I asked several experienced toastmaster friends their recommendations for me of high impact area to work on communication/ public speaking. I was surprised to hear ‘showing vulnerability/ sharing difficult personal stories’.
I signed up for a speech tonight and I had no time to prepare. I thought of dropping off but felt bad to do so at the last minute, especially, the meeting has only 2 speakers, including myself. It’s an ice breaker. I could talk about any topic and it’d be easier to recycle a speech yet I decided to do it differently…I want to focus on ‘story-telling’ in the next 6 months with a new pathway. I want to tell clear, concise, and compelling story. I decided to kick it start tonight, going for a new and difficult story…
I talked about the joy of bowling when I was in college and recently got back to it, after 20 years’ laps, I didn’t remember the foot steps and never threw a ball with left hand (I hurt my right finger so I decided to play with left hand). I was stumbled with words and could see audience wasn’t moved along with the story.
The feedback from the evaluator and audience was that I seemed anxious and struggled with the words – Yes, I was. Also, the story could be further built – I couldn’t agree more. The good news was that it’s different from my usual (positive) speech. A difficult yet growth experience – I’ll keep working on the story crafts.