Your Past Doesn’t Define Your Future – My Lesson in Adaptation

 In April 2019 I was invited to speak to District 9 Toastmasters in Yakima, in eastern most Washington state. Yakima may sound familiar to you as there is a company that makes carrier racks for bicycles and other sports equipment with that name, although they are no longer resident in Yakima.

Metro Yakima is quite populous with about 250,000 people but planning the trip was challenging from my small city of Saint John, New Brunswick.  The nearest airport to Yakima was an hour away by car and it would have required me to take four flights. Instead, I decided to fly to Seattle, stay a couple of nights, then drive the 3 hours to Yakima, and after the conference to drive to Portland, Oregon where I would visit and then fly back from Portland. I had not previously visited Portland.

Seattle Visit

When flight details were confirmed with a stop over in Seattle, I emailed some local Toastmasters to let them know I’d be in their city for about 36 hours and they invited me to speak to a meeting of some local Toastmasters.  When I can fit such presentations into my schedule, I’m happy to do so. This keeps my skills sharp, I’m able to offer some thoughts to an audience, and Toastmasters audiences in particular are engaged listeners.  They’re great audiences.  This presentation was titled Your Past Doesn’t Define Your Future. It’s a message about continuing to use and refine one’s skills regardless of past achievements.

I had a free day in Seattle, and some years previously a friend and I had visited and played tourist in the city. At that time, we saw the Major League Baseball Mariners host the Oakland A’s, who had New Brunswick born Matt Stairs in the lineup, although he didn’t play that game. Of course we visited the Pike Place Market along with other sights. This time on my free day in metro Seattle, I spent a quiet day in Edmonds, a beautiful small town where a former colleague Betty Eisenzimmer used to reside. Later that evening I presented to the local Toastmasters. Most of that presentation was recorded and I share it here and will comment on the presentation https://youtu.be/eL7lYRY32Ds

Analyzing My Performance 

I usually don’t watch such recordings until some weeks later. I remember being somewhat displeased with myself immediately after this presentation, but looking at it again it went quite well.  Here are some observations from the event.

The event It was held in a large, private room at a local brew pub which was a very good venue for the presentation. When I arrived, I saw there was a portable audio system available.  If there is a microphone and speaker system available, I advise presenters to use them as the organizers have a pretty good sense that the room swallows sound and amplification is required. Some people believe they project their voices well, but if you’ve not had experience with the room, trust the organizers and use the audio equipment.

Prior to my presentation the audio system was used and it performed well, however just as I began my presentation, the system stopped working, or more accurately it started squealing. The video starts with me then moving to a more central location in the room so I could be heard by all attendees without amplification.  This change threw me off a little as my cheat list of speech topics I planned to cover, that had sat inconspicuously in front of me, weren’t easily accessible.  Such is life.

As I re-watched the video, I can hear my voice straining as I work to project to the full room without amplification. It wasn’t a major issue here, but it’s not quite my normal voice, and a longer presentation would have placed further strain on my voice.  As I watch the video, I can see I’m a little thrown off by the change in room positioning, but all in all it came off ok.

In the presentation I speak of the benefits of developing and practicing leadership skills in Toastmasters, but further exercising these skills outside of Toastmasters, where many organizations need people with such skills.  I also take the audience through a model of a basic leadership speech. I did a sufficient job of describing this, but I would only score myself at 75/100 for clarity.  The audience still would have received good value.

Finding Room For Improvement

It’s a gift to be able to watch yourself on video. I’ve shared some observations about my performance. The one thing I would plan to do and hope to do differently in a similar situation would be to ground myself after repositioning from the initial speaking position to the new position. Watching the video now it looks like I rushed and simply continued my presentation from the place where it had been interrupted.  It would have been better to place my cheat notes somewhere accessible, do a simple check in with the audience, and then proceed. 

Live and learn.  And adapt.