Chai's Blog

I recent­ly quit Toast­mas­ters as I am not find­ing enough time to prac­tice my speech­es. Insuf­fi­cient prac­tice shows up pret­ty bad­ly in front of audi­ence. Toast­mas­ters are incred­i­bly for­giv­ing. They will put up with the worst of the speak­ers. But it hurts to not live up to the Toast­mas­ters Promise.

There is one thing that all bad speak­ers have in com­mon. They don’t prac­tice enough. It takes about an hour of prac­tice for every minute of a speech. So you got to prac­tice at least five hours to deliv­er a five-minute speech rea­son­ably well. This is in addi­tion to the time spent to research and write the speech. I don’t have that much free time. This was the rea­son I quit.

But I real­ly loved being a Toast­mas­ter. So I decid­ed to go back to the club meet­ings as a guest and take part in impromp­tu speech­es. I won’t have a mem­ber­ship but that does­n’t mat­ter. What mat­ters is prac­tic­ing in front of audi­ence and remem­ber­ing to use word of the day in the speech.

In that sense, I am call­ing myself a Toast­mas­ter again.