My Journey in Toastmasters

Roughly 7 years back, my daughter Sree was in Elementary school. She loves both her dad and me. She will be happier to take her dad, than me for any school activities or birthday parties. My hubby is an extrovert, can get into a conversation very easily, and get into a comradeship quickly. Although I studied English from my kindergarten to my Master's degree, I was not comfortable talking to anyone or a stranger. In fact, the job I did virtually, did not help in improving my public speaking skills or just a regular speaking skill. While working from home, we communicate only over email and some phone calls. In fact, I had better command in virtual calls/meetings, than in person. The butterflies in our tummy, come in more when we are in person. 😊 

 

In order to overcome this and also to climb up the corporate ladder, I made up my mind to improve my public speaking skill. Also, I did not want to let my daughter down in front of her friends.

 

Heard about Toastmaster in 2005, but I walked in as a guest on October 9th, 2017. I am very frugal when I spend money. I know the subscription is only 50$ for 6 months, but I wanted to convince myself, whether I will be regular to the meetings, every Monday evening or not. So, I was a guest for more than 4 months. When I knew, I can be committed to this initiative, I immediately became a member. I joined Toastmasters International in 2018 February.

 

My first mentor was Hiro Takata, he guided me from the icebreaker speech. We used to have offline discussions over the phone. He encouraged me a lot… All the members were and are very supportive and helped in pulling us up… 

 

As there is a quote - Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.

 

I will call out the names, no particular order or preference

 

Margie Jones,Barbara Snyderman, Dan Stahl, Miki Baker, Anand , Barb Johns , Beth, Jo Stante, Matt Goldberg , Rhonda Young , Rich Kouhoupt , Mohanan, Lorie Arnotte, Krystalyn Jones. Members from other chapters like Herb, Stanford. 

 

Whether they role-played with me in mock interviews or as an evaluator, grammarian, timer gave constructive feedback for me to improve and polish my speaking skills. 

 

After being in a company for 24 years, getting into a job hunt was very intimidating. Due to  

the pandemic, all sessions last year were virtual, I took the best advantage of them. In our pathways where we can select our Electives, managed to get the maximum number of Mock Interviews and tried them with the help of our fellow TM. Happy got into Microsoft at the maiden attempt. I had the official/technical skill through the years of experience, but TM empowered me to speak, present and showcase the skill I possess. 

 

Rhonda, who celebrates her birthday with my mother, is special to me always. She not only helped me in my resume writing but we discuss and bounce back thought to improve myself in my career too. I still remember when I was down in 2021, she encouraged me ‘Hang in there, until you make a change’. Recently saw a video on LinkedIn with the same caption - you can search it up on Youtube “wild dogs hunt antelopes at the edge of a cliff “- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvLFVmn5P6I. Thanks Rhonda. 

 

Barbara- Although I delivered so many speeches after researching a lot, I did not log them in our pathways. I am tech-savvy but did not think it was important. We had more than 3+ calls to sync up all my updates in our Pathways. She is very diligent and pushing not only me but everyone to participate, learn and grow. Thanks, Barbara. 

 

Also being in Toastmaster, hard-pressed me to become a blogger. As I delivered various topics on Organization behavior / Operation, some of the members were interested in a copy of the speech I delivered. Hence, I always blog all my speeches - https://suchiguna.blogspot.com/ . In fact, I do go refer to them as and when needed too. 

 

I like to quote a couple of thoughts 

 

Mistakes are proof that you are trying

 

Replace excuses with effort 

Replace laziness with determination 

And everything else will fall into place

 

All these years toastmaster did not only help in my public speaking skill but also helped me to build a friendship. When we do not mingle, people think we are stuck up, they do not think we are hesitating to talk. Being a TM member not only transformed me but also changed my family and friend’s perspective about me. 

 

I started with my daughter in beginning, let me end by telling a recent incident. We had to drive for my daughter’s flute audition… It was for more than an hour, so we decided to carpool with my daughter’s close friend. The entire drive both the ways, up and down, I was talking with my daughter’s friend's mom. We touched on various topics - high school studies, Families / extended families, Books that we are reading, Cooking, vacations, and many more. My daughter was so surprised and happy, although she was not selected in the audition, she told me ‘Amma you were talking like a perfect local US mom’.  👍

 

Being in TM, is like another family, I am really glad to be a part of this group, learn serve and grow with you all. 

 

Let me end with again another quote - It doesn’t matter when or where we start. All that matters is that we start.

 

Good Luck!