The Apex Toastmasters Podcast
A podcast about Toastmasters, public speaking, and what makes a successful club hosted by George J. Caspar, DTM.
The Apex Toastmasters Podcast
E7: Peter Rau "Face-To-Face Matters; Get Up and Fail"
We talk with Peter Rau about how practice, presence, and a strong club culture turn anxiety into real growth. From officiating weddings to participating in speaking contests, we weigh the limits of online formats and the power of in-person connection, improv, and well-run meetings.
• early experiences in speech and debate
• officiating weddings and preparing with intention
• safe practice vs high-stakes speaking environments
• in-person presence, movement, and eye contact
• drawbacks of online contests and virtual delivery
• balancing demand for remote skills with live mastery
• crafting speeches, rehearsal depth, and flexibility
• what makes a club exceptional and reliable
• podcast ideas for live speeches and feedback
• navigating Pathways, icebreakers, and creativity
• improv as resilience training and fear reduction
Also mentioned: Vinh Giang expert public speaker.
Apex Toastmasters is a President's distinguished club founded in 1996 and located in Apex, North Carolina, USA.
We meet every Thursday night at 7:00 pm at the Apex Baptist Church and online. See club website for details.
Apex Toastmasters Club Website: https://www.apextoastmasters.org/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=apex%20toastmasters
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Welcome to the Apex Toastmasters podcast. I am your host, George Casper. This episode is recorded on Monday, October 13th, 2025. In this episode, I speak with Peter Rao, a talented speaker and a snappy dresser. Let's go to the conversation. I'm here with Peter Rao, who is Apex Toastmasters current vice president of membership. And you've been with Toastmasters how many years?
SPEAKER_02:Two and a half.
SPEAKER_00:Can you introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_02:I'm a, I guess we should say a technology professional. I oversee developers and network engineers and other folks. Uh, and I work for a uh nonprofit that helps kids go to college. And I've been dabbling in public speaking in smaller and larger ways over quite a long time, but just joined Toastmasters back in 2023 upon being asked to officiate a friend's wedding. And I felt like I needed to really tune up my skills some. And I went out and found Apex Toastmasters, and it's been a wonderful experience.
SPEAKER_00:When you started Toastmasters, it seemed like you had some experience under your belt. You seemed like a pretty naturally talented public speaker.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, thanks, George. It's something that I've done in small doses at various points, but without a lot of formal training or or or study or practice, to be honest. The first time I ever did anything really was when an English teacher of mine in in high school asked me to join our speech and debate team. And uh I ended up doing something called humorous interpretation, where you would take usually people did established works of of comedy, and they would perform them in a competition. So that's what I did. And I did that for a couple years, and that was good. But it was, you know, I mean, it was I didn't spend a ton of time on it, but it was a good introduction to public speaking. And then the only other things I'd done that of of note was I got asked many years later to come back to the same high school and give the commencement address, which I did, which was a much bigger deal because it was in front of I don't know how many thousands, but it was a lot. It was a a university basketball auditorium we were in, so it was it was a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00:Why were you invited to give the commencement address?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it was just because I was a I mean, I went to a small high school in Virginia, and I think it was because I had done some done well academically, been a good student, gone out and and made something of myself. I think that was the the sum of it.
SPEAKER_00:You joined Toastmasters to officiate a wedding. Yeah. How did that go?
SPEAKER_02:It went great. It was so wonderful. It was really a wonderful experience, a special honor to get asked to officiate someone's wedding because for a couple reasons. One is, I mean, it's a position of privilege. Someone that you are close with thinks highly enough of you that you would add to their very, very special day, one of the most important days of their life. But the flip side of that is it gives you the opportunity to really say something meaningful about someone you care about and people you care about and and try and give them something meaningful for their future. And, you know, we don't have enough opportunities in this life to tell the people around us how we feel and and and express that love and appreciation that that we have for those around us. So it to have that kind of opportunity is super special. So, you know, having that chance to think about my friend and to write something meaningful and then be able to present it in front of our friends and and their family is was really special. And not to not to take away from it the specialness of that, but it pretty quickly led to me that same summer actually officiating a second wedding. So it was doubly good.
SPEAKER_00:Do you feel like Toastmasters helped you to prepare for that moment?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, tremendously, tremendously, yeah. I mean, it wasn't the only bit of preparation that I did, obviously. I mean, it's a it's not just the the stuff you do in the club, but you know, there's nothing like practice in in life for anything, and especially when it's something that you are going to do in an environment that is unlike the environment you normally inhabit. If you're going to step in front of a bunch of people and speak and you don't do a lot of that, the importance of having many opportunities, repetitions is critical. And that is to say nothing of the great advice and support I got from our club members to help me feel very confident walking into that situation, which again, inherently, you can give as many Toastmaster speeches as you want, but it's not the same as standing in front of a couple hundred people who are all dressed up for a very special day, and you very much don't want to detract from that and hopefully get to add to it.
SPEAKER_00:Toastmasters, as you indicated, is a safe place to practice.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And getting up in front of a crowd of people on a one specific date where somebody's having an event that happens once in their life, you can't mess up in that situation. So it's not as safe.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, if you walk into that, look, I mean, I'm sure there are people who do it. I think we all know people who are so gifted at public speaking and stuff, it's like they're born to do it and they can just deliver that way. But most of us aren't that person. And in order to become comfortable enough to do it, you have to practice. And yeah, like you said, it's different. But standing in front of a room of people at Toastmasters is close as you're likely to get without other drastic measures if you don't do it already.
SPEAKER_00:One question I asked everyone so far is what do you consider the value of Toastmasters to be in a general sense?
SPEAKER_02:I think there are a host of interpersonal communication skills that have tended to atrophy amongst the general public. I think storytelling, I think the ability to stand up and speak in public, I think the ability to improvise and to play like a child, I think these are all skills that we have put by the wayside as a culture, largely. I not to say they aren't still important, they uh very much the contrary. But what I mean is we don't train in them formally as part of our education or ongoing development as humans, I guess. You know, they tend to get lost. We work our jobs, we travel, we watch movies, we do things, but we do, I think, whereas a hundred years ago, maybe people would sit around and tell stories more than we do now. They would interact with one another in the public square by standing up and speaking. And I'm again, I don't mean to imply that everyone did all these things, but I just mean they were more common skills that more people experienced and invested themselves in. I think they were more central to our culture and and to all cultures as we've become more online, we become more separated. And I think these interpersonal skills are very important and and they're enriching. I think they're part of being human, and I think they're important. And I think Toastmasters is an outstanding avenue for that. But I think at the core of it is about standing in front of people, taking up space unabashedly, and saying what you have to say and learning the skills that are required to do that in an effective and impactful way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I agree. And the more I think about this topic, the more I kind of understand that there's something very therapeutic to face-to-face interactions with people and also public speaking, not online. Yeah, yeah, but face-to-face, getting in front of a group of people and expressing yourself. There's something very therapeutic to that, and by contrast, there's something I don't know what the opposite of therapeutic is, sickening, I guess, about spending too much time online, you know, and oh, for sure. And it seems like Toastmasters wants to go more online over time, and I think that's a mistake. I think that what we offer here that is really valuable is face-to-face interactions.
SPEAKER_02:My personal thought is I I I agree with you wholeheartedly, but only in part. And I say that it's not that the other part I really disagree with you. I just I think that they're Toastmasters and everyone really is trying to straddle a difficult fence here. But you know, the reason I I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and obviously Apex Toastmasters is an Apex, which isn't that far away. But suffice it to say, there I probably drive past a half dozen clubs on my way to get to the Apex Club. And the reason I chose the Apex Club was because of its very strong in-person priority. There are a lot of people who show up, and you have the opportunity to speak in public in person. I mean, I get hours and hours of practice every single day speaking in front of my camera. That's not even hard. In fact, less is more. I would prefer to do less of that. It's not at all the same thing. That is to say, I really do agree with you that the in-person part, it's a totally different animal. To that same point, when I participated in the club speaking contest a couple of years ago and I moved on to the second round, I can't, I can't tell you how disappointed I was that it was online. I it just ruined it. I, you know, I spent the whole day so that I could what stand in front of my computer and and speak my speech. Like there's no physicality, there's no walking around, there's no looking people in the eye. Like I would say a full 70% of the importance of what you can convey is lost online. You get the words, you get the tone. Okay. But there's so much, so much of the nuance of being a good public speaker is just obliterated by being online. But the flip side of that coin is that people do want to learn those skills. They want to be better at presenting themselves where they present themselves the most. You know, I mentioned that I'm online and on camera a lot every day. Well, there are people who do that who don't feel comfortable, and I think they want to build those skills. And I think the recognition that a lot of people's speaking experience in real life these days is online. So, by the same token, I think that a lot of the things that Toastmasters is doing probably are in response to demand, more so, or at least I give them the benefit of the doubt and say that there's a demand there. And you know, I think if they insisted on like we're doing just doing notebooks and no online component here, and the training's not going to be online, and that I think they would lose a lot of people who who want to be there. But I think the emphasis, and I think it we it's perfect in the Apex Club, I think, where it's like we do have the online component, but we really emphasize people coming in and and both speaking in public and learning that because that's the hard skill, and also the kind of community element of being there and getting to know each other.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good point, actually, that you made that I haven't fully considered, and that is that in today's professional world, people are often speaking online, and so it that is a skill that needs to be developed.
SPEAKER_02:I wish it weren't the case. I'll be honest. And I think it's less of an art form, but it you know, as far as people's desire to get better, you got to meet people where they are.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's true, and I also want to follow up on what you said about the contests, the upper levels being online. I agree with you totally there. That should never have happened. I think the upper leaders of Toastmasters frankly failed it when they advocated for that. And it's not the same thing in both directions, like it's not the same thing for the audience to get the full power of the speaker, and it's not the same thing for the speaker to get the full power of speaking in front of an audience.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I really think I think that if you wanted to have a separate category, do a separate contest that was like an online version, I'd be all for it. I think that's great. But don't tell me that it's the same thing to compete standing in front of a webcam as it is to stand in an auditorium or on a stage and be able to move. And I mean, there's power, there's dynamism, there's there's so much to convey with the physical presence that you and to communicate. Again, it's not just what comes out of you, but your connection with with the the group and the individuals, and you just get none of that online. That's in the past. As long as they move on and don't do that again. I I think they will you know be fine.
SPEAKER_00:We were coming out of COVID. Uh it was it was 2023. Yeah, I know, but it's like the the hangover of COVID, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Sure, fair enough. And and you know, I mean, and not to minimize just the difficulty of getting everyone to do everything, you know, like it's hard to find a venue, it's hard to find people to support event. It takes work. It's it's not to say that I don't understand those challenges. It's just if you're gonna go to the trouble of running a Toastmasters, you've got this large organization that puts a lot of emphasis on process and and so forth to not be able to pull off a speech contest seems like that should be a pretty low bar.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. And I definitely made my opinion known.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I I don't mean to use this as a as a a sounding board or a soapbox to talk about. It just came up as part of our discussion about online versus in person. I I'm you know, I I I harbor no ill will, everything's fine. Yeah, may or may not be the contest this year, but I can promise you this if there's a round that is going to be not in person, then I'm not doing it.
SPEAKER_00:We don't want the Toastmaster secret police coming to our house in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you have to edit this part out, George. Uh I don't want to upset the powers that be.
SPEAKER_00:All right, we can change the subject. When you hear a speaker who is very compelling to you, what are the qualities that they typically exhibit?
SPEAKER_02:Off the top of my head, I think there are I'll say three things that jump to mind. One is that they've crafted their speech, that it's not just some kind of rambling off the top of my head, we've got a story to tell, let me jump in and wander about. They've taken the time to construct a speech. And that is an art form in and itself that takes effort, it takes thought, it takes skill, it takes practice. I recognize that as one part. The second is that they've taken the time to practice it where they're comfortable on stage, right? And then the third, and this is probably the one that is hardest. I I think very few people have, but it might be the most powerful part, is the ability to have a presence on stage, to be able to play with things like how you carry your body, how you interact with people in the crowd, how you move as you're giving your speech. And that last part always sticks with me because it's it's something it's I guess it's a a decent approximation for charisma or something, but it it, you know, when you translate it to trying to break it down into the mechanics of giving a speech, it becomes about the physical parts of it, I think.
SPEAKER_00:When you're up there, do you think about those things or does it just kind of flow naturally? Do you plan it beforehand?
SPEAKER_02:I plan a little. I think I would have to say, and this, I don't know how this will come across, but I I would attribute some of it to being part Italian. You know, a hand gesture, like when I speak, I speak with my hands to some extent. I I I'm gonna have to blame my my Italian grandmother for that. So I think that I do naturally have some physicality to my speaking in general, when I'm not public speaking, but just speaking to you now, same sort of thing. Beyond that, I think I have I try and just speak to the room as if I were speaking to a person, which is hard to do in a sense, because you're not speaking to one person, but I feed a lot on the people in the room and making eye contact with somebody, and that makes it more like speaking to one person, where then it's very easy. Like right now, you see me, I'm using my hand just while I'm talking to you now. So it becomes more natural, if that makes sense. That's very easy to do when you're talking to one person, and it can be harder when you're doing it with more than one. For me, it's just a matter of connecting with individuals in the crowd, and it starts to feel with practice, starts to feel more like having a conversation with an individual or small group.
SPEAKER_00:Do you focus on one person at a time?
SPEAKER_02:Honestly, I notice I've gotten better at this as I've joined Toastmasters. Yeah, I mean, I I never really thought of it in the the way Bob Sackman, our patriarch, I guess. I don't know how you describe Bob, but just a uh DTM and an all-around great guy. He says sometimes about make eye contact with the person and deliver an entire sentence or whole thought and then move to the next person. I've never been intentional that way about it, but kind of more in the sense of feel more. Imagine like I'm sitting around the dinner table with five or six friends, and you might make a point and just look at someone. And at some point, it's not so much that you think, oh, I've got to move to the next person, but it's more like this is getting awkward that I'm staring at someone and saying more than you would normally say. I think there's just a natural flow to it, and I I think I am I fall into that pretty easily.
SPEAKER_00:I hear what you're saying as far as what Bob says about like saying one sentence and then moving to another person, but I feel like if I concentrate too much on technique when I'm up there, then I'll forget what you have to say. The content of the speech. Yeah. So many times I get up there with an intention to either say the word of the day or you know, use uh vocal variety or or body language, and I just get caught up in the speech. And I I by the time I'm sitting back in my seat, I I I'm thinking, Oh, I forgot to do that. Yeah, I never I never did all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02:So I do I have the same thing, George. I really do. In fact, there's a a guy who teaches public speaking named Vin Gang, has a great, great course. He's a really dynamic and entertaining, charismatic speaker. And so shortly around the time that I joined Toastmasters, I purchased this guy's program and went through, and it's many, many hours of of stuff, and it's pretty high level, and it's it's well, I mean, it's it's very usable, don't get me wrong, but it kind of digs into deep into a lot of this stuff. And I am not saying this to raise any suggestion that that I've perfected any part of what that man teaches. It's really good stuff, though. But it's helpful just to be aware of. Anyway, he's Australian and he's really great. But some of the things he's taught are very technical that way. Like, you know, oh, you want to create he he discusses some archetypes like that you might come across as this, like you're a coach or your instructor, or you're a teacher, you're a drill sergeant, whatever. I can't remember what they all are, but that depending on what kind of information you're trying to convey, you may want to take on this persona. And I've tried to break down my speeches in that way before, or like to really plan, like be okay, right here, you're gonna have a big pause, you know. I've tried to do that, and like you say, like you try and set that stuff up, and I am not accomplished. Actually, that's not quite fair. I think that I could do it, it's not that. I think that it takes a lot of practice to get to that level of familiarity with one speech where you can be that deliberate. Like I think that you or I could, if we practiced a given speech enough times, if I practice a speech a hundred times, yeah, I could probably create a pause exactly where I wanted it, exactly the way I wanted it.
SPEAKER_00:And deliver the same speech in front of a group of people multiple times.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and there's, but there is such a like there's such a range of skill sets here. Like, I think there's one skill where you've got it down where it is straight up a performance, like you're on Broadway or something. You've got your lines and you are delivering them pitch perfect. On the other hand, there's something to be said for the bullet point method where you've got it down. You maybe have 80% of the words are nailed down. Maybe they're sentences, passages, phrases that you're gonna nail exactly. But there's a lot that you're like, okay, I can improvise through some of this. And I think both are important to be able to do. But I think to be able to have that kind of huge impact, like really max it out, I think that you would have to practice a whole lot. But even then, you know, you'd hate to be brittle that way, like where you're like, I practiced a thousand times, but if you forget a word or someone interrupts you, or there's a question or a fire drill or whatever, that you're lost. Like that's terrible. You would want to be flexible and be able to adjust on the fly as need be, or to incorporate the word of the day. But if you've got it all recorded in your mind and you're just pressing play, that's not great either. But anyway, this this Vinyang guy, he he says something I can't remember what number it was, but it was something like an hour of practice for every minute of speech or something like that. Like it was some something, it might even be more to be really that good. Now, if you're going to be a professional speaker, yeah, I think that's probably justified.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, most people who are in Toastmasters are not professional speakers and don't have the that amount of time to invest in each speech they give. If you want to reach those higher levels as a professional, then obviously you'd be devoting your life to that and be devoting more time to it. There's a trade-off there. What do you think makes a club a good experience for the members?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I've only visited a couple clubs. I've only been exposed to a couple, but I've been now to officer training quite a few times and I've seen some inside baseball and how other clubs profess to do things or want to do things, or in what exposure I've had. I am definitely biased, but I really think that the way Apex Toastmasters has things set up is exceptional. And what I what I mean by that, let me tell you some of the things that stand out to me. Number one is very tight organization of our meetings. That's not to say that we can't flex, but I would say I would not I might not be wrong to say 100% of the meetings that I've attended over the last two and a half years have ended within 15 minutes of the target time. And I would go farther than to say I think 95% of them have probably ended within five minutes over the time. I mean, we have got this thing on rails. Everybody has a role. The people who have roles tend to show up. If they don't show up, the Toastmaster has already identified people to fill in those roles. It's just extremely well run and organized. And that is a commitment to the group in a way that I think is probably rare and exceptional. And it's also an especial commitment from our sergeants at arms, I think, in setting us up so that we're not starting late. And and to our VPs of education who ensure that we've got people signed up. But you know, that also feeds the Toastmasters who do their work before each meeting to make sure I've got, you know, people care about doing a great job and making sure that we have a great meeting. I not too long ago went to another club that I thought was a very good club, and I really thought highly of it, but they didn't have that complete 100% dedication to having all the roles filled and everybody ready to go. And this was going to be a, you know, a well-run meeting. It was everybody was in and ready to go, but some people who were supposed to speak didn't have their their stuff and they weren't ready, and they were getting people at the last minute, and it was less, and this is no again, no slight to anyone. The Apex Toastmasters Club is just exceptional in that regard. And I think that's it says a lot. So it creates a very good experience where I think if you're new, you feel like, okay, I'm I'm in a place where people are really serious about doing this the right way. Just setting up a club and having meetings and all that is hard. I would never want anybody to feel like I was talking badly about other clubs. I uh the meetings I've attended have been really great. It's just when you look at the Apex Club and you're like, it is the same agenda every time, and it is spot on, and our people know their roles and they know how to do them. It's a very good environment for being able to build your skills and get support.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's important to know that that structure is there, to have faith in that structure, so you can just be free to, you know, speech or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:Now you had mentioned before, not during this conversation, but previously, that you had ideas for the podcast. Um I'm I'm very interested to hear them.
SPEAKER_02:You might be able to create the podcast itself as a forum for people to deliver a speech. Could this be a forum where somebody comes in and practices giving a speech or that it's an opportunity to have someone to do a live speech during a podcast and get feedback from other people who might be part of the podcast? I I don't know. I was just occurring to me that it was another forum for performance. So I don't know. I mean, you let's say you run out of of guests here and at your pace, you're gonna run out before uh next year. Yeah, let's say that that was the case. Maybe you mix in a somebody come give a speech and let's critique it in real time, or you could take a recorded speech, you know, do get somebody's five-minute speech and ask them if they'd be willing to have it dissected and have them join on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00:I'm picturing it in my mind.
SPEAKER_02:There would be maybe three evaluators and one speaker, and the speaker gives their speech, and then the three evaluators do kind of and then you could discuss it with them afterwards, or if you wanted to do a different thing, you could have it where we record a speech that happens in the club during a meeting, and then come back and break it down, have it recorded, and we would watch it and then talk about it. Break it down. Hey, what look what they did here. This was great. Kind of a deeper level of feedback could be another way, anyway. I I don't know, just some ideas to play with.
SPEAKER_00:I like that, and that'll take the pressure off of having to find a new guest.
unknown:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:You won't have to you won't have to start blackmailing your your guests to get them.
SPEAKER_00:I I have about five on the bench that I'm considering.
SPEAKER_02:So well, I mean, at this pace, you're gonna have to put out 52 in a year, George. That's a lot of podcasts.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I I don't know that I'll I'll maintain this torrid pace. This torrid pace, but I'm gonna keep it going for as long as I can.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's great. I think it really is is uh super that you've you've taken it on with such uh enthusiasm.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm enjoying it. I've been putting a lot of thought into this question of well, there's two questions. Who is the intended audience and what is the purpose of the podcast? And I think there's multiple answers to each question. You know, it's it's obviously confined to Toastmasters in general. So that's that's kind of a confined confined category, which you need, I think, for a podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of things that you could do with this podcast. So you're talking, you've been talking to club members so far. But I mean, what about interviewing accomplished speakers just from out and about who aren't have nothing to do with Toastmasters, you know? People in politics, people in business who who speak a lot. They might be interested in conveying some of what they know. You could do a whole episode about a particular area of public speaking. Um, we talked a little bit about physical presence and and so forth. I mean, you could do one on that, or you could do one on vocal variety or whatever. You could do a deep dive on on a particular subject. I think the the world's your oyster on this.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm also interested in opening it up to anyone else who's who wants to try being a host or do a whole show, you know, without me. I've been finding that it's it's refining my ideas on on the whole subject of Toastmasters and specific aspects of Toastmasters. I've been thinking about different things that I wouldn't have otherwise thought about if I hadn't started this.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, like like what if you don't mind me asking?
SPEAKER_00:The subject of the upper levels of Toastmasters has come up a few times, and it usually ends up being a little bit critical.
SPEAKER_02:So maybe we don't want to go there, but no, no, it's basically I mean, yeah, we don't we don't have to.
SPEAKER_00:So there's that pathways is another subject that's that's come up.
SPEAKER_02:Um yeah, you've you and I have talked a little bit about this in in the past.
SPEAKER_00:And my thought on pathways in general was that I wasn't too happy with it. I was I kind of preferred the old system with the booklets and the your evaluator would write their evaluation in your booklet, and you'd have this historical document in your hands that you could look back on, and just the less reliance on online. And one aspect of pathways that came up was the fact that you have to give an icebreaker each time you start a new path.
SPEAKER_02:Boy, yeah, that part I've I think we talked about. I couldn't agree anymore. Like having to repeat some of the more mundane exercises, like, oh, your communication style again. I think it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's you I feel like it's a missed opportunity. You could be doing other things.
SPEAKER_00:Those two projects, the your communication style and your leadership style, I agree that it gets very monotonous hearing those over and over again. But uh in my last podcast with Kathy Berner, she actually said she liked the idea that there were multiple icebreakers. And the reason she gave for that was it's a chance to reintroduce yourself to the club because the club is constantly changing, there's new people coming in, and so it's your chance to to introduce yourself to the these new people, and also you change as a person over time, and so every time you give an icebreaker, it's like you can chart that evolution of yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I I I would I I would agree with that. I don't I don't really mind the icebreaker being more than once, even though it is redundant. But I for those reasons, as well as it's such a intentionally unstructured assignment, you can make it what you want. Like you don't have to do anything close to what you did the first time, even if you had changed not at all. I mean, you could just do something different. There's They intentionally kind of let you do what you want, which is good because otherwise you'd have people saying, you know, I was born in Chicago in 1970. And you know, like just bore everyone to tears. So they let you be creative with it. And I think that's fine. When you get into like the communication style, and what's the other one? Leadership style. They are so constrained. So then to do them a second time is like just seems like over. You know, again, this is picking at nits. Overall, I think the Toastmasters program's excellent. And there's nobody stopping you from being creative about your leadership style. I'm about to do both those for a level two for my second path, and I'm going to get creative. You know, I may get dinged on straying the path a little on those speeches, but I'm going to make them productive for me and more entertaining for the audience than they would be if I colored completely in the lines, I think. At least that's my plan.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I look forward to that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I don't want to build up expectations. I'm not saying they're going to be good.
SPEAKER_00:I still look forward to it.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Well, thank you for your support.
SPEAKER_00:You have a history with improv, and it it seems to have influenced the way you show up in Toastmasters. So can you talk about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was about a little less than 10 years ago, almost almost 10 years ago, that I just on kind of on a whim, I had worked with a guy who was a who was big into improv, and I went to see him a few times and I thought, oh, that was interesting. And I had an opportunity to take a class nine years ago. You know, it's one of those things you do you do an activity or something and you kind of fall in with a bunch of people. Sometimes you, you know, they're people you click with, sometimes they aren't. And this was a combination of something I thought that was enriching and a bunch of people that I really liked. So I kept with it. And long story short, I guess, is that it really helped me feel more comfortable with failure, which I think translates directly into public speaking. My biggest lesson with improv was that gonna make a fool of yourself, and people sometimes will laugh at you for not the reason you attended. And it's okay. Like that's if that's the worst thing that happens, you get up and you keep moving. That that's everyone, everyone's experience in life. But kind of permission to fail and then stand up and and go again, that's how you get better at things. And so that really kind of drove home that lesson with me as an adult. Uh, it really helped me a great deal. And I know that that a great many people that I know in improv have had similar experiences. So when I came into Toastmasters, it certainly took some of the terror of standing in front of, you know, you asked about like, oh, well, you seem confident in front of people. I think that that's a lot why I like I've I've I've stood in front of you know rooms of a hundred or more people, sometimes out in you know, public events, sometimes you know, standing out and acting absolutely a fool. So compared to that, standing up and saying something that I believe or that it's my life experience, or trying to influence people about something that is is serious becomes a little less scary.
SPEAKER_00:I can understand what you're talking about there. When I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of doing anything wrong in front of other people, you know, making a mistake of any in a baseball game, like not catching the ball or striking out or something and just being humiliated, like everyone saw me, you know, blah blah blah. Yeah. And it made me, it really made me not want to get in front of people and try. And as a result, I didn't, I never got better at things because I was avoiding things, you know. Yeah, it took me a long time to learn that lesson that you you gotta get out there.
SPEAKER_02:I I really so I I mentioned at the beginning how important I think it is that we regain and and invest in these interpersonal skills. And I think improvising and failing in front of people are important skills to have because they're natural and human. It's funny to me, I think that a lot of very intelligent people have gone through school and had a similar experience where you're really taught you need to get them all right. You got to get 97, 98%, you know, you can't miss anything. And then you need to beat yourself up about the little bit that you got wrong, which is fine. You know, look, we should work hard to be good at what we do. But I think if that comes at the expense of being terrified or humiliated by failures that we all experience, we need to undo that. You know, I feel strongly about that. We should be able to fail and get up and not feel like the world has ended. I think that recognition that it's okay, get up and do it again. That's the only path to feeling okay with yourself, to feeling to being able to grow. You know, you grow by your failures, not by your successes. So that's that's my thought.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. I think that's a good place to stop, unless you have something else you wanted to talk about.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, that's this is great. Thank you very much, George. I I've really enjoyed it as always. Uh speaking with you is a pleasure.
SPEAKER_00:Cool, Pete. I I I'm happy to know you because you're one of the more interesting people in the club, too. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Sometimes I say stuff and it sounds like it's insulting other people. That's not my intro.
SPEAKER_02:All those other losers, you know, who are listening to this right now. I think you're great. I don't know what George is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. Um well, maybe I'll just I'll end it there.
SPEAKER_01:Editing. Here we go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Not at all. Not at all. Thank you, George. I'm I'm flattered and I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Pete. Have a good night.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you too. Take care.
SPEAKER_00:Apex Toastmasters is the president's distinguished club founded in 1996 and located in Apex, North Carolina. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the host and guest, and do not reflect the views or opinions of Toastmasters in general or Apex Toastmasters in specific. If you enjoyed what you heard, please take a moment to like, share, rate, and review this podcast. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you in the next podcast.