Flip the Focus

Are you communicating the depth of the Toastmasters experience?

Sure, most of us join Toastmasters to develop our public speaking skills. Leading a Pathways project or serving as a Club Officer allows us to refine our leadership skills as well. The payoff is clear: We feel a sense of accomplishment when we complete a Pathway or two, earn our DTM, or fulfill an officer’s term. These achievements might even land us a promotion or a new job.

While these are all valid and achievable goals, a discerning member might ask, Is there more??

Indeed, what are the benefits to those who remain members year after year?

A veteran Toastmaster of ten years, it’s no surprise that Trevor Crippen, DTM and Past District 31 Director, has given considerable thought to these questions, particularly given that membership around the world has been on a downward trajectory since 2017-2018. He has concluded that the way we speak about Toastmasters could be part of the problem.

What if, Trevor suggests, we modified our messaging to lead with a significant difference that Toastmasters makes in our lives? Could we look beyond the payoff of skills development to see the bigger impact on our personal and professional lives?

On that point Trevor is clear: Yes. Over time members develop a strong sense of positivity and confidence that becomes core to advancing our lives. How does that happen? It happens as a result of the camaraderie and fellowship that develops inside a social group.

A Toastmasters Club is a social group! What happens as Toastmasters becomes an integral part of our life? Longtime members develop both a powerful self-confidence and authentic, long term and deeply valued relationships.

Research supports this finding. A March 3, 2023 Newsweek article reports that Americans have been socializing less for decades, sacrificing friendships and suffering adverse consequences from social aloneness and deteriorating mental health. To wit, Dr. Olalekan Otulana, a general practitioner and addiction specialist physician from the Addiction Advocates group based in the U.K., told Newsweek: “It is no secret that social isolation has a hugely negative impact on developing confidence levels.”

Trevor says: Toastmasters is a rare opportunity to actually find a social group of like minded people in a live, face-to-face setting that’s reasonably affordable. This social aspect is something that members and guests alike tend to consider as an afterthought, but which I think should be a primary selling point for Toastmasters.

I agree. Toastmasters provides a fundamental value that no one is talking about. If our work is to serve, changing up our promotional strategy might well attract people who recognize that learning, socializing and working with others brings a wealth of untold happiness into our lives.

When you look at things from a different perspective your thinking begins to change, but so often we see things as problems because we refuse to change our perspective. — Sope Agbelusi