Wonders never cease. I went to the Schaumburg Toastmasters again tonight. This club so far is my favorite of the TM clubs. At every TM meeting they have prepared speeches, and table topics. The table topics are participants 2 minute or less response to a surprise question. Its an off the cuff, quick answer to an unknown question. Hmm. Kind of like meeting someone for the first time and having to answer a question. Nice preparation for a life experience.
I learned a valuable lesson/reinforcement tonight. I don’t remember exactly what my question was, but had to do with name a significant event in your life and how it changed you. The answer I gave had to do with my not having much self-esteem when I was younger, being very shy and reserved, and an incident happened to me after which I got into a self-esteem group. I talked about how it changed my life, and I am now able to be in front of a group of people and talk about things that I would never have had the courage to talk about before, like massage therapy, healing energy, and being a tree hugger. Perhaps it was the way I said it, with genuineness, but I really was not expecting to win any ribbon tonight. In fact, as I was up there, I was feeling uncomfortable in that I was not feeling like I was saying things in the way that I would have liked to say them, but was trying to be clear, concise and tying the end to the beginning, reiterating the question that I thought I had answered.
Apparently, I did well enough that enough people voted for me, and I got the ribbon! I even got a compliment from the fellow next to me that I was comfortable, using hand gestures and speaking loudly enough.
So you just never know. Answer a question authentically, articulately, with enough self-esteem and you just may win a prize. Lesson learned. Take that lesson out into the ‘real’ world.
