Public speaking?

Hey guys,

Is anyone here into public speaking?

I've been a part of Toastmasters(platform for you to give weekly speeches) for a year and I can assure you that it is a life changing experience. You will honestly learn so much and become a better version of yourself. It's a great platform for you to become a more confident and a better communicator.

To all the people who are rebooting, I can assure you that it will help you. You get so much confidence and energy by attending weekly meetings. You will also feel productive.

I was very shy before, which might be due to years of pmo. Now I find it so easy to maintain conversation with strangers and talk to literally anyone.

So yeah, all the fapstronauts should seriously consider joining Toastmasters.

 

In that case, Toastmasters is the place you defs need to visit. Everyone is so supportive of each other there.

So Toastmasters meetings typically run for about 2 hours and the start/finish time would vary depending on which club you join. So in the meetings, typically you would find 15-20 people(again which varies across clubs). But don't be scared at all because there will be a time when you'll be so good at public speaking - that you'd wish more people showed up.

In most Toastmasters meetings, there are roughly 4 speeches. Apart from speeches there are so many roles which helps everyone get involved in some way or another. For example you have the timer, who times everyone throughout the night and has to present his report at the end. You also have different evaluators, who evaluate and provide feedback to the speakers. You also have the grammarian who picks the word of the night and counts how many times each person used the word throughout the night.

So the roles definitely vary in terms of the difficulty. For a beginner, the timer and grammarian role is the best. It will really help you get more comfortable and eventually you will move onto other roles, which require you to speak a bit longer.

Also the best and the most scariest part is table topics sessions lol. Even after I year, I get a bit nervous during this session haha. So during the table topics session, the table topic master (the person responsible for asking questions) will pick random members and throw a random question at them. You will then need to speak for about 2 minutes addressing the question. This will really tesr your impromptu speaking skills.

But yeah, everyone is on different levels there. No one is there to judge you or make fun of how nervous you get. Trust me, even the most senior speakers were pretty bad when they joined. I've heard stories of how some people starting crying during their icebreakers(first official speech) but now they are so good at speaking lol.

So for the speech part, you get a speech manual called "competent communication manual". In that manual there are 13 projects(so 13 speeches you will have to do). Each project has different objectives. Your very first project will be "Ice breaker" where the objective is to just begin speaking before an audience. Gradually, the projects have more objectives such as body language, voca variety etc..

The speech topics are open to you. I have done my speech on various topics. For example, I presented an autobiography of a famous inspirational person. Just talk about anything which you are passionate about.

But yeah, please join Toastmasters. It is the best thing ever!!! You will come back and thank me lol

Don't worry about how anxious you are! Everyone has to start somewhere!

If you have anymore questions feel free to ask me.