I was pondering this thought for sometime when I came across Sara’s Blog. In particular, her post on the implications of being a DTM. A DTM(Distinguished Toastmaster) in the Toastmasters society is the highest award/title a speaker can achieve. But somehow I feel the whole title-system is a little flawed. Don’t get me wrong, Toastmasters is great and I’m a true believer but like any good system there are loopholes. Being a DTM, as Sara points out through an example, doesn’t necessarily imply your a great speaker(while it should).
You would naturally expect a person who has gone through the rigors of progressing from CC(Competent Communicator) right upto the DTM to be a pro. You need to have achieved the ACG(Advanced Communicator Gold, which in turn requires the ACB, ACS(bronze and silver) and ALS(Advanced Leader Silver) statuses. Its no doubt difficult. But there isn’t anything stopping you. If you decide to go about the whole thing mechanically without really bothering to improve upon your speeches and activities, you still could achieve the above mentioned titles.
If you truly wish to benefit from the program though, you have to be dedicated and “want” to be good at speaking. You have to take your speeches seriously. You have to learn from your evaluations. You have to take up the roles assigned to you seriously. Toastmasters is entirely a voluntary program. People with the like-minded interest of improving their speaking skills run the show. There is no “official commitee” as such. You learn from the experience and skill of more advanced speakers and help out those learning from you. Its as simple and as effective as that.
The Toastmasters clubs in Kuwait though are amazing. Each one really strives to be good at what they are doing. We have 3 DTMs here in Kuwait (Its a pretty small country) and all of them are phenomenal speakers. One of them (Guy Jobidon) is even a member of my club.
This is the most common problem people face when giving a public speech, presentation or any kind of performance. The key as mentioned in many a place on the internet, is not to get rid of them altogether, but to force them into a pretty formation. Easier said then done. But it got me thinking. This purely is a physical feeling right? That swooning feeling is unmistakably empirical. There should be something you can do to control if not eradicate it. A little googling quickly revealed an interesting point:-
Butterflies are a symptom of anxiety. Anxiety leads to tension of the muscles. Tension constricts breathing. The brain notices reduction of the intake of oxygen, sends a message to the heart.. Beat harder! beat harder! Other physiological changes occur including blood pressure, potassium,circulation. Only thing you can control at this time is to reverse the oxygen problem. Breathe deeply. Brain notices increase in oxygen and send message to heart…OK slow down now…act normal. The other physiological changes will automatically follow.
Here are the two main techniques I find useful when faced with a butterfly attack:-
- Breathe Deeply: It definitely helps. The above quote taken from a response elsewhere seems to explain why.
- Practice Practice Practice: A famous motto prescribed by one of my brother’s heroes Johnathan fatal1ty Wendel. Nothing can substitute the benefits of good practice. The toastmasters club is a boon for this reason in the field of public speaking. I can personally vouch for this.Locate your nearest toastmasters club. I can see a huge difference between the first time i stood dangling at the lectern and today.
Check out the post “13 tips to Zap your butterflies when speaking in Public” particularly for Public speaking. Very useful.
Andrew from the Six-minutes blog had some encouraging words to say regarding my last post. I went through his whole blog Six-Minutes -(The name i presume is from the appropriate time limit for a toastmaster’s speech)- right into the wee hours of the early morning. A definite must-feed for public-speaking & presentation lovers.
In the process i came across one of my all time favorite presenter Garr Reynolds‘s work on the effectiveness of preparing good slides. These slides simply will blow you away.
(Check out the link to his famous presentation zen blog in my blogroll).
(Also, extra brownie points if you spot why i categorized this under language, bet you didn’t get it the first time ;)).
