Five years ago this week, after a lot of research and with a heap of trepidation, I visited Old Bridge Toastmasters for the first time. I felt a little awkward going to something where I didn’t know anyone, but the people were friendly enough.
They had this interesting program where you could earn awards for completing different sets of tasks. It appealed to me as a nerd, but there was no way I would ever be able to summon the courage to do all of this. 40 speeches? I couldn’t possibly have that much to say. Be a club officer? Maybe one day, I could build up the courage to run for Sergeant at Arms. Serve as a district officer? Terrifying! Mentor someone? I have nothing to offer anyone, I thought.
And yet, when we had an open house two months later, I offered to be the guinea pig and give my first speech. When it came time to elect officers, I took a deep breath and ran for Vice President of Education. As my confidence grew, I took on more. Metaphorically speaking, a crawl became a walk became a run.
Five years later, I’ve given many presentations (some good, some not so good), taken on a variety of progressively challenging leadership roles, mentored a few members both formally and informally, helped with more speech contests than I care to count, and joined two more clubs along the way.
The question I sometimes ask myself: Why am I still a Toastmaster? Why do I spend so much of my free time on this? I have at least a meeting a week, and that doesn’t even begin to include time spent on leadership activities. This is also the first weekend in over a month that I don’t have something on my schedule. (That’s not an invite to put something on my plate!) I like to joke that this is my unpaid part time job and that hobbies are those things I used to have before I became a Toastmaster.
I think I got my answer last night at Old Bridge Toastmasters. Everyone else on the club exec board this year joined after I did, and they are off to good start. I remember the first time everyone on the main speaking agenda spoke: they’re all Competent Communicators now. In fact, I mentored two of the speakers when they first started. When I left the church where we meet, five of my fellow members were still happily chatting in the parking lot. It was 9:50 pm, half an hour after our meeting had ended. Five people who would have never met or become friends, if not for a sincere desire to improve themselves and a commitment to help each other get there.
And I thought to myself in a sudden and unexpected burst of emotion, “I helped build this.”
So why do I do this? Because there’s nothing more self-empowering than the knowledge you’ve helped empower others.