Made in Toastmasters

Chief judge was walking towards the podium. The whole room was calm and every one could hear one's breathing. When Chief Judge TM Darshan announced my name as International Speech contest winner for Accenture Toastmasters 2016, it was a wonderful feeling. When I first visited the Accenture club in May 2013, I was scared of public speaking. In the first meeting, I somehow got the courage to attempt one of the table topics speeches. You have no idea what happened next.

When Ah counter came and gave feedback, I realised I gave speech on “You Know” filler word instead of the original topic. But TM Apoorv and other club members gave me support to try and attempt more speeches. So with little more courage, I attempted CC1 in the next meeting. And I realised one more thing after the CC1 speech.

My cc1 speech did not last more than 2:30 secs, which means disqualified. Added to this are my filler words and so many grammatical mistakes. I had a late realisation that I was too weak at public speaking. To learn public speaking , I joined the Accenture TM Club in July 2013, attended many meetings and tried to give speeches, took the stage time more and more. I was learning something new in every meeting. It added value to my life. Soon after 6 months, I was able to learn many tips on public speaking and could give speeches in more structured and logical manner. From then on till winning ISC at Accenture Toastmasters 2016, it is all handwork and consistency of my efforts which paid off in the end. I had that inner belief and conviction that I would be able to speak before public one day. It is more than 250 hours of awesome learning in Toastmasters in last 2 odd years.