Let me start by borrowing Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford University Commencement line where he says, “you cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward”. With that said, if you had asked me three and a half ago, at the beginning of my Toastmasters journey, if I thought I was going to be serving as a District Officer, my answer surely would have been NO.
When I first join the Toastmasters, I had no idea of the organization’s scope and dimension. As a matter of fact, I was more focus on getting a promotion at my job than I was interested in becoming a good communicator and a leader. I couldn’t imagine what the road ahead had in store for me.
At my first meeting, I sat as far as possible from the lectern. The whole idea was to be invisible to the Toastmaster of the day, even though I didn’t know that’s what the person running the meeting is called. My goal was to see what they did there and how things worked in a meeting- from afar. Imagine my surprise when before the meeting, I was asked in a friendly way: “Who invited you and why are you here?”
My mind went blank for a brief moment, I looked around, expressing my incredulity that he was asking ME. As everyone in the room turned their heads in my direction I realized I had no place to hide. Smiling, I mentioned how my manager at work had talked to me about Toastmasters and how he thought this would help me.
From that day, I was absorbing what was happening to me. On the first day, I listened to all the prepared speeches. I even participated in Table Topic. To this day, I still remember the burning sensation in my stomach and my trembling knees. At the time, I thought I was a confident speaker, but somehow I could only articulate half of the things I wanted to share. As I calmed down, I knew I was going to enjoy riding this speaking roller coaster.