Three Steps To Get The Most Out Of Toastmasters

by Promod Sharma, President 2011-2012

Goodyear Toastmasters is like a fitness club. It's easy to join but your progress depends on what you do. For best results

1. attend
2. participate
3. stretch

Attend

In the beginning, you probably intended to attend the regular meetings. If not, why would you join?

Life has a nasty way of getting in the way. If you let it. There's work. There's family. There's vacation. There are lots of reasons to miss a meeting. And then a second. And a third. Returning soon becomes more difficult than staying away.

There's one good reason to attend: to improve your skills in speaking and leadership. (Or is that two reasons?)

Participate

We have rotating roles assigned by our VP of Education. You'll start with the simpler ones like Crutchword Counter or Trivia Master. Eventually, you'll get major roles like Table Topics Master, Toastmaster and Chair. You can back out with advance warning but you're limiting your progress is if you do.

Our club is run by unpaid volunteer members. We need your help. As you help share the load, you build connections and make friends. You might decide to take additional responsibilities by joining committees. You might even run for club office.

Stretch

The good old comfort zone is waiting to trap us. We may improve our skills to a certain level and then get stuck. We're better but we've stopped growing. Maybe we keep using the same hand gestures. Maybe we avoid taking on certain roles.

As with muscles, we need to go beyond what we're already doing to get real results. We may not notice at the time but if you record yourself, you will see the progress.

You

Fellow members are here to help you with your goals. We can't unless you show up. See you next week!

Links

• 7 tips to a live motivated life
• Control the fear of public speaking
• The six basic fears according to Napoleon Hill
• A must-do for all speakers
• image courtesy of camrynb (Georgia, US)

Promod Sharma has (gulp!) missed three consecutive meetings due to extra workload at Taxevity. He's now ready to return.

A Must-Do For Speakers (even beginners)

by Promod Sharma, President 2011-2012
You can't see or hear yourself the way your audience does.

You can't catch all your crutchwords like "ah" and "so". That means you can't spot ways to improve. For instance, you may use more crutchwords in some circumstances.

You can't see yourself or your gestures. Do your facial expressions look natural? Do you talk more to one side of the room?

Surprises

When you're speaking, you know what you intended to say and do. You notice the gaps while you’re speaking. If only practiced more! If only you hadn’t messed up that quotation!

Audiences are forgiving. They only know what they see and perceive. You're probably better than you think. How would you know?

Testing 1-2-3

Always record yourself. You can then review your performance and make changes. You can also see how you're improving speech by speech.

You can record audio, video or both.

Audio is easiest. You can use your smartphone or a separate recorder. You can leave your recorder at your seat if you want to record from the audience's vantage point. The quality may suffer. Another way is to bring your recorder to the front of the room with you. Place it on or near the podium.

Video is more effective but requires a video camera and setup. Your Toastmasters club may record speeches for you. That's effortless for you but you may still want to use your own equipment. If you prefer audio, you can probably record that alone with your video camera.

You can record both audio and video. That gives you backups but you may get overwhelmed worrying about all the equipment. Simpler is often better because less can go wrong.

Start

Even if you don't want to review your recordings right now, there's no harm in getting used to recording yourself and getting familiar with the equipment. It's easy to delete later but you can't re-create.

Links

• Get feedback from the right group
• Behind the scenes: video of Building Trust With Podcasting
• image courtesy of Ben Grader (UK)

Promod Sharma routinely makes video recordings of his speeches and posts the results on YouTube.

Be Cautious With Vocal Variety

by Promod Sharma, President 2011-2012

If you talk in a monotone or any predictable way, you’ll bore your audience. We want variety.

Vocal variety makes your speaking more engaging but there's a limit. When you're evaluated, you may be told that you're not using enough variety. Speech 6 in your Competent Communicator manual requires you to use vocal variety. The experience may be uncomfortable.

The level of vocal variety you require depends on the type of speaking you do. Toastmasters may mislead you. If you go to speech contests, some speakers are like performers. They are entertaining, humorous and dramatic. That approach may not suit your content or audiences.

Vocal Variety

You don't want to be too extreme in your variety. That's manipulative and annoying. You can use simple techniques. Pausing is very effective. Shouting may startle your audience. You may look manipulative or out of control. Whispering is tricky. Unless you're using a microphone, some audience members may not hear you. You can vary the speed at which you talk.

The effect of vocal variety is easiest to experience with a video. Notice how other gestures and movement reinforces the messages.

Professional Speakers

Outside Toastmasters, notice how professional speakers use vocal variety. Some barely do but they are rarely boring. They capture our attention because of their popularity/celebrity or their topic. Would more vocal variety really help them?

Experiment

You would probably benefit from more vocal variety. How much? Practice to find out. You might want to add gestures and movement at the same time.

Focus on having great content first. The vocal variety comes next and in moderation. With practice, you’ll add variety subtly. Your audience will benefit without even noticing.

Links

• Toastmasters Speech 6: vocal variety (Six Minutes blog)
• You’re a Competent Communicator. Now what?
• Learn to pause by echoing

Promod Sharma has worked on adding vocal variety. In the past, he had a tendency to sound pleasant but monotonous | promodsharma.com

You’re A Competent Communicator. Now What?

by Promod Sharma, President 2011-2012

After you finish the 10 speeches in your Competent Communicator manual, you've graduated speaking school. You're now a Competent Communicator. You're among the elite. That's quite an accomplishment. Congratulations!

Now what?

You can stop but if you keep going, speaking becomes more interesting. You've mastered the basic skills. Now you're ready for speaking university. You get to pick what you'd like to learn from 15 advanced manuals with five speeches each.

1. The Entertaining Speaker
2. Speaking to Inform
3. Public Relations
4. Facilitating Discussion
5. Specialty Speeches
6. Speeches by Management
7. The Professional Speaker
8. Technical Presentations
9. Persuasive Speaking
10. Communicating on Video
11. Storytelling
12. Interpretive Reading
13. Interpersonal Communications
14. Special Occasion Speeches
15. Humorously Speaking

You'll find descriptions here.

There are three levels beyond Competent Communicator: bronze, silver and gold.

Bronze

Complete two advanced manuals and you earn your Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB).
What's more, you get these two manuals free.

Silver

Once you're an ACB, you complete two more advanced manuals (not free this time). You also give two presentations from the The Better Speaker Series or The Successful Club Series. Now you've earned your Advanced Communicator Silver (ACS).

Gold

Guess how you get your Advanced Communicator Gold (ACG)? You complete two more advanced manuals, give a presentation from a specified set and mentor a new member through their first three speeches.

Overall

If you're going for the gold, you'll complete six advanced manuals (30 speeches). You can pre-select the manuals now. You might want to buy all 15 manuals as a set.

You might want to stretch by resisting the "obvious" choices for you. For instance, in real life I'm mainly Speaking To Inform (226B) and doing Technical Presentations (226H). While I can certainly improve, the incremental advantages are limited. I could get more advantages from straying further from comfort and taking greater risks.

Roadmap

Here’s my roadmap.

Bronze	Silver	Gold
Communicating on Video	The Professional Speaker	The Entertaining Speaker
Storytelling	Public Relations	Specialty Speeches

I’d like to finish one level each 12 months. What's your plan?

Links

• The Advanced Communication manuals (District 4 website)
• The communication track (Toastmasters International)
• Preplan all your speeches

Promod Sharma completed his Competent Communicator manual this month, exactly 15 months after his first speech. For more about him, visit promodsharma.com.

What A Speech Evaluation Contest Teaches The Audience

by Promod Sharma, President 2011-2012

We see as we are.

In Toastmasters, we improve our skills by observing others. As you listen to a speaker, you form your own impressions. When you hear the Evaluator, you often get different perspectives. That's valuable.

What if you good listen to different evaluations of the same speaker? In a recent Speech Evaluation Contest, five contestants evaluated the same guest speaker.

For Example

While there was overlap, each Evaluator had different perspectives. They commented on such elements as

• the importance of pausing
• the challenges of speaking to a new audience
• the effective use of hand gestures to show how a cantilever works
• the size of the props used
• the intricate design of the content
• the vocal variety in the delivery
• the multiple meanings of the title

Movies

Do you read movie reviews? If you've seen the film, you might wonder if the reviewers saw the same film. A speech evaluation is like a 2-3 minute movie review.

Ultimately, an evaluation is an opinion and opinions vary. You need not agree to become a better speaker or Evaluator. You just need to listen and watch. It's best if you form your own opinions before the Evaluator speaks. Even if you disagree, you learn by seeing how others interpret the same event.

Later

There's pressure on contestants in a Speech Evaluation Contest, but not for you in the audience. You can silently pretend that you're an Evaluator without competing.

As you build your powers of observation, you'll find yourself using them regularly without noticing. You'll find that even professional speakers can improve.

Links

• Control the fear of public speaking
• Get feedback from the right group
• Three mistakes seminar speakers make
• Prepare your speech with a mindmap
• Lessons from one year in Toastmasters
• image courtesy of Tom Oliveira (US)

You'll find more about Promod than you'd ever want to know at promodsharma.com. He's speaking about trust at Freelancecamp Toronto on March 25, 2012.