Speech Diary

Last night I went to my first Toastmasters meeting as a fully-fledged member. It felt really good.

I did a three minute evaluation of another guy's presentation. It was hard, but it went pretty well. As soon as I get behind that lectern I suddenly feel very tiny, and the audience seems a hundred metres away.

I spoke to a guy who's speech was so fluent and flawless that I assumed he was one of the few in the group who did not have a stutter. I asked him, and he said that he had had a terrible stutter, and that as a young man he could barely get a word out. He said it has taken many years and a lot of hard work to be where he is now.

Maybe I should have found that daunting, but actually I just found it hugely inspiring. With God's power, self-belief and years of hard work, I will get there some day.