Toastmasters

I taught a hypno-meditation class on Tuesday night. Afterwards I felt like I really needed some public speaking skills. I know it is endearing to talk in a several sentence sequence, then double back and around and eventually come to the original topic if I'm lucky. But if people are coming to me to calm their minds, my manner of conveying information no doubt leaves them a little off balance.
So I google Toastmasters. Find the closest meeting. Commit to going. Immediately start to imagine what it will be like. I know that my vision will not be true but I go ahead anyway and see a room full of men in dark suits, at least 100 of them. They all have looks of seriousness. What will their topics be? Economics, nuclear physics, excel spreadsheets, Pythagorean theory? Smugly, I know Pythagorean theory. I'm sure I will not know any of their other business men in dark suit topics. What if they call on me? What should I wear? Since there's no way to fit in, I'll wear my jeans and red cowboy boots. And nothing says don't call on me like my chartreuse jacket.
I go to the meeting and low and behold, half are in jeans, half are women. All are super nice. The meeting was very interesting. They have this one part called Table Topics where you get up and talk about a topic for a minute and half with no preparation. Here it is: the Big Fear of getting called on. I was a guest so I was safe!
But it turns out to be more of a game where you stand up and say three things about yourself, one of which is not true. The audience guesses which one is not true and then you go on to talk about one of the things you listed about yourself for a minute and a half.
So even though I had guest status, I raised my hand to participate. I raised my hand to go first. Who'd a thought?
They guessed the untrue thing because I'm a bad liar. Then I started to talk about how I rode my Yamaha 400 from Salt Lake City to Vail because I was so angry and fed up with my boyfriend at the time that I went to Vail to see a cuter boy. Two sentences into this I slightly panic that there is no way I can speak for one and a half minutes on this topic. I shocked myself by dramatizing the story of boy #1 and made it easily to one and a half minutes.
And the guess what????? At the end they voted on best Table Talk speaker and I WON!
I won a ribbon!!!
So I highly recommend Toastmasters because I've already increased my impromtu speaking confidence by 100%. I will be taping this ribbon to my forehead to prove it!