It’s been a few weeks since I have been attending Toastmasters sessions online. I also took a small role and realised that speaking even a single statement in front of a crowd is not as easy as people may think.
Long story short I wanted to improve my public speaking and this platform seemed nice, so I joined the deejays club. Last week I gave my ice breaker. When I was preparing for it, I had a lot of questions, what to write about ? What details of my life to include ?
Eventually my mentor from the club came to the rescue, not only helped in writing the speech but also gave me courage to bomb in front of the crowd and oh boy, did I bomb .
In my speech I went through my journey from Dehradun to Bangalore, from “Calm to Chaos”, from comfort zone to seeking challenges.
When I walked in front of crowd and delivered the speech it felt like I was ultra conscious, not even sure if that moment was real. The members did say that I was looking confident, but not really sure how to even describe that feeling.
There are a lot of things I can improve on. After the meet, I felt like I was at the right place, people here have a growth mindset and there is so much to learn from everyone.
Here’s the speech I wrote –
Every year in winters there occurs a natural phenomenon called the Winter Line. The sun disappears from the sky and there appears a sharp red line near the horizon which converges into a mix of golden, purple and deep blue colors. This false horizon occurs only in two places on the earth. One is in Swiss Alps, would anyone like to guess what’s the other place ? Its the queen of hills, Mussoorie.
I come from the valley next to mussoorie called Dehradun. My childhood back in my home was peaceful and slow. I remember taking long walks with grand-dad. I used to spend my summers, cycling with my friends to our secret spot in the forest. We used to swim there in the river all day long. In winters we would trek the George Everest peak. Yes, the same George Everest after whom Mt. Everest has been named. We would spend the night camping outside the abandoned house of Sir George. It was the most picturesque view with stars above, the city below and just a bonfire going to keep us warm.
As adventurous as I was at home, I was the polar opposite in my school. I was a quiet kid, studious and rarely spoke in the initial years of my school. Maybe the professional setting of it all was uncomfortable for me. Teachers were fond of me and encouraged me to participate in activities. Eventually I did participate in 5th standard. It was an Inter-house GK quiz with the whole school in front of us. The thing I dreaded the most happened on my very first appearance on the stage, I blanked out. I couldn’t even hear the questions that were asked. I just looked at the crowd and every second felt like a eternity. We lost by a huge margin and I put the blame on myself. I felt I’d let everyone.
I continued working hard on my studies constantly being among top students in my batch, but never took part in anything major. In my board exam I performed well and made it to the Uttarakhand newspaper. After my schooling was over, I joined an engineering college in Dehradun.
In my engineering, we had Training and Development sessions. Many including me, skipped it to head over to Mussoorie and to have maggie and chai. One day forced by my friend I joined a session too, and I met an amazing professor there. He was warm and welcoming. That day he was telling us about fear of speaking in public. He asked, if somebody would like to speak about themselves for a couple of minutes. There was a inner calling and I raised my hand. I walked in front of a rather empty hall of around 60 people. For me that audience was huge. Shaking-ly I gave a small speech about the incident that happened with me in class 5th. The professor commented that it was amazing I faced my fear . When I sat back down, I had tears rolling down my eyes. It was as if a huge weight was lifted of my chest. The long battle I had with myself was over. I gained a little confidence and started going to the sessions more often. I even became member of Counselling Team and participated in few of the events.
As I was finishing my engineering, the world was struck with a pandemic. Covid was at peak and the job market was tuff. After lot of hardwork I got some offers, among which were Bosch and an another smaller company “canalys” from Bangalore. A smart decision considering the uncertainty of the time would be to join Bosch and stay at home, but I wanted to learn and grow. I knew I had to get out of comfort zone of my home, so I joined Canalys and was ready to move to Bangalore.
As soon as I landed in Bangalore I was in for big surprise. In Dehradun airport there are just 2 gates but upon landing in Bangalore I didn’t even know where the airport exit was. I exited the airport went to a taxi and the driver started speaking in Kannada and there I was fidgeting to open a translate app on my phone. It turns out this city is very different from mine. I was scared, will I be able to survive in the chaos I threw myself in.
Ive been living in bangalore and working in the same company for past 2 years. I can say that the risk I took lead me to gain more exposure. I learned a lot, worked on some interesting projects, visited couple of countries for work, made new friends and travelled with them. The shy kid from Dehradun who rarely used to speak came a long way. Here I am today in toastmasters speaking in front of you, ready to take more challenges and to face my fears.
Thank you !