Ep 13 Should You Join Toastmasters?

Should you join Toastmasters.

Speaking, the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

So, folks, Toastmasters isn't for everyone. But if you're the sort of person who's listening to this program or watching this program, well, then yes, chances are Toastmasters may be a great place for you to make part of your professional home. Now, for those of you not familiar with it, Toastmasters is a non profit association. They're all over the world, teeny tiny dues that you pay. It's practically nothing. And, and you can go to the meetings, often once a week and speak. And there's a no pressure situation because the people you're speaking to aren't really your clients or customers, although they might end up being at some point, depending on your field. It's a no pressure situation where people are there first and foremost to try to hone and refine speaking skills and to give people an opportunity to, to practice in a no pressure situation. So I applaud Toastmasters. Full disclosure, I have been a member of Toastmasters. I'm not a current member. I have often asked to speak to Toastmasters clubs all over the world. I have spoken at them. I've never actually gone to a home club meeting, in part because this is what I do. I'm not saying I can't learn or get better, but this is what I do all day long. Every single day is speaking, training for speaking and giving speeches. Most people in the world are not as thoroughly immersed in speaking. They're doing it as a part of their job as opposed to it being 100% of their job like mine. And that's why Toastmasters can be such a great help to a lot of careers.

Toastmasters spotlight.

And that's why from time to time on this program, I like to put a spotlight on things going on in Toastmasters. They do have great competitions and they create a competitiveness with public speaking, which frankly, I'm so happy to see people competing on something like that that actually builds your skills that you can use for the rest of your life as opposed to fantasy football or bingo. And those are the things you enjoy. We all have hobbies that can be frivolous, but proportionally, I just think people spend way too much time watching some sport where they're overpaid athletes competing. Why not compete in something yourself? So that's in part why I like Toastmasters is they have competition for speaking. Now let me give you some tips on what you really need to do when, when you're looking for a Toastmasters Club, for starters. All things being equal, you probably just want to go to the club that's closest to you. Because if it's inconvenient to have to go all the way across town, that will be an excuse not to go. And certainly with bigger corporations, it's pretty easy to start a chapter just within your own company, so you won't have to leave your building. It can be 15, 20 colleagues of yours in your own, in your own office, and that can be the easiest. Quite often, sometimes people like to go to a club where there's no one in their company. That's fine, too. You might feel a little more comfortable with it. Here's the number one thing I would look for when searching for a Toastmasters Club. You want one that actively encourages and certainly allows you to video record every single time you speak. Now, you don't necessarily want it broadcast on the Internet, fine. You don't necessarily want to be recording other people with your own device and taking footage away. I understand that. But you should have a buddy, a partner, a colleague at the Toastmasters recording every single speech you do and then giving it to you so you can watch it. And I realize this is repetitive for some of you who've heard me and know me, but I still find 95% of the world doesn't do this. In order to get the most improvement for any practice time you have on public speaking, preparing for media interviews, press conferences, you got to record yourself and watch it. If you don't record and watch, yeah, you'll learn something. You'll get a little bit better. Maybe it'll seem a little more comfortable, a little less nerve wracking to speak, but you're going to get maybe 5% of the value out of your time. So if you're going to block off an hour or even two hours a week to go to a Toastmasters Club, why not get 100% of the value out of your time? In order to do that, you need to record yourself on video and you need to watch it every time you speak. So when you go to Toastmasters, there's often a number of different ways you give short presentations. Table topics. They may toss out a new discussion topic and have you talk about it spontaneously. Sometimes you prepare presentations. There's lots and lots of different opportunities for talking. There are a couple of things I don't like about Toastmasters. I will address that in just a moment. But overall, the good far, far, far outweighs the bad when it comes to Toastmasters.

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So here's what I don't like about Toastmasters. By the very nature of it being an organization where people are from every industry, every background, every religion, as it should be, it makes it harder to pick topics and be able to go deep into it, to be interesting and relevant and unique and be seen as insightful. Of the Toastmasters conventions I've been to, when I have heard the speeches, I'm quite often, frankly disappointed in that. It just seems so vague and general and fuzzy and just platitudes and cliches and can't we all just hug each other like little warm kittens? Now, that may be unfair. I certainly haven't seen 99% of Toastmaster speeches, and I'm sure there's some that are as fascinating as anything you see at ted. But in general, it is about form over substance, and I understand why it has to be that way. But if you're going to have a frustration with Toastmasters, it may be that in part, when you hear people speak, you're thinking what they're saying just isn't really interesting. So much of being a good speaker, in my view, isn't just about the hand gestures or the eye contact, or not saying uhs and ums. It's about figuring out, do you have something interesting to say that's useful, interesting and memorable to this audience, and getting rid of all the fluff that's not relevant or people have heard a thousand times before that just isn't interesting. So it's a harder thing to teach. But at some point, if you're going to be an excellent speaker, you have to be able to deliver insights that people feel like they haven't heard a million times. And that would be probably my biggest criticism with Toastmasters. The events I've been to, I've heard the speakers who are considered the best speakers, and I thought, wow, is this trite? But there's another lesson here, too, and that is just because I don't like a speaker doesn't mean it's a bad speaker. You might love the speaker. I can tell you. I once went to a regional Toastmasters convention, heard a speaker, and I thought, this person is one of the worst speakers I've ever heard. Everything out of his mouth is a complete trite cliche. This person has said nothing interesting. I'm embarrassed for the person. I feel I'm a little bit Nervous when he stops speaking, it's going to be so quiet in the room. Well, he finished speaking, and sure enough, standing ovation, eruption, applause. Fantastic response. Everyone else in the audience loved the guy. I was in the minority. Well, lesson here is no one appeals to everyone. Just because I don't like someone doesn't mean they're not a good speaker. So you have to take that into consideration with your own speech, with your own messages. You're not going to appeal to everyone. You just have to appeal to some in the audience, ideally as many people as possible. But the fact that one or two or three people don't like your speech doesn't mean it's not a good speech. There is another thing that Toastmasters, they have done in the past. I don't know if they're all still doing this. They would count. Someone would be in the back either ringing a bell or they would count the uhs and ums you say in a speech. I realize there's some controversy around this. Many people feel like it's the end of the world if you say an ominous speech. All things being equal, I think the fewer ums and uhs you say, the better. But I've seen plenty of speakers speak for 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes, not a single uh and um. And they bored me to death because they didn't say anything interesting. On the other hand, I've seen speakers have uhs and ums come out of their mouth all the time. But they had such passion, such excitement, told such great stories, had interesting insights that I loved, and the audience loved them. Three people I know who say odd more than anyone. David Letterman, Martha Stewart, Bill O'Reilly. What do they all have in common? Well, two of them are sort of retired now, but what they had in common is beyond saying. Lots of uhs and ums. They make 30, 40, $50 million a year speaking all day long. So we need to get over this idea that not saying anum is that important. It's far more important to have something interesting to say. If you have any questions about Toastmasters you're thinking of joining, please feel free to send them as well as any other questions you have.

Your questions.

I do get asked questions about Toastmasters I dealt with at the top of the show, and I'll address it here again. People say, should I join a Toastmasters again? I would say yes. Worst case scenario, you go to two or three meetings and you don't love it. What are you out? I mean, last time I checked, it was far less than a hundred Bucks. You would waste that one evening going out to a mediocre show. You get a great magazine that's chock full of tips and you might even meet some good, interesting business prospects. And everyone there, they're people there trying to improve themselves. They are professional people. It's not a pickup scene. It's not just about drinking. It's not just about something purely frivolous. And let's talk about the game. It's people who are by and large ambitious trying to improve themselves, trying to get better, trying to learn from others. And sure, there's some networking going on. Overall, I think it's a positive experience. So I would recommend that you do it. For those of you who are members of Toastmasters, I would like to hear from you. I would like to know what's the number one thing you have learned during your time in Toastmasters? What's the number one benefit you've gotten? The number one thing you've learned, number one benefit you have received by attending and participating in your local Toastmasters. I'd like to hear from you. So please send me the answer to that question. You can write to me directly infoediatrainingworldwide.com or you can post it in the YouTube channel or on the Facebook page or on the website. Wherever you're watching or listening to this program, I would like to hear from you. So please let me know about your experiences with Toastmasters. Now, if you have a contrarian viewpoint, I'm happy to hear that, too. I've never really heard that many people say anything bad about Toastmasters. If you don't get a lot out of it, you just kind of don't go back. It's not a cult, it's not a religion. They're not going to be badgering you to give 10% of your income for life or giving you a guilt trip if you no longer want to participate. So for all those reasons, I think it's very worthwhile. For those of you who want to improve public speaking skills, the only exception, I would say, is if you absolutely, truly want to get better at public speaking and you just want to conserve every single minute of your day, you can still learn a tremendous amount by doing online courses and without seeming overly promotional. In one show, I'd let you know how you can reach mine. And the number one way is to practice any speech, presentation, talk you have on video that you can do from the privacy of your own home, office, hotel room where you don't have to drive or go to a meeting or do anything else, so that would be the only reason not to join. Frankly. I'm TJ Walker. As always, I hope all of your speaking opportunities in life are a huge success.

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