Toastmasters
I have been a member of Toastmasters for several years, and normally I get a sense of immense satisfaction from each and every meeting. I arrived tired from a full day at work, and at the end of the meeting I bounce home with energy and enthusiasm for life. Toastmasters revives and inspires me.
Lately, however, I have felt less excited at the end of each meeting. It stems from no longer being involved in local leadership and from a sense of feeling like I could do certain things better than other people are doing them, such as speaking in a more animated way or introducing a topic better.
At our last meeting we had a speaker who is supposed to be a more "advanced" Toastmaster, who has competed in regional contests and who really takes speaking seriously. However, I found his speaking style to be overly dramatic and bordering on theatrical monologue. At one point he forgot the end of a sentence, proving that he was in fact reading from a script and did not fully comprehend what he was saying. This person did not have an evaluation but I nevertheless drafted a full evaluation of him merely for myself.
The speech was disproporionately bright and cheery for the room or for the occasion - it sounded like a motivational speech that rebel teenagers are forced to listen to but never identify with.
My father has an "emotions" chart in his dental office. It has pictures of emoticons ranging from dazzlingly happy to depressingly glum. As a medical practitioner, you are supposed to establish the emotional level of the patient, and act in an emotion that is one or two levels above the patient. Acting way too cheery with a depressed patient will cause them to be out of touch and not identify with you. For instance, if the patient is like "Life sucks", then they won't understand you if you respond with "No - life is great!" But if you answer with "Yeah, life's hard sometimes, but you know, it gets better and this is how...", then the patient sees you in a more reasonable light.
Having said all this - Toastmasters is a fantastic public speaking organization that has had a tremendous effect on my speaking skills, and I highly recommend it to everyone - you learn just as much from the sub-par speeches as you do from the exemplary ones.
Lately, however, I have felt less excited at the end of each meeting. It stems from no longer being involved in local leadership and from a sense of feeling like I could do certain things better than other people are doing them, such as speaking in a more animated way or introducing a topic better.
At our last meeting we had a speaker who is supposed to be a more "advanced" Toastmaster, who has competed in regional contests and who really takes speaking seriously. However, I found his speaking style to be overly dramatic and bordering on theatrical monologue. At one point he forgot the end of a sentence, proving that he was in fact reading from a script and did not fully comprehend what he was saying. This person did not have an evaluation but I nevertheless drafted a full evaluation of him merely for myself.
The speech was disproporionately bright and cheery for the room or for the occasion - it sounded like a motivational speech that rebel teenagers are forced to listen to but never identify with.
My father has an "emotions" chart in his dental office. It has pictures of emoticons ranging from dazzlingly happy to depressingly glum. As a medical practitioner, you are supposed to establish the emotional level of the patient, and act in an emotion that is one or two levels above the patient. Acting way too cheery with a depressed patient will cause them to be out of touch and not identify with you. For instance, if the patient is like "Life sucks", then they won't understand you if you respond with "No - life is great!" But if you answer with "Yeah, life's hard sometimes, but you know, it gets better and this is how...", then the patient sees you in a more reasonable light.
Having said all this - Toastmasters is a fantastic public speaking organization that has had a tremendous effect on my speaking skills, and I highly recommend it to everyone - you learn just as much from the sub-par speeches as you do from the exemplary ones.
posted by Allison at 8:49 PM
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