ToastMasters Club 8262, Area 27, Central Division

Success Stories

 John W.

> John W.

Several years ago I returned to college for my business degree. On the first day of school, our instructor commanded each of us to give a short introduction speech - our name, occupation, and what we wanted out of college. My turn came; I stood at the front of the class and nearly froze! The only words that fell from my mouth were the words to a poem I had memorized in the eighth grade! Once my mouth was moving, I managed to wheeze out the rest of my introduction without passing out. Exhausted from sheer terror, I returned to my seat.

Then our instructor dropped the final bombshell: "EVERY class has at least one oral presentation!"

Clearly something had to be done. I quickly ruled out the idea of creating a clone, or sending a proxy to do my presentations. Finally, I joined Toastmasters. There is something about the Toastmasters method that worked so much better than any of the speech classes I had taken. By the time I graduated, I was not only giving first class presentations, but had begun giving seminars at my job - which contributed to earning a promotion!

Someone once told me that learning public speaking from others who are also learning public speaking seems like the blind leading the blind - yet the Toastmasters model works; and it is fun!