The Toughest Speech I've Ever Had To Give And How I Did It, with Thor Challgren, EP 9

Giving my mother's eulogy is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do, and I don't think I could have done it without my experience in Toastmasters. In this episode, I'll share three reasons why now may be a good time to consider how Toastmasters can help you in work and life.

I discuss many of the common misconceptions about Toastmasters like it's only for people who want to be public speakers (not true at all!) And many Toastmasters meetings now take place on Zoom, so attending a meeting as a guest is easier than ever. I also share how the welcoming environment of Toastmasters is a safe place to grow as a speaker and leader. Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Thor Challgren  00:04

Welcome to the Course Change podcast. My name is Thor Challgren. And every week I love sharing with you stories of people who have made a dramatic career change. We talk about the challenges they faced, the lessons they learned and the success they found on their own unique journey. Over the course of my own life, I've worked in multiple industries, from startups to corporations. The common factor in my work experience: the ability to adapt to change. If you're looking for insights and inspiration to thrive during change, you'll be glad you listened.

Thor Challgren  00:42

Has this ever happened to you? You're in a work meeting, there is a topic being discussed and various people around the table are giving their opinion. And you know that eventually it's going to come around to you and you are going to have to give some sort of feedback on this. idea. And you're thinking yourself, please don't call on me, please don't call on me. You're hoping that somehow the meeting will end and you aren't going to have to get called on, you are not going to have to give your opinion on the subject. 

Thor Challgren  01:13

Or maybe you're the leader in an organization or club or your church. And you have to stand up and give a report on something. You're just reading from something that's prepared, but you still find even that scary. Or maybe you attend an event like a retirement or a recognition ceremony, a wedding or even a funeral. And the moment calls on you to stand up and say something. 

Thor Challgren  01:38

This last one happened to me. About a year ago, my mother passed away. And when it came time to plan the service, I was the one in the family who volunteered to give the eulogy for my mother. That is absolutely one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. And I don't think I could have done it if it weren't for being in Toastmasters. I've been in Toastmasters about 10 years, all told. And what I want to share with you today are the three reasons why I think now is a good time to consider Toastmasters. 

Thor Challgren  02:12

Before we get into those three reasons, there are a lot of misperceptions that people have about Toastmasters. So first, let me talk about and hopefully dispense those. The first most common misperception that people have about Toastmasters is that it's for public speakers, it's for people who want to speak publicly on a stage. This is absolutely not true. Out of hundreds of people I've met in Toastmasters, I think maybe one or two were professional speakers or that was their ambition. Most people join because they just want to be better at work at their job, at their career, or in their hobbies or interests. My own story was that I joined to help with my travel business. I got to the point after several years where I could give a 30 minute presentation and be completely comfortable. And I know that was because of the experience that I got through Toastmasters. 

Thor Challgren  03:13

Another common misperception is that all you do is give speeches, just lots and lots of speeches and you have to stand up there and talk, and people make you talk. That's also not true. While speeches are a feature of meetings, there are other components too. And by the way, you get to go at your own pace, you decide when you want to speak. It's also customized to what you want to learn. So if you want to be a speaker, there are absolutely educational paths where you can choose that and learn the skill set needed to be a speaker. If you want to be a leader, there are pathways for that. There are paths within the Toastmaster program for any area of speaking, leadership, group dynamics, coaching or personal development. I've given 40 speeches plus in the seven years that I've been in my current club, but that's because I was going for the Distinguished Toastmaster award, which is basically like the Eagle Scout or Gold Award in Toastmasters. But those 40 speeches, that was my choice. I didn't have to give those, but I was going for a certain level. 

Thor Challgren  04:19

Another value of the meetings is that members get to serve meeting function roles where they're smaller opportunities to speak and gain experience and competence. You might be the person who leads the group in the Pledge of Allegiance or you are the person who introduces the word of the day or you're the timer and you give a report on that. So there are lots of little opportunities for you to speak and stand up and build up that competence. Another big part of every meeting is something called table topics. This is where you are asked a question and then you need to answer the question in one to two minutes. Basically, you're learning how to think on your feet, you don't know what you're going to be asked, so your job is to listen to the question and then formulate an answer. And then you share the answer. And this is really the part of the meeting where I think most people benefit because they do this repeatedly. And they realize that they actually can stand up and give an answer on an impromptu basis for something they weren't expecting. So going back to that example of if you're in your business and someone calls on you to have an opinion on something, your experience in Table Topics is going to give you that competence to know that you can do that. 

Thor Challgren  05:33

So having put those misperceptions about what Toastmasters is, let me share you the three reasons why I think now is a good time to consider joining Toastmasters. 

Thor Challgren  05:44

One is that most meetings now are online. We're in the middle of the COVID pandemic and Toastmasters International has relaxed the requirement that meetings are in person. So most clubs in my area, and I think in the United States for certain, are meeting virtually. A lot of clubs meet on Zoom. My club happens to meet at 630 in the morning on Wednesdays and normally that would be a challenge for people. They have to get up early enough to drive to the location they have to get themselves ready to present in the morning, especially if you're a speaker, our club people tends to dress nicely. Well guess what? Now that we're all on Zoom, you can kind of roll out of bed and not worry so much about what you look like. I mean, people still do, but it's much easier now that it's on Zoom. 

Thor Challgren  06:40

You don't have to worry about the driving the finding a place to park and how you look and all that kind of stuff. It's also pretty easy to find the location you just get a Zoom link and you're there. You don't have to find a meeting room or you've never been for the first time and you also don't have that awkward feeling of entering a room for the first time. And we've all had this experience where you go to a place for the first time. And you look around and you see all these people that they all know each other. And if you're not sort of an extrovert, you can feel a little bit shy, because everybody else knows each other and you don't know them and you don't know who to talk to. Well here in a Zoom meeting, everyone basically is a little one inch square on a computer screen, so it's much easier to sort of feel comfortable meeting everyone for the first time. So meetings are online. That makes it easy. That's one good reason to consider joining Toastmasters. 

Thor Challgren  07:38

Now, another is getting practice on Zoom. You know, with so many businesses moving to Zoom, and platforms like that. Your ability to present on camera is more important than ever. I like to say that everyone now essentially is a TV reporter. I mean, essentially, TV reporters are even looking at their computers now. And doing their stories that way. So having that ability to do that on Zoom and having that comfort level, you're going to be even more comfortable. And I will also say that I've learned a lot of tricks on how to use Zoom. And those are thanks to Toastmasters. Before our club started doing this, and I saw other contests and I'd never used a breakout room. So that's something that I know how to do now. And I've had practice at it. So I know the ins and outs of it. I've also had practice in looking at the screen that was difficult at first, I'm sure probably for most of us it is we're so used to looking at everyone else. And especially when we're speaking we're looking at everyone else. But then what happens is the way that they see us, they see us looking down or they see us looking left or right or up by having repeated practice of looking at that camera. I've gotten more comfortable at doing that. In fact, when I've given speeches recently, I specifically forced myself to look at the camera even though it feels awkward, and what I said to people in the club was, I could picture someone from the club and I would just in my mind, I'd say I'm speaking to that person. And that made it easier. The feedback I got was that everyone said that because I was looking at the camera, they felt that I was engaged with them. It just made them feel like I was speaking just to them. 

Thor Challgren  09:25

The third reason why I think now is a good time to consider Toastmasters is that you get experience in a friendly setting. If you become a member of a club, those people become your friends, you become comfortable speaking to them, because there's a lot less pressure, it's so different than if you're at work and you have to get up and give a speech. You have a natural sort of nervousness and anxiety because these are your co workers or your peers, maybe your boss. So you're not sure how you come off and you have that sort of self critical way of being concerned. on how you come off when you're in a Toastmasters club, those people are your friends, they want you to succeed. So this is totally a friendly environment where you can feel relaxed as much as you can and speaking, in that those people aren't judging you, they just want you to be better. You also get experienced letting go of all of those crutch words that we use in Toastmasters crutch words, or things like "um," "ah," "so." And one of the functionary roles is someone called an Ah Counter. And their job is to count the number of times that you use those sort of crutch words. So you'll hear at the end of the meeting, Thor, you said the word "uh" 10 times and when you start to hear yourself, you will become much more attuned to listening for those things. And I've seen people after two or three meetings dramatically cut down their usage of those kind of words. So that's a huge benefit is that you are becoming a more polished speaker because every week, you are learning the things that you need to let go of. 

Thor Challgren  11:04

Finally, it's easy to get started when you're speaking to a group. Your first speech in Toastmasters is called the Icebreaker. It's four to six minutes. And you're essentially just telling the club about yourself. So if you think about four to six minutes, that's like two to three stories about who you are. You could tell everyone about where you grew up, where you went to school, what your job is, what your hobbies are, what your family life is like. So basically, from that list of possible subjects, you pick one or two, maybe three stories, and then you tell us a one minute story of each one of those. It's a lot easier than most people think. We always say don't overthink that first speech because really, it's designed to be easy because you're just talking about yourself. And the best thing about that is that everyone in your club wants you to succeed. They're looking at you giving that speech and they want you to get better, they're pulling for you. You know, this isn't like work where you have that boss or those co workers and you might be afraid of speaking because you don't want to be judged, In Toastmasters, everyone is there just to get better, and they want you to succeed. 

Thor Challgren  12:17

Let me give you an example from my own experience of a moment in Toastmasters, where I grew so much. And I refer to that moment all the time, and it happens to be my most terrifying experience in Toastmasters. A couple of years ago, I entered an evaluation contest, and this is where someone gives a speech and all the contestants in the evaluation contest listen to that same speech, then one at a time, we go into the ballroom and we give a two to three minute evaluation of the speech. So after that speech, all of us are taken out of the room so that we can't hear each other, give our a evaluation. And we have five minutes to formulate our evaluation. Then we're led back into the room one at a time to give our own evaluation. 

Thor Challgren  13:02

So in my case, I was the first contestant, I think maybe there were five of us, I was the first actually like this, because I'm one of those people that I prefer to get it out of the way. And that way, I can also stay in the room and listen to everyone who follows me. So I had this idea, I thought it was very clever that what I would do is set a timer on my Apple Watch for five minutes. So that way, I would know when I'm in the room, and I'm having to sort of formulate my notes that I would have exactly five minutes and I'd be able to pace myself and know when to be ready. So I thought this was a great idea. So I set my watch for five minutes. What I didn't anticipate was that the sergeant at arms for the contest actually called me in early at four minutes. They brought me from the holding room back to the ballroom, and then I stood at the door, and I waited for them to call me up to the stage. 

Thor Challgren  13:56

So I go up on the stage and I started to give my evaluation, I was up there for maybe 30 seconds. And yes, my watch started to go off. The five minute alarm that I had set and forgotten about was now ringing. In the middle of the evaluation I'm giving with probably hundreds of people in the audience. In that moment, I had to make a decision. Either I would reach down and try to stop the alarm, probably get lost in my evaluation. People would notice what I was doing. They'd wonder why I was doing that. It would be very distracting. And I'm pretty sure I probably would have lost the contest if I'd made that choice. Second choice is that I could keep going and hope that nobody in the audience could hear the alarm. Even though it's driving me crazy. It's all I could hear and that I wouldn't be so unnerved that I couldn't carry on so I had to consider that option. Just letting the alarm ring or trying to turn it off. 

Thor Challgren  15:04

What I decided to do was to keep going, I committed to that choice and I just blocked the sound out of my mind the best I could. It was not easy. But I got through my evaluation. I got off the stage and I turned off the alarm, took my seat. Watched the other evaluators, I thought they all gave really good evaluations. There were some that I thought, you know, what if I wasn't voting for myself, I would vote for them. 

Thor Challgren  15:30

Well, guess who won the contest? I did. I was shocked. I later asked people if they could hear my watch. The people in the front row said no, they couldn't hear it. I was the only one who was aware of what I was certain was a hugely distracting moment.

Thor Challgren  15:50

My point in sharing this is to share the experience you gained from being in Toastmasters. When I had to get up and give the eulogy at my my mom's memorial. The only reason I believe I could do it was because of my Toastmasters experience, because of moments like that speech contest, where I was able to get through that and survive that and have been okay. I knew that when I had to get up and get my mom's memorial, I knew it would be difficult, but I knew I could get through it. And I did. 

Thor Challgren  16:23

So if you want to get better at speaking in a friendly environment, if you want to get better at presenting on the Zoom platform, and if you want to take advantage of most Toastmasters being online now, there's no better time to see if Toastmasters is right for you. I hope you look for a meeting in your area. You can always go to Toastmasters.org and search for clubs in your area. 

Thor Challgren  16:51

If you are interested in learning about my club in Thousand Oaks, California, please DM me and I'd be happy to show you information about it. There are clubs no matter where you live. And like I said, it's easier than ever to attend as a guest and see if Toastmasters is right for you.

Thor Challgren  17:11

All right. Thanks for listening to the Course Change podcast. If you'd like this episode, I would be incredibly grateful to you if you've jumped over to the Apple podcast app and leave a five star written review. This one simple act will help others find the show and build a community of people who support each other. You can always find me on Instagram @ThorChallgren. Send me a DM and let me know what you thought. Thanks again for listening and until next time, here's to your success.