3C SPEAKER

President's Opening Address 

21 July 2016 

by Rajendra Tiwari

Enlightening achievers, enticing speakers & enthusiastic guests - a very warm welcome. As club president, one of my roles is to deliver an inspiring opening speech at every meeting! By nature, I just love to listen to inspiring talks. However, when it comes to delivering them, I am just not there. Last week when I tried inspiring my thirteen-year-old Son Aman, he fell asleep in two minutes. 

Nevertheless, I shall try my best. Today I would like to share with you some stories from my “Toastmasters journey”.

One of the great entrepreneurs of our times Henry Ford said - “coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” Google says that he was never a toastmaster but his quote, hits the nail on the head. It seems like he was the VP Membership of his toastmasters club.

At Toastmasters, don’t we live this quote every moment? Let me tell you how. When we join a club, we come together to make a beginning; when we bond and build bridges of trust, we make progress;  when we speak, evaluate or mentor, we help each other grow and succeed. For me, the success of Toastmasters is not measured by the number of titles or trophies, ratings or ribbons that we accumulate. It’s about – am I becoming confident as a speaker? Am I becoming an entertaining speaker? Am I becoming an inspiring speaker?

Can anyone guess why I joined toastmasters?  No, not for becoming like Darren or Manoj, not for being Joni, Geri or Leena, the champions of our club. My goal was simple. To be able to curb the butterflies in my stomach, which invariably become monstrous bees at the sight of public speaking. I would spend hours in the toilet because I suffered from a disorder called PSIS (Public-Speaking Induced Stress). I hated public speaking. 

Let me share about an event. In 2010, in my role as CFO of my company, I used to be invited to be a guest speaker. I always turned down the invitations without even looking at them. But, once a charming event manager convinced me to speak on my favorite topic “financial management” in India. By the time I came to know this would be attended by more than 1000 people, the butterflies in my stomach had become monstrous bees. I was in catch 22! I could not run away due to the agreement I had signed. Facing more than 1000 of industry experts, I just managed not to fall off the stage. The stage looked like a fire track and the audience members like guzzling monsters. Those were 45 minutes of hell - I do not want to recall what I had uttered.

That experience brought me to this club. But joining was not easy as my wife has veto power, like in all matters.  At the first meeting she attended with me, there were 3 male members and 13 females. She freaked out… “so you wanna Toast in this Club?” Fortunately, my persuasive powers helped.

In my 4 years as a toastmaster, I have been pushed and prodded and cajoled to be a 3C speaker – 3Cs meaning Clear, Confident and Competent.  Now I am able to get the butterflies in my stomach to fly in formation whenever I speak in public.  My colleagues understand me better and I embrace the opportunities to speak to global audiences in my projects.

To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, there are many reasons to be part of the amazing organization called “Toastmasters”. For me, it has been a transformational journey of becoming a 3C speaker - clear, confident and competent.