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The Toastmasters Experience

• Posted by Theresa on November 5th, 2006 filed in My Musings, Goal-Free Living

I spent Friday night and all day Saturday up at the Skagit Valley Casino for our District 2 Fall Conference for Toastmasters. It was the culmination of the Fall Humorous and Table Topics contest. I wasn’t competing this year in either of the contests because I am in a leadership position, but it is a learning experience both when one competes and when one watches. Not everybody competes in Toastmasters but it is fun to watch the contests and see the best of the best.

Toastmasters is all about successful speaking, overcoming your fears, winning over your audience and building you business and career with leadership skills. I’ve been in Toastmasters for seven years now. I joined Toastmasters to become a public speaker. I wanted to be a SkillPath instructor/facilitator.

Since I gave up that goal earlier this year and have been in the process of letting go and living in the present moment life has been so much more relaxing and stress-free. I always trying to make everything I did fit into the mold of what I was trying to achieve.

Being a Toastmaster has greatly improved my speaking ability and I credit it with my promotions when I managed the furniture store. Toastmasters is a great program for teaching leadership skills, too. There are so many opportunities to take the lead in Toastmasters and to learn from the experience and now they have a separate leadership track that focuses on leadership in addition to the speaking track. They are designed to be worked together so that you are growing in both your speaking skills and leadership. Toastmasters is a self-improvement program that teaches by experience.

Since I am focused on Toastmasters now simply for what it is I am having a new experience with it. I am getting opportunities and experiences that I never had before and I am enjoying the process. I am two speeches away from receiving my Advanced Communicator Gold award, I am the Area Governor for five clubs, I am on the committee for the Spring Conference, I was asked to serve on a panel with the International Director of Toastmasters this weekend at the conference and I am leading a group of advanced Toastmasters to put on a workshop for struggling clubs and I am going to be a discussion leader for a community project.

I am getting to work with quality people who know how to get things done and have fun doing them. Thank you Toastmasters for a great organization.

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