Dare to fail

Between all my Toastmaster Speeches, from the Competent Communicator Manual, the most important for me, personally, and who knows, perhaps to my fellow Toastmasters who listened to it, too, was the one with the title "Dare to Fail".

Also it was given at the Humorous Contest, this one had a very serious message.

At the time, I have given six speeches, now I did complete the Competent Toastmaster manual. But my message does not vary.

Dare to Fail.

I did fail in some things at each task from the manual.

1. Did not have time to finish my Ice-Breaker speech (but had good contact with the audience and got hooked on continuing to give others.)

2. My transitions were not clear enough for the Organize well task.

3. My point got across well, but my ending was not strong enough at 3rd

4. I did speak with short words and phrases, but "what was your point, I was asked" after the speech, and yes, we have to use each time all we have learned before. But too much concentrated on "how" I forgot the "what" that got diluted somehow.

5. Body language usage is the main point of the 5th speech and at the end I was told my Voice Variety was great, implying, but the body...

6. Voice variety not so good but great body language, I was told at the 6th, but because of the content, I won this time the "best speaker of the evening" award.

Then, came my Dare to Fail Comic speech. I won at club level!

7. Do research, made me going to read great books, other then the Competent Communicator manual, but I overwhelmed my audience with too many points. Or, we do learn at the 2nd speech not to do that...

8. Using visual aids, was a flap from the point of view of visual aids but many remember it as the speech that showed them the importance of the Pause. And I did stick to one main point. So it was a mixed bag.

9. Persuade. This was a speech when I spoke of the importance of Storytelling in a good Speech, and demonstrated it. I still think it was a great one, but my evaluator told "but I was persuaded of its importance before already". I also learned through my speeches to take what I want from the Evaluator, and to leave and not worry about the rest.

10. Inspire. How to inspire an audience? That was a question that I dreaded to answer. It took me a lot of time to find my individual answer, and for doing it I went back to my early childhood's events. I did ok, but some told me "could have done it with less body language". Possible.

So, you see, you do not have to fear the tasks from the Manual.

We do it each time as we can best, and we do learn each time and progress slowly. I can not see myself, but I am told, in a year, as I did go through the Manual, I did make a lot of progress, even if I failed so many times.