Cynthia Beckles

I recently celebrated my 10^th Anniversary in Toastmasters.   As a native New Yorker, I was devastated by September 11^th, 2001, but made a firm decision to move forward with my public speaking goals.

Improving my public speaking skills has always been a major challenge! 

Toastmasters gave me h-o-p-e!

Toastmasters helped me….  

Hone my communication skills

Overcome my fears

Practice Public Relations

Empower myself and others

Practice makes make perfect!  Toastmasters gave me the opportunity to hone my communication skills by doing manual speeches and volunteering at speech contests. Even though writing came natural to me, public speaking did not.   I have now completed six Competent Communicator awards.  

Working in speech contests from the club through the regional level allowed me to observe experienced Toastmasters speakers at the highest levels.   I used this knowledge to win Third-Place in the District 14 Evaluation Speech Contest. 

Toastmasters helped me overcome my fear of public speaking.  My heart was pounding for a full hour the first time I served as Table Topics Master.  I felt extremely nervous.  This resulted in a six month scenic route to my first speech.   The encouragement of my fellow Toastmasters helped me overcome my fears.

Although I have an MBA in Marketing, Toastmasters gave me a platform to learn and practice Public Relations.  As a result serving as VP of PR three times, I learned so much about sponsorships and publicity.   I have now done over 160 events through working with over 400 corporate sponsors to secure donations for TI programs.  Furthermore, I have worked with the White House, governors, senators and local officials to honor Toastmasters.  I even had the opportunity to with Evander Holyfield’s PR Agent to secure a gift for Dwayne Smith, the 2002 World Champion of Public Speaking. 

Toastmasters heightened my creativity.  Midnight Madness was event at 2011 District 47 Spring Conference where I worked with Division D Governors to award door prizes at midnight.  It was a “crazy idea”.  I was not sure anyone would show up.    In the end, I could not believe that so many Toastmasters came!  Most people loved the door prizes, but also the relaxed setting to socialize with others.

Toastmasters empowered me to speak at my father’s funeral.  My dad was a special person.  At times I would get tired from doing these events, and my dad would say, “Can you do a little something for the Toastmasters?”   It was priceless to let everyone know how much my dad meant to me at his funeral.

Furthermore, I have mentored several Toastmasters because I want to empower others.  I once helped an individual who had difficulty saying her name in public go on to join Toastmasters, and then serve as a Sergeant-At-Arms.  She also later received a promotion in the military due her improved public speaking skills.  

Toastmasters International has opened countless doors for me and others. 

I have received the most priceless gift of all, H-O-P-E!

Dennis R. Blanchard - How Has Toastmasters Impacted My Life

HOW TOASTMASTERS HAS IMPACTED MY LIFE

Unforeseen events can be defining moments in one's life. I attempted to hike the 2200 miles of the Appalachian Trail in 2007, but only made it 600 miles to Virginia when I started to experience chest pains. Following a six-artery heart bypass operation and a long recovery, I was ready to finish the trail. Little did I know that my previous four years in Toastmasters would change my life.

In the White Mountains of New Hampshire there are a series of buildings, far removed from civilization, electric power and roads, known as “Huts.” They are maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club and each evening during the hiking season they have as many as 70+ paying customers that hike up to the huts for a “mountain” experience.

The Gale Head Hut, has a work-for-stay program for those hikers passing through, or “thru-hiking” the whole trail. Before assigning me a task, such as kitchen cleanup, floor cleaning etc. they asked which talents I might have. Drawing on my Table Topics experience, I started to joke about various abilities, such as “managing the parking lot, or maybe the casino, or to be a life guard at the hot tub.” Looking at me a bit askew the manager assigned me to be their speaker that evening. Their scheduled speaker failed to arrive, and he asked if I could lecture about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Little did he know how elated I was with this assignment!

With only an hour to prepare I put together some talking points. It was then that the manager came back and told me he had forgotten to mention that the audience that evening was coming from Quebec, Canada, and he wasn't certain if they spoke English. This was going to be interesting.

As the guests arrived I greeted them and in best Toastmasters fashion tried to assess my audience. They were mostly speaking French, but I was assured that they all did speak English as well. Whew! I was quickly envious of their bi-lingual abilities.

After the evening meal , the manager introduced me as their speaker. Drawing on the After Dinner Speaker manual speech I was confident and knew what my audience would need: good vocal variety, body language, lively speaking and humor to keep them from getting sleepy: after all, they had just hiked ten miles up a mountain trail and had a big meal.

The audience was thrilled with the presentation and none dozed off. Afterwords, and the next morning almost everyone that attended came up to personally tell me that not only did they enjoy the speech, but suggested that I should write a book – something I had never done. It was at that moment that I realized how much Toastmasters had impacted my life. I did write the book, THREE HUNDRED ZEROES: Lessons of the Heart on the Appalachian Trail and that experience has been a life-changer!

Jane V Blanchard - How Toastmasters has impacted my life

In 2003, after getting “downsized” from a company in Massachusetts, I moved to Sarasota, Florida.  For purely selfish reasons, I joined Toastmasters. I wanted to network and to learn to interview better. Little did I know how joining Positively Speaking Toastmasters would alter my life, helping me grow beyond the speeches.

Over the years I learned so much more than the mechanics of public speaking. I learned to listen and to give and receive positive feedback.  I learned to think on my feet and to find my voice and perfect my expression. I learned leadership skills, how to effectively conduct a meeting, and to encourage participants to achieve their best. And most importantly, I made friends who watched me grow, encouraged me forward, and were always happy to see me. Positively Speaking Toastmasters made public speaking fun.

Because of my newly gained confidence, I became vocal in women’s activist groups and subsequently became a leader at the local and state levels.  I wrote letters to the editor and was published more than 35 times. I spoke at peace rallies, lead marches, addressed the local city council. Starting in March 2008 and for two years, I hosted a weekly radio program, Women Matters. I am now campaigning to develop awareness about human trafficking in Sarasota County. None of these accomplishments would have happened without my joining Toastmasters.

In 2010, overwhelmed with work and activities, I left Toastmasters, relieved at not having to prepare speeches and overjoyed to gain an evening each week. The sky didn’t fall, but this rising-star started to fade.

It happened so slowly that I didn’t even notice.  My once-a-month letter to the editor started to become once every six weeks, and then further and further apart. I retired from the radio program, and stopped writing monthly newsletters and on-line journal entries. I declined leadership roles in various organizations, becoming more of a bystander.

I tried to rationalize why this was happening: I was tired; I was emotionally wiped-out; it was someone else’s turn to take on the responsibilities that I no longer wanted to deal with. As author David Harold Fink said, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." At that point in my life, I did not want to do anything. So I stopped.

One day I realized that when I left Toastmasters, I left behind my voice. David Harold Fink also said “When we become a part of anything, it becomes a part of us.” I was not just a part of Toastmasters, it was a part of me, the creative part. To regain my voice, to exercise my leadership skills, and to reconnect to my creativity, I HAD to rejoin Toastmasters.

On Friday, August 12, 2011 with a smile on my face, I greeted my friends, “Good evening, my fellow Toastmasters.”

Yael Eylat-Tanaka - How Has Toastmasters Impacted My Life?

HOW HAS TOASTMASTERS IMPACTED MY LIFE?

My mother asked me why I participate in Toastmasters.  Why, indeed.  I work almost seven days a week, and much of my free time otherwise is devoted to watercolor painting.  Why take on yet another endeavor, one that is challenging and at times even grueling?  The short answer: Because it's scary.  That's the simplest, most direct, albeit undoubtedly cryptic answer.  But stay with me a while.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain."  I have written about sins and virtues, and by far my favorite of the virtues is courage.  Mettle, moxie, bravery.  If I can face my fear, look it straight in the eye and not cower, then I can become its master.  What does this sort of mastery mean?  Why do it?  Why subject myself to the discomfort associated with butterflies in the stomach, jelly knees, dry lips and flushed cheeks, just for the pleasure of being "judged" by another who probably is as scared as I am.  But this sort of defensive analysis only serves to cement fear's dominance over my life, rather than begin to create mastery over myself.  Facing one's fears with courage means breaking down the elements, analyzing them coldly, and eventually overcoming them all by embracing them.  Let me give you an example.

Last night, I gave a speech about a subject with which I am very familiar.  I was well prepared, and even gave my very first PowerPoint presentation.   However, somewhere toward the end of my speech, I began to lose my concentration.  My throat tightened, my voice began to break, and I felt the rush of butterflies in my innards.  My thoughts were beginning to focus on the timer's green light, and I began to worry that I would not be able to say everything I had intended.  I did finish my speech on time, but I was also painfully aware that I had lost my train of thought.

And that was a source of embarrassment.  Embarrassment - or fear thereof - is one of the principal reasons that people avoid public speaking.  I am guilty as charged. 

I have suffered from deep self-consciousness for years.  I joined Toastmasters many years ago  with one goal in mind: to finally get the nerve to sing in public.  Mind you, I can't even sing in front of my mother!  As a child, I had a nice singing voice, and my friends would ask me to sing during recess!  Yet, as an adult, I became mute.  What happened?

I think it came about subtly. I sang for my husband, and he enjoyed it as long as I sang in Hebrew, my native tongue, but became increasingly critical when I began to sing in English. My accent, he said.  That was enough to shut me down.  After that, I tried to only sing in Hebrew, but the damage had been done:  it became a contrivance and I felt unnatural and stifled.  When I sang in front of my mother, she chimed in with various suggestions that I found that distracting.  So I piped down again. Little by little, I sang less and less.  As the years went by, cultural tastes shifted, and singing assumed a fancy style characterized more by the vocal acrobatics one hears on American Idol.  I remember commenting to my husband that even Frank Sinatra could not compete in that venue.  And certainly, neither could I.  So I determined to overcome my fears, and joined Toastmasters.  After all, public speaking can't possibly be that different from public singing, can it?

What am I afraid of?  Singing is sometimes difficult. In some ways, it is just like speaking, with the lilting melodious sounds produced to a rhythm. But unlike speaking, singing engages what is known as the chest register and the head register.  And the transition is unattractive.  When singing, the face may contort to attain and hold a note, the mouth may tremble, or worse, remain open wide exposing teeth and tongue, or the mike might be held too close or too far, all the while assuming facial expressions which reflect one's emotions.  Such nakedness can be unnerving.  Since I'm no Celine Dion, I feel self-conscious about showing my emotions.  When I watch Celine sing, her eyes half closed in ecstasy, her passion clearly expressed in her singing, I feel nervous. Yet, she looks fine; appropriate to the task.  She does not look out of place.  She is doing what we are expecting her to do.  If she were merely standing with her arms at her sides and singing like a child, that would be out of place, and we, the audience, would feel uncomfortable.  So how do I translate this knowledge to myself?

The first step is learning to speak; more specifically, speak in front of people.  Submit to the discomfort associated with being watched and evaluated.  Allow the discomfort to exist, to live within you; allow yourself to feel the fear, the self-consciousness.  Then, analyze exactly what it is you feel self-conscious or embarrassed about.  It is only by facing one's demons that we come to realize that many of them are demons of our own creation, and are no more demonic than a specter.

Melinda Mosser - How I Found the Real Me

How I Found the Real Me

Back in 1999, I was a graduate student.  In order to graduate, I had to present to the class out loud a Capstone project. I admit that I was truly embarrassed at my poor public speaking skills.  My voice waivered uncontrollably, it became squeaky, and like a vacuum the words would get sucked right back in after spoken aloud.  

I’ll trace this back to my childhood. As the third child of five, thus a middle child, I also had the distinction as the oldest daughter. This gave me a split personality.  For, I was the tormentor and self-proclaimed boss of my two fearful little sisters and at the same time the favorite victim of raucous older brothers. 

 Given the dysfunction of dueling personalities, it is not surprising that I came to be voted in high school the most popular shy person. Again a duality and contradiction in terms. 

 Okay, back to 1999 and my upcoming presentation.  I surmised my reason for being so fearful of speaking aloud was that while I spoke to a group people complained aloud while they couldn’t hear me. Not only did this annoy me but it messed up my flow. 

            I came up with a solution.  I purchased a microphone with an amplifier. It was quite large like a musician’s.  No longer did I fear the inevitable calls “speak up” we can’t hear you! 

 But, this I knew was only a quick fix. In 2000, I got a new job with my new degree and made my exodus to Chicago. Both sons had graduated and were leaving for college in other states. It was my time now. 

            In Chicago, I knew no one, except a sister, who invited me to join her in the exciting windy city. However, perhaps her way of getting me back for the early years under my tyranny, Tricia moved to Atlanta two months after I’d arrived. Desperate, I found the Knickerbocker Toastmasters and here I found solace and support of my excruciating feeble attempts to speak in front of a group. 

            I witnessed the metamorphosis of others and saw a glimmer of hope for myself as they developed into polished speakers.  Cultures from around the world were represented.  Once I finished, I began the Competent Communicator manual all over again. Although I'd finished, I did not feel worthy yet of the advanced manual. 

            My improved self-confidence parlayed into greater responsibilities at work.  My role expanded to travel and giving presentations.  Sometimes this was to an audience of one-hundred doctors and practitioners in a fancy hotel conference room. I was amazed that I no longer needed that amplifier!

            For me bashfulness and fear of public speaking was probably a “learned” thing. Whether being a cute little tow head trying to please, or the teenager with horrible acne preferring to stay under the radar. Toastmasters gave me the opportunity to see a new side and be the real me.