Have you ever thought about entering the Toastmasters fall humorous speech contest?
“But I am not funny,” you might say. The fact is everyone has a humorous story inside them.
At your family gatherings, are you taking notes about the stories that make your family howl with laughter? We all have memories that make us smile. People laugh at stories they can relate to. They laugh at the unexpected twist. They laugh at situations we face every day. They laugh at themselves.
If you have never smiled, never laughed, never got into a ridiculous situation with kids, stores, or travel, then you are excused. But if there is the teeniest glint of laughter in your eyes, you can write a humorous speech.
Take one of those stories that made you smile, write it down without editing. Add in what your reactions were and what made you laugh about the situation. Now add another story in the same theme or about a similar situation. Always keep the funniest line for the end of each story. That is called the punch line.
The punch line is the surprise, the twist, the words that will make them laugh. Pause just before you say it. Deliver it with confidence. Emphasize the most important words.
What do you do if they don’t laugh? The comedian, Jack Benny, used to slowly fold his arms and wait for the audience to get it. They always laughed. Maybe that is not your style but do try waiting a few seconds, then move on to the next story.
What do you do if they do laugh? Take a few moments to enjoy their laughter. Let them enjoy it too. Let the laughter swell like an ocean wave, and then just before it dies down, say your next line.
Start with a short opening that makes you laugh. It is better to use your own experience than to grab something from the internet. The audience wants to get to know you. Close with a line that ties it all together and makes you laugh.
You can do it. Your own stories, wrapped in laughter, will be a gift that only YOU can give to the audience! If you have fun, the audience will have fun.
Aiming for them takes the focus off the obstacles.
Achieving them gives you renewed enthusiasm.”
Patrick Lindsay. Now is the Time; 170 ways to seize the moment, p. 128
During the course of our careers we have all likely heard something about goal setting at some point; if not once, perhaps multiple times.
For myself, I am a goal-oriented person and I often set goals.
One area in which I have set goals is through Toastmasters. When I first joined Toastmasters in 2005 I went “all in” and completed 40 speeches and presentations in two years and within 13 months of joining I achieved the Competent Toastmaster award along with the Competent Leader and Advanced Communicator – Bronze awards. I set lots of goals and worked hard to achieve them.
What exactly is the value of goals?
Goals set direction – whatever it is that you want to work on, you will only reach it if you set a goal (or multiple goals).
Goals provide opportunities to learn – en route to the goal we will new learn new things and new ways of doing things.
Goals provide benchmarks – if you have several goals for getting something done, you will feel encouraged as you reach those milestones and it makes attaining the ultimate goal more realistic.
Goals provide opportunities for achievement – when you reach your goal you can celebrate your success!
“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” – Earl Nightingale
Deborah is an avid Toastmaster, goal-setter and continuous learner. She was a member of the Not-Just-Us Toastmasters Club from 2005 – 2010. She joined FCC Stubblejumpers in 2016 and currently serves as their Club President. She most recently joined Literally Speaking where she participates remotely with a Club outside of her home province. She is also an avid reader and horse lover.
So, jumping right in: What is a “Toastmaster”? Typically, I think of the verbal acknowledgement of occasion to an audience, culminating with the raising of a glass. But the word also evokes a silly Monty Python-esque image! In their visual dictionary, I see Cleese or Jones perhaps, possessing exceptional proficiency with the crisping and browning of bread, two slices (or four) at a time. Buttering evenly and arranging on a platter placed just so atop the requisite crisp white napkin, then at the perfect time, removing a previously placed silver dome with a fearless flourish. Thus unveiling the cooked triangular bread portions to a prim English breakfast dining room? And, imagine the years of training and array of considerations? That the silver dome would make the toast a bit soggy (any hospital veteran can tell you this!) if the toast was covered too soon is but one of these! But I digress.
For years, the image of what attending Toastmasters would be like, and why I “should” do it loomed dark, heavy and large as a monolith with the words “You must overcome your fears” engraved in it’s hard, shiny surface. There wasn’t even a nervous “run -up-and-touch-it-to-see-what-happens” moment as per the ape in the prelude to 2001: A Space Odyssey! At the mere mention of it I’d recoil like a snail. The perfunctory admonishment of “It would be good for you” danced around my mind, complete with waving finger … and avoidance won. Another modern space film analogy involves a staunch and absolute statement by Star Trek Voyager’s Captain Janeway: “fear exists to be conquered!” I wrote this obediently and sheepishly into my journal that night. If Janeway espouses this … it must be true! Geez … even Picard had never said THAT!! More alarming to my small self image was that this FELT true inside! Oh boy.
Eventually, by Grace, I came to a space (sic) where facing fear was less an issue than it had been. I found myself looking into a local group that hopefully, wasn’t too intense. I found them. And they weren’t! And here I am a year later sharing my two cents!
“What this must not be is an environment of stuffy seriousness”, I told Self. I envisaged business people, and others, steeped in confidence and a drive to succeed. Oh dear! Those I’d prejudicely concluded in typical ego fashion, that must be opposite in upbringing, conditioned beliefs and values than I. They MUST be. My mind said so! I pondered being exposed to the whole world. After all I anticipated that my audience wouldn’t be the naked ones one is coached to picture to aid confidence. I would be the naked one up there, crouching behind the podium! Many people’s worst nightmare.
Jerry Seinfeld observed that the number one fear of most people is public speaking. Number two was death. “This means”, he continued “to the average person, that if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy!” I suppose speaking in front of others is like a “little death”, which happens to be how the sexual orgasm is described in some cultures. I’m not sure that my experiences thus far with “being naked” in front of an audience would deliver quite that level of bliss!
However … Toastmasters, like most experiences, is NEVER what the mind projected it would be. For that alone, it is worth going. Just sitting at the U-shaped table, I found all sorts of imagined stuff falling away. We never live what we fear. Only on the inside. Toastmasters has coincidingly facilitated a deep shift in consciousness for me. In other areas of “my life”, there’s been an alignment happening subtly for a long time. Arriving into a Toastmasters era is part of the bigger program. Attending and being present, noticing what comes up inside, is primary. The speaking is almost incidental! ALMOST! This is likely not a common aim for fellow members the world over. I typically don’t have “goals” per se … yet concurrently, I do. I just don’t usually label them. There’s a “Heart Program” running in the background all the time. It’s like looking at the glass and seeing it’s always been full and cannot be otherwise!
I am grateful for the opportunity and I endeavour to be fully present, even when I am called on for a Table Topics contribution! Talk about a challenge to remain present! It’s usually afterwards that the ideas and the question asked come clear! “Just relax” being screamed in your head by the onboard “Fix-This” cheering section, does not yield a state for relaying a candid story about your favorite Hallowe’en costume to the room in the 2 LONG minutes allotted!
The Toastmaster tree produces fruit which tends to ripen in stages at different rates. The ripened define the ripening and vice versa. Yin and Yan. But we’re a whole tree all the same. Sometimes, we’re shaking the tree and sometimes we are just shaking! Particularly during Table Topics, one instinctively feels the fight or flight response! Something is afraid of dying up there in front of the other fruits! Our relationship with fear is the most important one we have. From it flows all. Relationships with self and other, with the physical world, with emotions, with endeavours of all kinds. Toastmasters challenges me to love my fear. To not become it. To witness it with spaciousness. If the Seinfeld observation holds true, Toastmasters affords the chance to leap from that casket to the lectern! But wait … does that casket have pillows?
Author: Toastmaster Bengt
I have been attending Toastmasters for just over a year. My interests are self-realization, music composition, poetry, Love, the Oneness of everything … and the Concorde! I currently live with my sister and her family in Calgary. I love to play drums, some guitar, and keyboards. My favorite music groups are Duran Duran and Metallica. I love feeding birds, seeing Truth, and Being Stillness. Toastmasters is a place where I can be present with uncomfortable thoughts, feelings and sensations … and transcend these with exposure!
A few years ago, while navigating a tough life-change, I found myself at the river. The river is a great metaphor for life, isn’t it?
I walked into the river to feel the pull of the current. The water, flowing down from the Rocky Mountains, froze my lower legs within seconds. I turned around to walk back to shore, but instead, I plugged my nose and fell straight backwards.
I had no towel or change of clothes, what was I thinking?
But, the shock seemed to open my mind to a new thought – Why don’t I share my gift of story-telling in the form of public speaking. I didn’t think about whether I could do it. I jumped in and booked my first speaking event. It went really well. So, I booked another one, and another. I faltered and failed.
Fear set in and I let my dream float away.
Have you wanted to play the piano without any lessons, or pick up a baseball bat and hit one out of the park – the first time, or become an expert without taking any training? That. Was. It! If I wanted to be a public speaker, I needed to learn and practice public speaking.
Where on earth could I do that?
I found out about Toastmasters on the web. Everything I read and saw led me to believe that Toastmasters was for accomplished employees who wanted to enhance their skills – not for me, a creative writer and full time mother who wanted to speak and share stories with humour and authenticity.
The idea of joining Toastmasters increased my fear to proportions that were not compatible with life. So, to avoid the need for resuscitation, I avoided Toastmasters — for months. Eventually my internal motivation to become better pushed me forward. On the drive to my first meeting, my thoughts went like this… I can’t do this – what if they don’t like me – I can’t breathe – my chest hurts – what if I’m having a heart attack?
Somehow I made it into the meeting, and once I realized there was no tryout —no comparison – and lots of space for individual differences, I joined Literally Speaking Toastmasters. It became a place to safely take risks and move at my own pace. Members challenged me to be my best through meaningful evaluation. Evaluation is a part of Toastmasters I did not know about going in – once I learned about it, I wanted to slink out the door and never return.
However, evaluation and feedback have been game-changers for me. We receive feedback at Toastmasters, but we also learn how to give it. I have been a Toastmaster for a year and the speech practice together with feedback has helped me grow in ways I didn’t anticipate. Plus, giving evaluations has improved my listening skills; I pay attention to the aspects of another’s speech that work – and I take note on ways to enhance my own speeches, if it resonates.
I have found a supportive place to practice public speaking. But it is much more. My mentor works with me on speech development and delivery. I’ve found a leadership role that engages my strengths and builds confidence. And doing different roles at the meetings makes me more comfortable being up front.
But the thing I enjoy most about my Toastmasters group is the people – and it’s not just my Club, I have heard this over and over again. The ability to build yourself in a supportive environment with people who also want to strive toward their best, creates positive relationships and meaningful interactions. It creates joy – who doesn’t need more joy in their life?
When I think back to the day I stood in the river – I wonder – Was it crazy to plunge into the icy water? – OR was it was a sign of courage and will. I needed those qualities to overcome my fear of joining Toastmasters and pursuing public speaking.
A river doesn’t get to where it’s going by standing still.
Literally Speaking Toastmasters 