I went to pick the brains of the three world champion speakers that spoke there, but a lot of other people had the same idea. I got to talk briefly to David Brooks. Ed Hearn gave a great motivational speech. I was especially impressed with the way he used different ways of speaking to imitate his father, mother, a brother from the hood, and the way he speaks as a attorney in court. Vikas Jhingran really made us see how the use of emotion in a speech makes it memorable.

I met about 20 or 30 other Toastmasters. I am sure that I now have a lot of good contacts in case I need some help later.

I could see that almost every club officer there had stepped into a role that he or she could grow into and become more than they were. It was easy for me to recognize because I did the same thing in my first successful business.

The general purpose of the speech was to persuade and the specific purpose was to get people to come to the Spring Conference. I learned how to make a video and it helped a lot to watch how terrible I was. Every time I tried to do it I got a little less terrible. This can turn into a job but I think that I will be rewarded for my efforts. Here is my 12th trial run.

A couple of days later I found a video of a Master Toastmaster giving a speach with the same specific purpose. He did a great job in only 88 seconds.

I watched these two guys to help prepare for my first speaker evaluation speech. I think it helped me a lot.

It is all about structure. I remembered the Dale Carnigie class. They said to tell the people what you are going to tell them. Then tell them. Then tell them what you just told them. I can see the same formula in Toastmasters. I feel a little more at ease because I have done this before. I also learned that the first and last last thing that you say are the most important. I got nervous again but when I messed up I just went on to the next part of the speech instead of freezing up. I was complimented for this. The real reason that I went on is because I had a the speech planned and I just had to do what was next.

To prepare for my first speech I watched Betsy from the Austin Toastmasters Club.

On the way to the meeting I was so nervous that I almost couldn’t drive. If I had someone with me I would have surely asked them to drive. I did make it there and did the speech. I did not say what I planned to say but Sean Barton the evaluator told me that it did not matter because no one there knew what I had planned to say. This was a major victory for me because in the past I took a public speaking class at the University of Houston. When it was my turn to speak I was too afraid to show up. This time I overcame my fear and I know that the hardest part was done thanks to the supportive people at the Toastmasters club. Later I found a great article that helps you understand your fear on Scotty Burch’s Blog

I was so ready to join that I  came to the meeting  with my application filled out.  I  gave a Table Topics speech about a bad weather experience (a  Table Topics speech last between one and two minutes and you do not know what the subject is until you stand up to speak). I completely forgot about hurricane Ike ( it left three giant trees on my rent house in Houston and caused me to spend 3 months camped out in the driveway there). I completely forgot about Hurricane Rita from 2005 (that one caused me to move to Austin in the first place). I guess I was just too nervous for my brain to work. I signed up and scheduled my Icebreaker speech for next week. The Icebreaker speech is your first planned speech in Toastmasters.

After seeing president Obama’s speech on 2/24/09 I was so impressed with his speaking ability that it gave me the desire to improve mine. Years ago I took a Dale Carnigie course and they recommended that I join Toastmasters to continue practicing my speaking skills. I always thought that Toastmasters was for rich and powerful people not regular people like me. I changed my opinion when I saw the videos on the Toastmaster website. I decided to go to a meeting to see what it was like. When I got to the meeting I met Darrel Thurman. He was really friendly and introduced me to almost everybody there. I even got to meet the club president Valentina Vale de Gideon . After watching my first Toastmaster meeting I was so impressed with the organization and friendlyness of the club that I wanted to join.