Once you decide to join toastmasters, an initial mind block is what do I speak about? I faced the same fear. I thought it had to be something that had a lot of meaning and weight. In my mind it needed to be educational as well.
I have been a part of toastmasters for close to six months at this point and I realize that you can speak about anything as long as you are committed to the subject and it is personal. My past talks have been very personal: I spoke about my experience of suffering from allergies and another morning I spoke about how inspired I was from a U2 concert that I had attended!
How do you talk about these topics? An average speech in ToastMasters is 5-7 minutes. As an advanced member, Ken Smith, in my chapter mentioned that it's rather simple: an intro, 3 points about the subject averaging about 2 minutes each and then a conclusion. This clicked and made sense to me. I no longer fear as to what the topic of my next speech will be. Trust me, it will come easily to you as well. Come join our Toastmasters Chapter on Tuesday mornings and see how we do it!
How true. People often think that Toastmasters is about making big speeches. But it's really about improving our oral communications skills no matter what we're talking about.
ReplyDelete