete that I wasn't too familiar with instead of selling something intangible. People seem to think that selling ideas is easier than selling something concrete because ideas don't cost money, they just cost time. I wish I could make _them_ try to sell other people on ideas. Time is money. In fact, time is a lot more expensive than the gadgets many people would casually throw money away on.

One Toastmaster was particularly vocal about my being an absolute failure at "real" sales and how I'd be fired right away if this was the real thing. He insisted that sales was a hypercompetitive, cutthroat world and that salespeople are paid tons because of the competition. Personally, I believe that salespeople are paid a lot because they clearly contribute to the bottom line in a quantifiable manner. I also suspect that any numbers-driven sales that's just concerned with how much the salesperson makes is totally not for me. I'm more interested in relationship building. Fortunately, my mentor called him to task and told him that there were other perfectly valid ways of selling.

... And this guy also wondered why I didn't have any flashy slides. After all, we all know that Powerpoint is _essential_ for sales. Mph. Well, he was trying to be helpful, and there _are_ some audiences that need a slide deck. For what I was doing, that was definitely out of the picture.

The same person thought I didn't control the conversation enough, and that I let my roleplay partner do too much of the talking. I thought I did too much talking and not enough listening. I felt that I broke into too many long passages, and I hate that. I feel that I'm most effective when I listen to people, suggesting something after I've understood their situation and validated them by paying attention to them. I hate it when people fake listening, when they just care about when they get to speak next. I hate it when people pretend they want a conversation with you but they really just want to sell you stuff and their message isn't individualized at all..

Wish I had my mom's books to whap the guy with! <laugh> Well, he _was_ just trying to be helpful, and _his_ world is probably the dog-eat-dog world he described. I'm 22 and I'm new to the subject, but I get the feeling that there aree zbetter things out there.

Oh well.

I think I know what I'm going to "sell" for project 2 - houses. Or whatever.

On Technorati: toastmasters, sales

Random Japanese sentence: 机の下から猫が出てきた。 A cat appeared from under the desk.

Michael Chan gave a speech on first impressions. I talked to him afterwards to give him a more detailed evaluation and do the proper mentor-ish thing of telling him some of the things I learned from that speech, and we discovered that we had very similar book interests. He's also read things like "Never Eat Alone" and "Love is the Killer App". In fact, he goes to the trouble of publishing book reviews on Amazon. Must keep track of this guy. =)

I was proud of Chris Charabaruk, too, who stepped up and volunteered to evaluate Michael on his second speech despite just having finished his second speech as well. I talked to Chris afterwards to give him some feedback on his evaluation, too. I'm glad they're both making the most of the Toastmasters program!

We had our club elections today, too. I got acclaimed to the position of VP Ed, and I'm looking forward to helping everyone learn as much as they can... =)

On Technorati: toastmasters

Random Japanese sentence: 犬が１匹、猫が１匹、カナリヤが３羽います。 We have a dog, a cat and three canaries.

On Technorati: toastmasters

Today one of the members brought his girlfriend to listen to his first speech. The girl was painfully shy and clearly terrified of public speaking, even during the Table Topics and guest comments section.

She approached me afterwards, though. And oh, the stories I could see inside her... CN Tower Stair Climb T-shirt, colored bands around her wrists: these are the marks of someone who cares deeply about some things. I listened to her fears and shared my own experience learning how to speak - at first starting out because I couldn't stop talking about technology and I wanted to get into conferences for free, and then realizing how much fun it was to help people learn. I told her that the real trick to speaking in front of an audience - or at least in front of Toastmasters - is to speak to them one person at a time, treating them as your friends.

Most of all, I looked into her eyes and told her in many different ways that she had stories worth telling.

When I felt her tentatively reaching out, I closed the loop and we hugged. The hug was one of the best I've ever had, and her thank you one of the sweetest.

This is what I live for: that deep connection, that chance to help people find their voice.

On Technorati: toastmasters, teaching

Random Japanese sentence: 猫がソファーでねむっている。 The cat is sleeping on the sofa.

I had misgivings about the Toastmasters speech contest held Thursday, but when I gave myself permission to just go ahead and do it, I had tons of fun. I gave a speech entitled "I Will Learn How To Cook... Or Die Trying". Frequent readers of my blog (none of which were among the audience) would recognize some of the misadventures I've had. =) I'll post the MP3 one of these days. (I really should start an infrequent little podcast...)

My contest performance was only the second time I'd run through that particular version of the speech. Still, I had no problems connecting to the audience, treating them as friends, and making them laugh. I missed a few jokes I had wanted to make, but it flowed together well. I'm still having problems ending on the strong note everyone expects, probably because I pour a lot of energy into the beginning and middle as well.

Even though I threw the revised speech together as hastily as a stir-fry on a starving Saturday night, I won second place. =) The man who won first was a really cool Toastmaster, and his speaking skills are far beyond mine. Lots of things to learn!

Mrs. Castillo would be thrilled to hear that people liked my use of props. I can think of no other cause for this but the drama in education program we had in grade school. =) My father and my sister must share the credit for anything I might know about humor and storytelling. My mom's encouraging note earlier this morning was the source of my energy during the speech. And oh, so many people who keep me going and make me laugh... If I spread sunshine in people's lives, it is because I get so much from others!

I need to work on speech organization a bit more, and endings are still one of my weak points. I have plenty of things to learn, and I love that. I don't want to be a good speaker. I want to become a brilliant speaker so that I can inspire people not only to adopt the ideas I want them to consider but also to improve their own communication skills. =)

Very good day.

On Technorati: toastmasters, contest

Random Japanese sentence: 彼女はその猫に牛乳をやった。 She fed milk to the cat.

Today I also have a chance to watch Take the Lead for free. Well, nearly free. TTC fare round-trip. Whatever. Antonio Banderas! Ballroom dance plus hip-hop moves! Antonio Banderas! Dancing!

_ARGH!_

Decisions, decisions. I'm the only person who's even somewhat prepared to represent my club at the speech contest, as no one else volunteered for the thing. If other people are bad (unlikely!), I might even win and go on to the district conference, etc. Even if I don't win, though, I'll have a chance to listen to other speakers and learn a little bit more about style and technique.

From the take-the-first-circus perspective, Toastmasters wins hands down. This particular contest will occur only once. I can always watch the movie when it comes out in the cinema or six months from now during some Graduate House movie night. I'll probably end up watching it by myself. It's one of those cheesy feel-good movies that my guy friends would probably not be caught watching.

But I'm _still_ going to wish the two events were on different days, and I'm still going to hate performing. I'm not excited about this contest. I'll just to have to grit my teeth and turn up the energy. I'll go to the contest, give my speech, listen to other people's speeches, and maybe learn a lot about what I like and don't like.

The last contest wasn't that much fun, either. I joined the humorous speech contest six months ago. The first speech relied on scatological humor, which was a bit crass. My speech was so-so, although I got a few laughs. I didn't really find the last speech funny, but it was more of a speech - used more of the techniques, had more special effects.

I know competitions are nice for forcing myself to grow. I learned so much because of my programming competitions. In terms of speaking, though, I much prefer listening to and interacting with the speakers I meet at conferences. I don't like competing head-on with people. I'd rather measure myself against a standard, competing against myself to get better.

I'm just not excited about my upcoming speech. Come to think of it, I'm not that excited about learning from the other speakers, either, not if the speech quality's like the last contest.

The club gave me a CTM pin and a very interesting book entitled "48 Laws of Power". They also signed a card... Awww! =)

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

On Technorati: toastmasters, toastit

I'm doing "Evaluate to Motivate" next week. I have plenty of stories to tell them about my family and my friends! =)

On Technorati: toastmasters, speech

I've volunteered to do my eighth speech next week. I'll be talking about Secret Happiness. The eight speech project is about using visual aids effectively, and I'm sure my wonderful socks will be an excellent visual aid. ;) Secret Happiness!

We had an executive meeting, too. Must get the hang of organizing my notes for the minutes. Will write up the minutes tomorrow and send it to exec.

Oh! I did the secret geek handshake today. One of the guests mentioned conferences - "cons", in geek lingo. Gaming conferences, in particular. First half of the geek handshake. I responded by telling him that in terms of computer gaming, I'm weird - I'm into Nethack. If you could've seen him just light up... Secret geek handshake indeed!

On Technorati: toastmasters, geek

I had drafted talks for all sorts of things: lifehacking, the Philippines, even the weather. None of them seemed to fit. Then Pierre Duez of IBM CAS suggested that I talk about pets. Come to think of it, he may have been joking. Anyway, I told myself, it's the ice breaker. They don't mind non-serious topics. They want to get to know who I am.

Right. I could get away with a story about my cat. I threw together the talk in the corridor. I knew I could tell plenty of stories about Neko, who's quite a character. I picked a couple, came up with a nice beginning and a nice ending, and went for the thing.

I had so much fun bringing a few laughs from my seasoned audience. They weren't belly laughs or anything, probably just I-know-what-you're-talking-about laughs. But that was good. I wasn't sure how reactive people were because the past few talks were mostly serious, but it was fun.

It was my first time with a U-shaped arrangement. I don't like having anything between me and my audience. I stepped in front of the lectern, but I didn't know what to do about the hulking large projector in the middle of the room. I ended up going in front of it, which cut off eye contact with the people on the ends of the U. Doug Vowles suggested that I move all the stuff out of the way next time. I still have to figure out how to properly do blocking for U-style arrangements.

I remember how the all-around stage we performed Junto al Pasig was an interesting blocking challenge in grade 4. I should read up on theatrical blocking for plays in the round, and maybe ask Tita Naty and Mrs. Castillo as well...

I also need more lead-up to the punchline. I told them about ensuring my cat's safety in the household by telling my parents I'll petition my cat and my cat can petition them. ;) That went by too quickly because I was already overtime. Hmm, must work on my timing.

I say "like" way too much. Must work on my filler words next time.

I also need to work on my resonance. (Err, must find out what they mean by that, too. Yes, voice. But how?)

Whee... =D

On Technorati: toastmasters, speaking

I have no idea why people thought that was the best table topics speech. But hey, I love speaking, and I'll do it at the drop of a hat... <laugh>

My icebreaker speech is coming up next week. I'm going to have so much fun preparing for it! =)

On Technorati: speaking, toastmasters

For the table topics game, we had one minute to prepare and one minute to present. Topics were randomly drawn from an envelope, and people could pass if they wanted to. Everyone would vote, and the winner would have the privilege of keeping the club trophy/mascot for the meeting.

Tonight's topic: superpowers.

The table topics master started the game going. His superpowers were encyclopedic knowledge and lightning-fast computation, and he made us laugh by pointing out all of the everyday things that such superpowers would solve. At what point does buying a transit pass make more sense than buying tickets individually? How much would you need to pay for gas in order to get somewhere? How much would you have to pay in taxes? I'm sure he was thinking on his feet, but he was thinking so quickly that the words flowed as smoothly as in any well-prepared speech.

The group was surprised when I chose to rise to the challenge of public speaking. I guess most guests are terrified of speaking in front of a crowd of strangers. My superpower was the ability to win beauty contests. I wracked my brain for a good use for that and I couldn't find any, but here's sorta what I came up with: (can't remember that clearly)

I'm five feet one-fourth inch tall—and that one-fourth inch is very important, mind you. I have glasses and pimples. But it doesn't matter, because I've got a superpower. I can win any beauty contest I want. (pause) Who'd have figured? I love using my superpower to make a point... and it certainly helps me promote my projects!

Back in the Philippines, there was an IT pageant. A search for role models. (pause) The application asked for, of all things, bust size, waist and hip measurements. (pause and shrug) With my A-cup, my waist—let's not even talk about my hips—I could go right in there, win the thing... and _then_ show them that it's not how you look but what you _do_ that counts.

Much fun. =)

There was a girl who could catch and control fire, a guy who could produce gadgets from somewhere, an old man who said that a forcefield would be incredibly useful for deflecting the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes—or rotten tomatoes and lettuces from other Toastmasters on the occasion of a really bad speech...

Good stuff! I voted for the forcefield guy because he was funny. =) The sergeant-at-arms was happy to announce that someone had won by a landslide...

... but not as happy as I was. ;) Well, that made my day. I can't wait to go to the next one!

私は父からコンピューターゲームがあたえられた。 I was given a computer game by my father.

On Technorati: toastmasters, speaking

I WANT TO BE A PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER.

I love sharing ideas with people. I love bringing my enthusiasm and my passion to a hall and infecting as many people as I can. I love learning about presentation techniques and fascinating ideas. I love getting people to think. Besides, speaking is a great way to get to meet other fascinating people. I've made friends and learned about opportunities at post-conference dinners.

I love attending workshops and conferences, even for things that I don't immediately need. My conference notes focus more on speakers' delivery styles than actual technical content. My books aren't about programming in Java or writing HTML, but business and public speaking.

I love the challenge of providing value to a whole hall of people. As a wet-behind-the-ears teacher, I've presented alternative teaching techniques in front of veteran educators. I've talked about technology in front of students and professionals. I've survived the scrutiny of a college classroom.

I've had my bad days. Unresponsive audiences. Technical problems. Lackluster content. All of those things just keep pushing me to learn more, practice more, be better.

I've been giving presentations for four years. I've turned talks into articles and blog posts into presentations. I want to learn more. I want to entertain people the way Dean Alfar made hundreds of people laugh during the iblog.ph summit. I want to teach and inspire people the way Zig Ziglar and other business speakers do.

I want to share what other people and I have learned. I want to talk about education. Productivity. Technology. I want to raise questions. I want to provoke thought and action.

I can learn by watching people at conferences. I can learn by listening to audiobooks. I can learn by reading transcripts, artciles and books. But if I could find someone to mentor me, who knows how much faster I'll learn and how much more value I can give right away?

Who are the best speakers you know? Would they be willing to mentor a geek more than willing to swap technical knowhow for presentation mentoring?

そのコンピュータは大変役にたった。 The computer was very useful.

Renan says:

there's always the toastmaster's club. there should be one in the philippines; since you're moving to canada, there should be one too. find one that suites your needs. some are topical; for example, some talk of nothing but politics, others are free-form and tackle whatever topic the member brings in. i attended a couple of these, and it did help. bucause of schedule conflict, though, i had to quit.

it toastmaster's international (toastmasters.org) is not for you, there's always the speech class. i have a friend who was a communications major in college and he told me they had a class on public speaking where each one of them give a speech on different topics—-impromptu, extemporaneous, a eulogy, acceptance speech, etc.

of course, as you said, you can learn a lot by listening to people, especially charismatic speakers, and learn about the psychology of it.

On Technorati: speaking, toastmasters