Toastmasters

Lately I've been talking municipal issues at the local government meetings.

What you practice in your head for days rarely translates in the moment.

Yet I'm pretty comfortable interviewing people on camera.

 

It’s kinda cool watching a bunch of people jotting down notes as they take in your latest speech ... then you remember they’re just doing that because there’s going to be a test on it in two weeks.

 

At my last job interview, I had to give a 10-minute presentation about the two jobs I was interviewing for. I put together a powerpoint and practiced for about a week before I gave it. I tried to keep it conversational, and I referred to my notes at a few points, but it went very well.

I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs leading up to it, though.

 

Check out themoth.org, and see if they have any events near you. (You might know the show from NPR, or their podcasts.)

The live, local events are interesting, and a lot of fun. They’re usually held at a bar or club, so they’re a good, cheap, midweek social event.

You’ll see some good, some bad, and some brutally honest story telling. And, when you’re ready, you can sign up to tell a story.

 

This is fantastic and I will be borrowing it in everyday conversation at some point.

 

I don't consider myself to be a great public orator or anything, but it really is true that even the smallest phone call or conversation goes much more smoothly if you're just well prepared. And I've definitely tried to get into the habit of it even though I used to scoff at people who do that as trying too hard.

 

This is where I am. I hate it, hate it. Palm sweats, rapid heartbeat to the point where I think I am going to have a heart attack, the whole nine yards. And that's the day of. No sleep the night before. It's awful.

Had to start doing it during Peace Corps. I remember once in particular I got thrown up in front of 150 kids with no notice. It's mostly a blur now, but I remember whatever I did didn't work and I did some theater warmup-type thing. When I got off, someone said, "You're a natural!" Uh ... no.

But it's amazing what you can go through if you're forced to. And that you never get used to it. I did monthly outreach events during my Guangzhou tour, and the sleepless nights, palm sweats and rapid heartbeat continue.

It reminds me of the Seinfeld routine: more people are scared of public speaking than death. That means at a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy.

Seriously, you've never heard that before?

 

During my Icebreaker speech, my stomach was in knots, I felt like I was talking way too fast, and it generally felt horrible. I never know what to do with my hands, and it felt like I had shaky voice the entire time. My evaluator's first comments were, "You seemed so comfortable up there, very natural." It couldn't have been further from the truth. But that's the way it goes, I guess.

 

A while ago I gave a talk that included my performing a magic trick—a very simple card trick. I purposefully fucked it up at the start of the speech, and then my big crescendo was to do it correctly—to find the chosen card—at the end. Like, when I gave the last line of the speech, I'd pull out the right card. For the 20 minutes or whatever my speech was, I was shitting that I would get the trick wrong. That I'd go for the big reveal and hold up the wrong card in front of hundreds of people and hear groans. I was really, really crapping it.

After that stress, regular speeches became no big deal. It's just talking. If you extend your degree of difficulty somehow, everything less hard becomes so much easier.

 

After reading this thread, I checked to see if there are any local chapters of Toastmasters. There are...several of them. Most of them have their own sites, and those sites have a "Meet the Members" link, so I clicked. There's one local dude who is a part of four or five chapters of this thing. It seems like that's the only thing he does in life.

 

I would read a profile of that man.

 

Toastmasters chapters are seemingly every damn where. I found one that meets 2 miles from my house. It's almost like a support group for some people. At least atmy chapter, the folks seem to be genuinely good people. There are a few, though, that make me wonder.