On this blog I’m all about taking action , and I also want to show that: 3 weeks ago I had my first public speech in Toastmasters and it was pretty exciting, this really is a milestone for a lot of speakers since it’s your very first and it definitely was for me!

Feel the fear and do it anyway

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I became a member of the Toastmaster club in Ghent, Belgium back in February 2015. A couple (6) months went by without really engaging. Not really doing speeches or big roles, like evaluator of other speakers.

But this was OK.

I slowly built up to bigger and more frequent roles, until I just planned my speech 3 months beforehand. It was on!

Now I had to write a speech, which is the hardest part sometimes . “I’m not interesting, what will I talk about?”, was my first thought. Super stupid of course, as I’ve got quite a lot to talk about. Sitting down and actually getting an idea of what you want to say is usually easier than thought most of the times.

So the speech was called ‘Three things you didn’t know about me… yet’ and the main goal was to bring something about yourself as an introduction, so that the other members really got to know you. I chose to be pretty personal, as this catches more of the listener’s attention as well as keeps them more engaged. These were the main points of my speech:

• I love girls, girls, girls

This was a funny point, and got the audience cracked up in a blink of an eye. I wanted to express my gratitude for women in general, having all their great capacities.

BUT

I quickly changed from playful to more serious by saying the following sentence:

“But, despite all these great points, I find it hard to open up and really put myself out there in a serious relationship.”

This had a state-change in the audience, and after my speech I heard they loved this fact, really playing their emotions and questions a little bit.

• Have you ever felt super stressed out? I’m sure you have and when I do, I solve it pretty awesomely.

I then do crazy stuff in public, on purpose! This was pretty new, all the points that I’ve talked about, for a lot of people. A lot of frowning faces and question marks were staring back at me. But they loved it in the end!

• As a lot of you, I love to travel

This speaks for it’s self. Travelling really talks to the imagination and let’s people dream a little bit. I used a few examples from my travels that year (2015) to Ghana, Sweden, France,…

Overall a great speech and I got a lot of positive comments.

I was pretty nervous in the beginning, but rolling in this speech it definitely became better. I can’t seem to notice on the video I was so nervous. After opening, all was good and bossed through the almost 6-minute speech. Hope you enjoy it!