符合“Toastmaster Club”的前 25 位会员 | 领英
所在地区中国 北京市区所属行业电信目前就职MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS (CHINA) CO.,LTD. - Training Consultant, MOTO TALKY TALKIE TOASTMASTER CLUB – TOASTMASTERS INTERNATIONAL - President,...曾经就职AVIC PUBLIC RELATION & ADVERTISEMENT CO.,LTD. - Senior Account Manager, NDL INTERNATIONAL - International Business Specialist,...自我简介o 8 years training experience focusing on channel partners training and employee talent training in China, with proven track record of...所属行业电信目前就职Toastmaster District 85 - Area Governor, Ericsson - senior software engineer曾经就职Ericsson Toastmaster Club - President, Ericsson Toastmaster Club - Vice President of Education, ericsson - senior system engineer, Nokia...教育背景XiDian自我简介The only way to become stronger is to make change.
The only way to achieve excellence is to make difference.
The only way to grow is to...所在地区中国 北京市区所属行业互联网目前就职H&M Toastmaster Club - Member, iDOTOOLS - PM, TEDxBohaiBay - Curator曾经就职Hopson Development Holdings Limited - Plant Operations Manager, TEDxTUC - Curator, AIESEC - EP Manager教育背景Tianjin University of Commerce China, Huaibei No.1 High School所在地区中国 浙江 杭州所属行业高等教育目前就职Zhejiang University City College - Lecturer, ZUCC Toastmaster Club - Founder教育背景Zhejiang University, Zhejiang University自我简介Learning by teaching.
Specialties: TESOL , educational training and consulting所属行业电信目前就职H&M Toastmaster Club - Vice President Education, Nokia - Specification & Architecture曾经就职NokiaSiemens - Senior Software Engineer, Motorola - Senior Software Engineer教育背景Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin Engineering University所在地区中国 北京市区所属行业银行目前就职HUTONG BILINGUAL TOASTMASTER CLUB - Vice President of Public Relations, Bank of China - BANK教育背景Beijing Technology and Business University所在地区中国 四川 成都所属行业程序开发目前就职诺基亚 - Software Engineer, Toastmasters International - member of Chengdu Ubisoft toastmasters club曾经就职叠拓 - Software Developer教育背景成都信息工程学院自我简介I'm a toastmaster, a programer. I'm exploring vast amazing programing world, and trying to figure out what a programer could truely be!
My...所在地区中国 上海市区所属行业信息技术和服务目前就职SAP - Quality Program Accountable & Project Commitee Member曾经就职Marin Software - TPM Shanghai, Marin Software - TPM Shanghai, SAP Toastmaster Club - President, SAP - Quality Management教育背景Tongji University所属行业国际贸易和发展目前就职D85 Toastmaster International - D85 LGET ( ), Euroshop Trade SRL (Shanghai & Hongkong) - Owner曾经就职F&J Group - *Export manager, Shaanxi Light Industrial Products Imp. & Exp.Corp - Export manager教育背景University of International Business and Economics自我简介*20+ years of experience in
*Trading w/ Romania and Moldova for 12 years and know about these 2
*Wine...所在地区中国 上海市区所属行业半导体目前就职Toastmasters International - Shanghai BBMM Toastermaster Club VPPR(Volunteer), RS Components - Marketing Content Editor/Digital...曾经就职Shanghai Association of Shipbuilding Industry,SASIC - Senior Translator/Project Manager, Freelancer - Freelance translator with Sino...教育背景University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Fudan University, Henan University, Henan Information Engineering College自我简介Seasoned professional in marketing content localization/transcreation/validation/copywrting
Established track record in top global...所在地区中国 上海郊区所属行业酒店所在地区中国 北京市区所属行业电信目前就职HCL - Android Developer曾经就职Alcatel-Lucent - Android Developer, Alcatel-Lucent - Software Engineer, Alcatel-Lucent - Technical Support, Alcatel-Lucent Smart Speaker...教育背景Tianjin University, Tianjin University, Tianjin University, Tianjin Nankai High School所在地区中国 福建 厦门所属行业机械目前就职Xiamen Swift Industrial Blades Co., Ltd - Business Development Manager曾经就职CCB Toastmaster Club - Vice President Membership教育背景Wuhan University自我简介China's Leading Manufacturer and Supplier of Machine Knives and Blades over 15 years:
BLADES BY CUT TYPE ...所在地区中国 山东 济南所属行业翻译和本地化曾经就职EIC Education, Shandong - IELTS Speaking Teacher, Sunther Consulting CO.,LTD. - English Translator教育背景Shandong University, Shandong Normal University所在地区中国 上海市区所属行业专业培训和指导目前就职知行会 - 行动型读书会 - 创始人曾经就职Ksudi - Training Manager, Henkel - Professional Campus Manager - China, Shanghai Entrepreneur Group - President, Leadership Management...教育背景Hong Kong University, Shanghai JiaoTong University自我简介
- Professional Bilingual trainer on B2B selling skill/Presentation Skill/Time Management
- Experienced in helping organization build...所在地区中国 山东 济南所属行业石油和能源目前就职Sinoboom Petroleum Equipment Co., Ltd - Business development manager曾经就职CCB Toastmaster club - Vice President Membership, Xiamen Jetboat Imp & Exp Co., Ltd - Sales Intern教育背景Wuhan University of Science and Technology自我简介Manufacturer and supplier of replacement parts for mud pumps and fracturing pumps.所在地区中国 山东其他地区所属行业机械和工业设计目前就职Dongying Kelin Precision Metal Co.,Ltd - International Business Manager曾经就职JMD Machinery Coporation Limited. - Business Manager,
- Administrator & Marketing Intern, James cook univeristy Toastmaster...教育背景James Cook University, Swinburne University of Technology自我简介Good Day!
I am Vincent Luo from Kelin Precision Metal Co.,Ltd.
Dongying Kelin Precision Metal Co., Ltd, established in 2005 has been a...所属行业金融服务曾经就职Global Intelligence Alliance - Intern Analyst, Copal Partners - Junior Analyst, Beijing Surfway - Intern Financial Advisor, Toastmaster...教育背景Claremont Graduate University - Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, UNSW Australia所在地区中国 北京市区所属行业电信目前就职Alcatel-lucent - Project Manager, Alcatel-lucent - Scrum Master, Alcatel-lucnet - Senior Project Manager/Senior ScrumMaster曾经就职Toastmaster & Smart Speakers Toastmaster Club - President, Alcatel-lucent - Software Engineer, Alcatel-lucent - Intern教育背景Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Jilin University自我简介Proficient in both traditional development process and Agile/Scrum framework, Certified ScrumMaster
Experienced project manager with over...所在地区中国 云南 昆明所属行业教育管理目前就职Toastermasters International District 89 Area P5 - Area Director, Match Education - General Manager, Alinka Consulting Corp - Founder and...曾经就职Match Toastmaster Club - President, GE China - Marketing Manager教育背景Simon Fraser University, The University of Hull所在地区中国 北京市区所属行业专业培训和指导目前就职EF Education First - Local Teacher, EF Education First - English Instructor曾经就职Athena Toastmaster CLub - President, Outsourcing World China - Administrative Assistant, Crowne Plaza Park View Wuzhou Beijing - Management...教育背景The University of Sheffield, Christelijke Hogeschool Nederland自我简介Aim to become the professional trainer in English Education Field. (Business English preferred)所在地区中国 上海市区所属行业体育器材目前就职Decathlon - Factory Manager and Customized Project Leader曾经就职Toastmaster club - Vice President of Education, Decathlon - Sourcing Relay, Decathlon - Quality Manager for Natimeo North Asia, Decathlon...教育背景Donghua University自我简介7+ Years working experience at Garment Industry area. Understand very well the garment producing procedure, Quotation, Quality control,...所在地区中国 上海市区所属行业医疗设备目前就职B. Braun Medical - Product Manager曾经就职Toastmasters International - President, iRead Bilingual Toastmaster Club, Medtronic - Training and Education Manager, Johnson & Johnson...教育背景Second Military Medical University自我简介Moses is of enthusiasm and commitment to healthcare industry and top performer.所在地区中国 上海市区所属行业计算机软件目前就职SAP Labs China - Senior Design Thinking (DT) Coach/Trainer曾经就职SAP - Project Manager at SAP QGP, SAP - SAP Dev Support Consultant, SAP - President of SAP Toastmaster Club, SAP - SAP Quality Assurance...教育背景Fudan University, Sichuan University所在地区中国 陕西 西安所属行业计算机软件曾经就职IBM - Staff Software Engineer, IBM - Software Engineer, ZTE - Software Engineer教育背景Toastmaster Club, 黑马训练营, Xidian University, Xidian University自我简介Ada currently is a Staff Software Engineer in IBM. She has been working on install and deployment technology for 5 years. She has rich...展开收起掌握最新资讯联系行业专家寻找理想职位立即加入领英，查看“Toastmaster Club”的更多信息会议中各个角色的职责-TM团队
TM团队包括：Toastmaster、TT
master、variety master（joke master）、greeter
Toastmaster
挑战和收获：展现主持人的风采、选择有意义有趣的主题、顺畅地串场、调动会场的气氛。
1、提前两个星期：
1）主题：开始考虑会议的主题
2）敦促：敦促speaker和back up speaker用一周时间写稿，周末把题目、简介和project
number及目标发给你（这是一个比较有效的confirm与保证演讲质量的方法：） ）。如有ice breaker或CC 10
或advanced speaker，确认他们是否知道自己的演讲时间。ice breaker是4-6分钟，CC 10
是8-10分钟，advanced speaker的时间变化较大。在agenda的input一页，你可以找到所需信息。
2、提前一周：
1）敦促：敦促speaker和back up speaker练习。
2）确认和帮助：周一/周二将主题告知TT master、wordsmith和variety
master，对新人提供帮助（在TM工具包中有“角色说明”，可以发送给他们）。如agenda中安排有leader
evaluator（针对CL的点评人），TM需确认大家的CL 项目目标，告诉Leader evaluator。
3）准备开场和串场：准备3-5分钟的开场，介绍会议主题、ah counter 和general
evaluator。准备好如何介绍每个speaker及重要的role，以激发听众的兴趣，让他们无限期待下面的内容。准备其他可能用到的串场词。
5）再确认：周日或周一当天：再确认一遍是否所有role都能到场。
6）promotion letter和agenda：Promotion letter
最晚周五发出，这样VPM可以把它转发给guest。&Agendarme
最晚周一当天早上发出.。Agenda请用2003版office软件。在input一页输入，其他页面会自动关联，如有少数内容无法关联，请仔细核对，确保agenda、timer
sheet、ah counter
sheet都准确无误。如要调整Agenda的时间，请在excel表格的H列（和A列）调整。如需帮助，请联系VPE。SAA在收到agenda后才能去打印，请确保SAA有足够时间。
二、到达会场
1、提前到达：提前15分钟以上到达会场。把CL manual交给某一会员填写。
2.、落座：选择靠近stage的地方落座。可以邀请speaker也坐在方便出入的座位。其他role或speaker说话时，TM可以落座，给speaker让出舞台。
3、确认：是否所有role已到齐，如未到，安排替补。如因speaker临时退出等原因，在会议时间上有变动（延长TT
session等），请告知timer和TT master。在TM
opening后，需要告知会员有关agenda的临时调整内容。
1、话语：用真诚、充满活力、果断的语气说话，让听众享受一次愉快的旅程。
2、顺畅：是第一要求。可以在一个role说话的时候，赶紧看agenda上面下一项内容是什么。
3、鼓掌：带领大家鼓掌，以营造热烈的气氛。
4、时间管理：注意与timer一起对整个会议的时间进行控制，尽量按照agenda进行，避免临时增加项目。
5、ballot：在每个speaker演讲完后，提醒大家填写ballot，对speaker进行评论（尤其要让他们写他们喜欢这个演讲的哪些方面。强调他们的评论对speaker的意义）。
6、颁奖：超时的member没有资格获奖。这个timer在report时会说明。
7、让VPE/scheduler确认下次会议的role。
在联系会员的过程中，你得知哪些关于会员的信息（忙碌？出差？想更多担任角色？），如果你能跟VPE分享，你会帮助VPE对会员提供更好的服务。
Topics Master
挑战与收获：展现主持人的风采、配合主题选择有挑战性又有话可说的问题、顺畅地衔接、调动会场的气氛。
1、主题：提前一周询问TM下次会议的主题，配合主题设计问题。
2、TT 问题的要求：
1）简洁、明了、具体。不要太长、太复杂、太大。
范例：a. Please tell us an unexpected achievement in your life.
b. If 2012 is the end of the world, what will you do?
2）有意思/有意义。
3）让speaker有话可说。
二、达到会场
1、到会场：提前15分钟以上到达。选择靠近讲台方便出入的座位。
2、确认：跟TM确认TT
部分是否需要做临时的时间调整。通常TT部分是15分钟，如有speaker临时取消演讲，TT部分可能需要延长时间。
3、查看agenda、水笔：看哪些角色有role，尽量把TT
说话的机会让给没有role的会员以及英语水平很好的guest。看水笔是否可用。
4、把CL manual交给某一会员填写。
三、主持TT session
1、TT开场：简洁，1分钟左右。不占用太多时间。开场内容可包括：
1）TT部分的purpose：给每个人说话的机会，尤其没有担任角色的会员；锻炼大家快速思考和反应的能力。
& 2）这次TT的主题、进行方式；鼓励大家用word of the
day；提醒注意说话时间，即每人1-2分钟。
1）先叫有经验的会员回答，让他起示范作用。
2）可以先提问，再点名。这样可以吸引更多注意力，也可以激发所有人快速思考。如果让speaker抽签，请你大声念出问题，让所有人听见。
3、可以趁答题时间，把答题人的名字写在白板上，方便大家选best speaker。
4、声音：清楚、响亮、有热情。
5、衔接和评论：简短。结语简短。。
6、时间管理：注意整个TT session的时间控制。注意timer的提示。
Master（暂时改为Variety Master）
挑战与收获：学习讲笑话，让大家笑而自己不笑。幽默，不仅是演讲中的调味品，而且是一种生活的智慧。
1、找素材：身边的趣事、听过的笑话、网上现找的笑话。
一个在网上搜索英文笑话的有效方法：在google上输入“joke”和另一单词，比如 “joke chair”。
2、调整：将长度控制在1-2分钟。
3、练习：流畅的叙述、富有变化的声音、生动的形体表达、适当的停顿，都会给你的笑话加分。试着把这个笑话讲给你的朋友听。
4、提早到达：会议当天提早10分钟以上到达会场。选择靠近讲台、方便出入的位置落座。
二、会议当中
1、发言：注意timer的时间提示。享受过程，发现自己的幽默一面！
2、时间控制：1-2分钟。
挑战与收获：创意与乐趣，带领大家warming-up 。
准备：发挥你的想象力和创造力，可以做任何有意思的活动，最好能带大家一起做。比如：体操、健身操、舞蹈、唱歌、竞猜、小游戏、摆pose、比谁做的鬼脸最丑。跟TM确认会议主题，可以适当配合主题，但不必须。
二、到达会场
1、提早到达：会议当天提早10分钟以上到达会场。选择靠近讲台、方便出入的位置落座。
2、适当的准备：如移开舞台上的障碍物，寻找他人配合。
1、主持Variety session，享受做主持人的乐趣。
2、时间控制：2-3分钟&
挑战与收获：快速熟悉来宾，真诚、热情地欢迎来宾。
准备：准备简单介绍CLUB。比如：Toastmasters club is place where people
improve their communication and leadership skills. Beijing No.1
Toastmasters Club was founded in 2002. Among all the clubs in
Beijing, it has the longest and the most glorious history. I
believe we will have a more glorious future, because we see so many
passionate guests.
二、到达会场
1、提早到达：提早15分钟以上到会场。
2、问候来宾：跟SAA一起，问候来宾。熟悉其姓名。可以简单询问其工作等背景信息。安排来宾跟较有经验的会员坐在一起。提示他们一会需要做一个半分钟的自我介绍。
三、会议中的问候
1、简单介绍CLUB。
2、介绍来宾：如果你能叫出他们的名字，说出他们的公司，他们会感觉很温暖。请每个来宾做简短自我介绍，一般是半分钟。为了节省时间，可以让guest站在座位上自我介绍。
3、时间管理：整个greeting部分的时间是3-5分钟。请控制好时间。如果来宾很多，可以让大家只说一下自己的名字。
4、结语：简短。再次欢迎。如果想加入，可以找VPM。
做speaker的挑战和收获：学习如何更好地表达你自己。顺畅的人际关系（家人、同事、朋友）是成功的一半，这种顺畅就来自沟通！
每次会议会有3-4名speaker，他们按照manual来演讲，就像炒菜会有菜谱一样！^_^
一、演讲机会有限！不可错过！
每个会员一般1-2个月VPE
或scheduler会给你安排一次演讲。如果你需要更多的演讲机会，或者已经有一个腹稿，想尽快讲，请直接联系VPE
或scheduler，申请做下次会议的back-up speaker。
如果你预期在某个时间段里因各种原因不能演讲，也请提前告知。
二、准备演讲
1、写稿：提前两周，把speech写出来，或打好腹稿。CC第一个演讲是4-6分钟。以后的2-9个演讲都是5-7分钟。CC10是8-10分钟。
2、告知TM：提前一周把题目、20字内容简介、做第几个speech、project
objective告诉下个星期的toastmaster。
3、寻求mentor的帮助：可以把稿子发给mentor看看，让他提意见。
4、练习：最后一个星期，练习、练习、练习。可以找听众练、在镜子前练、录音、摄像。
三、到达会场
1、带manual：出门时记得带上CC manual和CL
2、到场：提早10分钟以上到会场。
3、找evaluator：把manual交给你的evaluator，让他给你写评语。可以跟他谈谈你希望他关注的方面。把CL
manual交给其他会员填写。
4、落座：坐在靠近讲台、方便出入的座位。
享受演讲吧。注意timer的提示。看到绿牌，你这时可以结束了。看到黄牌，就要收尾了。看到红牌，你只有30秒时间了。
五、演讲结束后
1、学习：看看大家对你的评价。
2、探讨：可以跟mentor和study group 深入探讨。
3、重新起航：开始准备下一个演讲吧！是不是感觉像在冲浪？
已投稿到：
以上网友发言只代表其个人观点，不代表新浪网的观点或立场。849 Valencia St.
San Francisco,
RACHEL AVIV
TOASTMASTER
HYPOCRISY, EXPLOSIVE LISTENING, AND THE FEAR OF DEATH
AT THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
DISCUSSED:
Manhattan Hypnotists, Michael Cunningham, Creative Writing,
Junior College, Dale Carnegie, Performing Sincerity, Compulsive Clapping,
Brooklyn Heights, American Idol, The Cow as Symbol of Tragedy,
Alain de Botton, Vibrant Vulnerability, The Genetics of Anxiety,
University of Alabama, Throwing Your Brain Like a Frisbee, Hypokrisis
Last year I saw a therapist who tried to teach me how to talk really loudly. She made me stand up and say my name with abandon, “so the plants on the porch can hear!” I was beginning a teaching job and the idea of speaking in front of a group filled me with childlike panic. We worked on envisioning my anxiety as a boat that was drifting away. She held my arm in her hands and counted down from ten, doing some “light hypnotism.” She began to act somber and her eyes became disturbingly enormous. “It’s normal to feel nervous,” she whispered. “Everyone feels nervous. But you don’t have to. Why bother?”
Her office was on the top floor of a Fifth Avenue townhouse and had a ceiling window, a bed, and a large bowl of special-looking rocks. When I told her I wanted to be a writer, she said, “Oh my god, I love writing. I took a class with Michael Cunningham in Italy!” and pulled one of his books off her shelf and made me look at it. Then she told me to practice projecting a few frequently used words like hello, really, do, go, right, and great. She made me stand up and introduce myself to an imaginary class several times. “No one really listens closely to what we say,” she said, as encouragement.
My mom found the therapist for me after I got hired to teach a course called Verbal Communications. The job was at a junior college in Manhattan known for its advertisements on subways: images of handsome people in suits, shaking hands and networking. Originally, I was supposed to teach writing, but there was a department shortage and the dean, who was desperate for teachers, asked me to take on public speaking instead. “Speaking and writing—it’s really the same principle,” she said. I nodded and told her I’d done oral reports in high school. I didn’t tell her that I did these reports by rapidly reading my note cards in a small, strained voice without looking at anyone. She handed me the course textbook, Public Speaking: Connecting You and Your Audience.
The book opens with a flood of reminders that it’s OK to be nervous. The authors quote a statistic that I’ve now read in more than a dozen different books and articles: more people are afraid of public speaking than of death. They tell a story about a girl who lived in Indiana and was so bad at talking that when she wanted pizza, she made her mom, who lived in New York, order it for her. The book’s suggestions for dealing with speaking panic include doing away with “Inappropriate Self-Expectations,” and tensing and then relaxing a muscle of your choice (“Isometric Exercise”). The authors present the calming notion that if you read the lesson closely, study the vocab, and answer the questions at the end of the chapter (“Will moderate communication apprehension help or hinder your speech? Why?”), you will get over this disorder.
Most of my students were in their mid-twenties, business majors, and uninterested in taking the class, which was mandatory. The hypnotist told me to do something physical (as opposed to verbal) when I entered the room, so I told the students to rearrange the desks in a circle. Then I made them go around the room and talk about how they feel when they’re asked to speak in public. Their anxiety seemed to have an inverse relation to mine. Hearing all their familiar symptoms was perversely heartwarming: red face, pounding heart, too much saliva, awkward laughing, trembling hands, breathing problems, sudden urge to visit the bathroom. One girl said she’d already enrolled in the class once, but dropped it because “I wasn’t in a place where I could deal with it yet.”
I felt calm enough to be the center of attention so I went to the whiteboard and began making a list called “How to Conquer Anxiety.” James, a confident guy who gave people high-fives when he entered the room, said he felt bad admitting it, but he didn’t have much troub he came from a long line of preachers. The only strategy he could think of was to prepare. I wrote it on the board. Another person said “deep breathing” and someone shouted “make a joke” so I wrote these down too. I felt giddy with my ability to handle the moment. Wilson,[] who wore tinted Oakleys and wrote suicidal poems with no grammar, suggested praying. He soon became my favorite student. After the second class, I asked him to take off his sunglasses, and he wrote me an email explaining the situation: “I’m sorry I didn’t take off the glasses I really was too nervous to look at someone directly eye to eye so therefore I kept the glasses on but you’re right that really wasn’t professional I wasn’t thinking and I apologize for doing that its just that as soon as I see so many faces I start to choke & stutter but this just shows me that my shyness can’t intervene.”
About halfway through the term, I stopped making the students read Public Speaking: Connecting You and Your Audience and began assigning excerpts from self-help books. My favorite was Dale Carnegie’s 1962 The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking (published by his wife, after he died). He made talking seem so simple and silly. A former farmer and failed novelist from Missouri, he encourages people to keep old socks on their desks to remind themselves how limp and relaxed they should be. “If you find yourself talking in a stilted manner, pause and say sharply to yourself mentally: ‘Here! What is wrong? Wake up! Be human.’”
Carnegie appealed to my students’ impulses toward gossip and drama. “There is nothing so interesting to ourselves as ourselves,” he wrote. He believed that all speakers should begin their presentations in loud and splashy ways, like whistling or screaming or tossing cigars to the crowd. He tells the story of one orator who opened his speech by shooting a pistol—but this was too much, Carnegie concluded. It’s important to get the proportions right: a juicy detail right at the beginning is just enough. A grand and general intro is pure boredom:
For example, I recently heard a speaker begin like this. “Trust in the Lord and have faith in your own ability…” A preachy, obvious way to begin a talk! But note it has heartthrob in it: “My mother was left a widow in 1918 with three children to support, and no money…” Why, oh why,
didn’t that speaker begin in his first sentence by telling about the struggles of his widowed mother with three little children to support!
After assigning Carnegie, I worried (and maybe secretly hoped) that public speaking class would turn into therapy time. But the students were reluctant. Even when they wrote personal speeches, they tended to edit out the most intimate details at the podium. One girl, who spoke English tentatively, wrote a speech about drunk driving that began with a story of her brother’s death in a car crash. When she gave the speech, though, she omitted the accident. After class, I asked her why, and she shook her head and said it was “too touching.”
For Carnegie, emotions were beside the point. Public speaking was a perf if you actually felt sad about the things you were describing, that was a perk. “Acting in earnest will make you feel earnest,” he used to say. Carnegie was open about his own social failings. He was neither charismatic nor happy—he worried that when his depressed father didn’t come home at night, they’d find his body in the barn, “dangling from the end of a rope”—and his solution was to smile and be bubbly. “I realize now that healthy people don’t write books on health,” he wrote in a letter to his local newspaper. “It is the sick person who becomes interested in health.” His fascination with social interactions, which culminated in his 1936 best seller How to Win Friends and Influence People, turned pleasing others into an issue of mechanics. “Personality is a vague and elusive thing,” he wrote, “defying analysis like the perfume of a violet.”
In training centers all over the country, Carnegie instructors teach their students to set goals for their image. Usually this means acting bigger, louder, and looser. The technique is simple: if you’re nervous, pretend that you’re not. Carnegie made public speaking—once reserved for religious and political authorities—appeal to undistinguished nine-to-fivers. The practical possibilities in oration were apparent to my students from the beginning. When I asked them to go around the room and come up with the most gripping first sentence they could think of, about half of them recited variations on the same theme: Do you want to know how to make a million dollars in a day? Even the shy students seemed more poised as they talked about getting rich.
We watched a tape of the second presidential debate between George Bush and John Kerry, and most of the class could agree that Bush was Carnegie’s kind of man: an unimpressive, ordinary guy who speaks in short, declarative sentences and is unafraid of manual labor. We turned the volume down so that all we could note were the gestures: Kerry was elegant and relaxed. Bush looked overexcited. He pointed fiercely at the moderator and stepped forward with each statement like a jumpy boy. He smiled enthusiastically when Kerry accused him of owning a timber company. “That’s news to me,” he said. “Need some wood?”
In her 1976 book Freeing the Natural Voice, Kristin Linklater writes that the art of elocution is reaching a dead end: “The fear of indulgence has virtually deprived us of a serviceable form through which to communicate.” To avoid phoniness or extravagance, we talk plainly, as if we’re perpetually in the mode of “making appointments, exchanging news, shopping,” she writes. Carnegie’s theories helped usher in this obsession with bare-bones earnestness. He convinced people that they didn’t have to be particularly brilliant to command an audience. Being too intellectual or imaginative was off-limits because people distrusted such qualities. Speaking, Carnegie said, should be “practical as the automobile, direct as a telegram, businesslike as a telling advertisement.”
Most of my students assumed a tone of waxen friendliness when they stepped up to the podium. They’d gesture a little too theatrically and say “Good afternoon, my name is ———!” long after everyone knew each other. They’d bring in gigantic visual aids like computer keyboards and volleyballs and salad bowls and point to them only once. At the end of the speech, they’d ask for questions and then walk away without looking to see if anyone had raised a hand. We’d all be clapping. We clapped no matter what anyone said, as long as they said something.
I learned the applause technique from Toastmasters International, the largest speaking club in the world (with more than two hundred thousand members in ninety countries). The dean who hired me suggested I join the club so I could adopt some of their teaching methods. Several of her former speaking instructors had sat in on meetings, and she’d never heard of a place where everyone was so friendly, she said. I had a feeling she hoped Toastmasters would improve my own speaking skills as well—during the first interview, she gently noted that I was more soft-spoken than most instructors—but we pretended I was going as teacher, not student.
I attended several sessions of a club in Brooklyn Heights with a reputation for particularly active members. The treasurer, Bruce Schaffer, clapped so loudly that he sat in the last row of chairs in the room so he wouldn’t hurt people’s ears. He told me (after politely inquiring whether he should speak in “short, Hemingway sentences or long, flowery, Kerouac ones” for the interview) that being a Toastmaster for the past eleven years had changed his personality and improved his law practice. “I start my day feeling stronger and more powerful,” he said. In the morning when he wakes up, he sometimes yells as loudly as he can into a towel.
Toastmasters meetings usually begin with a pledge of allegiance to the American flag. Then the Jokemaster tells a joke, and the Wordmaster gives the word of the day—easy ones like joy and collaboration. The first portion of the meeting is devoted to impromptu speaking, and the results are pleasantly idiotic. Members have one minute to respond to random questions like, “Do you feel it is necessary to drink eight glasses of water a day?” or “You are what you eat—agree or disagree?” They struggle for words, clench the lectern, fidget, reveal sweat spots under their arms, and return to their seats suddenly. A designated Grammarian tallies how many times people say “uh,” “um,” “like,” “er,” “you know,” “well.”
At one of my first meetings, I was asked to answer the question “What’s your favorite summer holiday?” I immediately knew my answer (July 4), but all I could do was say, in a tiny, child’s voice, “Do I have to? Can I wait for later?” The Toastmaster officer said yes, but seemed uncomfortable with my request. I soon learned that everyone tries, even if all they can do is go up and whisper a sentence. I felt like I’d ruined the mood. As I left the meeting, a middle-aged man caught up to me and shook my hand. “We’re all in the same boat,” he said. “Don’t believe anyone who says they’re not nervous.” When he asked how I learned about Toastmasters, I was too ashamed to tell him I taught public speaking.
Toastmasters invents the circumstances for ordinary people to speak forcefully and authoritatively to a silent, adoring crowd. To become a “Competent Toastmaster,” members must give ten prepared speeches, each with a specified length and style. Each member then receives an oral evaluation. Those who show talent (and have bigger goals than getting over stage fright) move on to compete against other clubs, divisions, districts, regions, and finally, every August, the best ten speakers gather for the World Championship of Public Speaking. “It’s like American Idol, except no one cares,” says Rory Vaden, one of the 2006 contestants, who, at twenty-three, made the unusual decision that Toastmasters could bring him fame. “I woke up in the middle of the night, and it was like, boom: You are supposed to pursue the World Championship of Public Speaking. You are supposed to become the youngest champion ever.”
A professional sales trainer and fitness model from Colorado, Vaden rarely gets nervous about speaking. “I’m too excited. You know when you buy a gift for a really close friend? You’re at the store and you’re like, ooh, this person will love this. You wrap it up for them. You can’t wait to give it to them because you know they’re going to love it. That’s how I feel when I’m preparing a speech.” Last fall, Vaden started making a documentary about his quest for the championship. “I talk to the camera, right before and after I go on stage,” he told me, a month before the event. “There’s some genuine footage of me crying in my car when I felt like my speech was horrible and I was going to blow it. Now that I’ve made it to the finals, I’m pretty sure the documentary is going to be a product. If I win, it could almost be a Disney movie.”
At the local level, each speaker works on boosting his o at the international competitions, it’s all about empowering the audience. The most successful speakers take a Carnegian approach to trauma: a harrowing story leads to an inspiring conclusion. In August, I went to the World Championship in Washington, D.C., and sat down with Ed Tate, the 2000 world champion, who showed me a careful chart he’d made of each contestant’s strengths: he noted with roman numerals the number of times the speakers made the audience laugh and giggle (he kept a separate list for each). He also underlined each speech’s moral lesson. Usually this was conveyed in three or four words: stay youthful, be kind to strangers, express yourself, remember your roots, set goals, accept your weaknesses, don’t accept your weaknesses.
As I talked to several finalists, I noticed how smooth and personable they were in conversation. They’d say, “That’s a great question, Rachel,” or “Here’s my opinion, Rachel…” They shook my hand hard and never seemed bored. I left the interactions feeling smarter. Tate said that he knew at least three world finalists (including himself) who were former stutterers. It’s as if they’d become addicted to conquering their fear. In his 2004 Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton describes people as leaking balloons, “forever requiring the helium of external love to remain inflated.” “There is something at once sobering and absurd,” he writes, “in the extent to which we are lifted by the attention of others and sunk by their disregard.” Motivational speakers are constantly repackaging their own embarrassments and disappointments for the enjoyment of the audience. They tell stories about depression, alcoholism, poverty, medical problems, social failings. “Look how vulnerable I can let myself be!” they seem to say. That’s one way of guardi the other way (my way) is not speaking at all.
The World Championship, which marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of Toastmasters, was held in a giant, shiplike auditorium at the Hilton Washington Hotel with almost two thousand people in attendance. I sat behind the timers, who turned on green, yellow, and red lights so the speakers could pace themselves. At the slightest intimation of a joke, the female timer would exchange glances with the male timer and then throw her head back in laughter. She didn’t let any goofy remark go unrewarded. Jock Elliott, the only contestant from Australia, summed up the mood of the event well in his seven-minute presentation, “Oscar Night.” He moved around the stage rapidly, giving trophies to “stars” in his life, like his great-great-grandfather. “It’s Oscar Night in Washington, D.C.,” he said, “and we shall seek the real hero amongst the ordinary people.”
My favorite speaker was Vaden, who presented himself as a kind of prophet. (Vaden had planned his speech so carefully that, in the written copy of his presentation, nearly every other sentence included a note for what kind of expression he should make: “[flinch]” “[nod]” “[squint]” “[facial]”). Looking especially boyish and tan, he told the audience how on August 26, 2005—exactly a year before the speech contest—he was driving to visit his sick grandma and almost died when he crashed into a cow. It was his fate to deliver this speech one year later, he said. He spoke clearly and passionately: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is where my story, Grandma’s story, and your story all connect… You were all part of the plan for me…. Grandma teaches us to stop asking why and just have faith.”
It’s a rare thing to watch someone declare their destiny before it happens, and I got so caught up in Vaden’s logic that I forgot he might lose. When the judges came back with their decision, I stared at Vaden’s smooth, dimpled face. He looked at the floor and held his hands together. The contest chair announced third, second, and first places—his name wasn’t called. He looked up, clapped politely and smiled. The winner, Ed Hearn, a minister and criminal defendant from Chicago, had given his presentation about his favorite childhood toy, a broken punching bag. We all need a strategy for “bouncing back,” he said.
As people left the auditorium, I met up with Vaden, who was shaking fans’ hands and smiling for pictures. He told me he hadn’t felt emotionally connected to the audience. “I literally gave that speech a hundred times and had more than a thousand people evaluate me. I did everything I could do, but I didn’t have that intuitive feeling,” he said. He looked thoughtfully at my notepad. “I’ll probably be forever known as the guy with the cow speech. I wanted the cow to be a symbol of the tragedy we all face. I hope, at least, people will remember my message.”
Toastmasters clubs work on cultivating a pleasant, homey atmosphere where all speeches are considered innately special. Many chapters are set up in boardrooms, churches, or classrooms, and, for those scarred by the shame of having once given a horrible presentation, it becomes possible to rewrite the experience. Seasoned Toastmasters look delighted no matter who is speaking: they nod, sigh, and smile at the appropriate moments.
Lee Glickstein, founder of Speaking Circles International—a younger, smaller, more informal version of Toastmasters—calls this type of feedback “explosive listening.” “We were wounded when we stopped trusting ourselves,” he writes in his 1999 book Be Heard Now! To promote sincerity, he moves away from the Carnegian idea that the best speakers are actors. He encourages students to stare in the mirror for a few minutes every day and get to know themselves—be “vibrantly vulnerable,” “turn nervousness—into nirvana!” “OLD MYTH: public speaking is about mastering PERFORMANCE,” he writes. “NEW REALITY: public speaking is about EXPRESSION OF OUR AUTHENTIC SELVES.”
But in many situations, our “Inner Speaker” is not welcome. It’s not always possible to close the gap between what we say and feel. Long before Carnegie, public speaking was associated with duplicity. The Greek word for both oration and acting was hypokrisis, and as a public speaking teacher, I was the ultimate hypocrite. In a quiet voice full of “like’s” and “you know’s,” I told my students to be forceful and direct. While encouraging eye contact, I’d look down at my desk and play with a pen so devotedly that the cap would fly out of my hands. I tried to avoid speaking for more than a few minutes at a time. Once I realized people were listening to me, I’d start wondering whether I was being clear or overenthusiastic or pronouncing things correctly. If I had something important to say, I’d type it up as a handout and ask a volunteer to read it aloud.
The students were so preoccupied with figuring out when they’d have to speak and how their peers would judge them that they rarely bothered to question my authority. They were jittery on speech days. No one wanted everyone wanted to go third or fourth. Before they spoke, they often slipped off to the bathroom to compose themselves. I sometimes noticed their lips moving, rehearsing, while they waited their turns.
Many students showed signs of improvement from week to week, but the few with extreme anxiety, like me, only learned better techniques of pretending. After barely getting through his first presentation, Wilson forfeited eye contact altogether. He’d read his speeches word for word in a quiet, elliptical voice that sounded like a whispered song. I could catch every eighth word or so. “I just wish I had the same talent when it comes to verbal communication,” he wrote me in an email late in the term, after I’d complimented his poetry. “For example James—he’s a very great speaker its like it’s just part of his mannerism and I love how everything is just natural with him but it just comes to show that everyone has their ups & downs at one thing or another.”
I, too, began thinking of the gift of public speaking as inexplicably awarded to some and not others. At Toastmasters meetings, I’d take careful notes on voice technique and hand gestures, but never thought of absorbing them myself. I just passed the suggestions on to my students. I quickly became uninterested in bec it was like becoming a good astronaut. It wasn’t going to happen. I began to feel more comfortable in class, but as soon as I got into a new situation, the anxiety returned. When I was called on at Toastmasters the second time—“What are your hobbies?”—my chest was visibly moving. I couldn’t get enough air. I said, “I like to play tennis?” I stared at an old woman with frizzy gray hair who nodded. My voice was high and airy. “I don’t get to play tennis a lot so I really hope to play more tennis soon.” Everyone clapped.
Most Toastmasters have a story about someone who sobbed through their first speech and then couldn’t be dragged from the stage. When the transformation wasn’t happening for me, I found comfort in the idea that the anxiety could simply be a matter of genetics. “About 20 percent of the population have severe communication apprehension and there’s not a whole hell of a lot they can do about it,” James McCroskey, a professor at the University of Alabama who’s studied this problem for the past thirty years, told me. He began his career believing the fear was taught, and then shifted tracks. Now he believes biology is more important than learning processes. “We thought our parents scared us when we were little kids. We had wonderful theories, but the problem is they weren’t true.”
My therapist’s theory was that speaking anxiety is an accident of evolution: we still interpret being separated from the crowd as a danger. I called her six months after our last appointment (I stopped going after the third session) and told her I was writing an article about public speaking but hadn’t conquered the fear. She was disappointed. “We’re really much more primitive than we think we are,” she said, as consolation. “These feelings are no longer helpful to us, the way that the appendix or tailbone is no longer helpful to us. But these things once had a purpose. It’s not that we’re nuts.”
Her theory is not an established one, but I liked it. If speaking anxiety is an inherited instinct, I can stop trying to rationally talk down the fear. When I’m forced to speak out in front of a group, I often repeat in my mind a variation of what the hypnotist told me: It doesn’t matter, no one’s listening. Other times I try a firmer approach: Everyone else can do this. Don’t be so stupid. A fellow Toastmaster once described an image he turns to in moments of extreme self-doubt: he visualizes himself removing his brain from his body and throwing it away like a Frisbee.
In the classroom, feeling self-conscious about the subject I was teaching was, at times, strangely effective. On the last day, a few students told me Verbal Communications had been their favorite course. I taught composition the next term and there wasn’t the same intimacy. When people turned in sloppy papers, I couldn’t empathize with the dilemma as thoroughly as I could when they had awkwardly stood at the podium, their voices shaking. As a writing teacher, I ex with public speaking, I was just a hopeless guide. I’d halfheartedly pass on standard nuggets of advice that didn’t seem particularly true: “Everyone in the audience wants you to succeed!” Or “No one knows how nervous you are.” Then I’d hear students adopt the mottoes themselves. Wilson once said, “I just have to remember that no one can tell how nervous I am.”
In the past, I’ve rarely felt that what I wanted to say was interesting enough that it was worth the sweating and chest tightening. (In high school history class, I used to whisper questions to my boyfriend and he’d ask the teacher for me.) But here I was regularly sharing mediocre opinions about a subject I was bad at. I’d leave the class elated. The more the students trusted my words, the more I wanted to talk. The origins of my anxiety seemed a lot less complicated than previously believed. The 20 percent of the population who feel sick when they stand up in front of a crowd want to be heard and adored just as much as the Rory Vadens of the world. Speaking is risky: the idea that no one’s listening may be the scariest part of all.
is a student in the graduate writing program at Columbia University and has written for the Village Voice, the Poetry Foundation, and the New York Times.
Illustration by Tony Millionaire
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