Sweat, and sweat! Everybody dance now!

 

Last Thursday I did something for the first time, and that in my forties is always something quite interesting ☺

Last year I started my journey to improve my communication and leadership skills. I embarked in this trip thanks to Toastmasters.

And last Thursday, for my very first time, I performed the role of Toastmaster of the Day!

While I did my role I noticed about the following. 

The first thing I realized is, I'm still sweating ☺ When I finish a session in which I speak in public my T-shirt always ends up in the washer ☺ Maybe someday I’ll have a better control of my nerves, but nowadays, every time I go to the stage in our Toastmaster club, the butterflies in my belly start flying ☺

My colleagues tell me that when they see me during my interventions they do not appreciate that I’m nervous, that's awesome!, but internally, I feel I'm still not comfortable in these circumstances, but hey, I’m on it!

The second thing I learned while performing my role of Toastmasters of the Day, is the amount of practical uses it has in my day.

The role of Toastmaster is to be the master of ceremonies for the event, you are like a host who invites friends over for dinner, and, you have to ensure that dinner is ready with the right ingredients, the cooking time is right, wine chosen fits nicely with the meal, list of music selected in Spotify mixes well with the different moments during the dinner. And you also need to take care of your guests to ensure they are comfortable, of course, it’s also really important to finish the dinner with …. a great dessert!

As Toastmasters of the Day I learned about the importance of keeping an enthusiastic tone throughout the meeting, I learned the importance of ensuring that guests who came for the first time to our club feel comfortable, I learned about the importance of introducing properly the agenda and different roles, I learned also about how to handle the agenda effectively to ensure there are no delays and also learn how to smile ! It is incredible how difficult for me is to keep an open smile everytime I’m on the stage. I look like a Terminator ! But gradually, more and more ... I smile and I realized that when you smile, people have a greater tendency to empathize with you. It is like a mirror!

Being a Toastmaster of the Day is like being the organizer of a work meeting, I attended many meetings during my career, meetings not always taking a positive and enthusiastic flow, meetings without proper introductions of the agenda, attendees or even about what’s the purpose of the meeting. And of course I have attended many meetings that start late and finish even later. That’s why the Toastmaster arena is so great! For me, it is the best place to make mistakes, and to sweat, so that later, when I'm at work I sweat less doing the different tasks expected from me.

In this link you can find an expanded explanation of the detailed functions of this role. That’s something I have also learned. Preparation phase and rehearse, rehearse and rehearse.

 I’ll keep on informing you how my battle with public speaking nerves goes☺