What is Toastmasters Like? Toastmasters to Improve Public Speaking and Confidence ft. Sean Pan (Interview)

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This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design the best lives.

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Hey guys, so today we’re going to be talking a little bit about public speaking. So I personally have a lot of fear when it comes to public speaking. While Sean here has been doing Toastmasters for about four years. Four years, four years. Yeah. Okay. And he got second in this in the district for Toastmasters. Correct? Cool. So I wanted to learn a little bit more about his tips and tricks when it comes to public speaking and hopefully it will make me a better speaker. And maybe Sean, you can tell us about yourself. Okay, everybody, my name is Sean pan. I grew up here in the Bay Area went to LA for school. During college, one of my professors said if you want to be successful in life, you need to go to Toastmasters. Because no matter what you do in life, you always need to have public speaking whether you’re

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Working in a nine to five job, whether you’re trying to sell something, you need to have that presence, that ability to communicate effectively. And so that’s why when I got my first job after my master’s degree, I joined the Toastmasters club at Northrop Grumman was the wirework night. You went to Toastmasters four years ago, was that in LA or in the bay? Like, where is Toastmasters located? Yeah, so I started in Los Angeles, where I was working at the time, and Toastmasters is everywhere, like thousands of clubs all around. I guarantee you wherever you live, there’s gonna be a Toastmasters group there. And maybe you can tell the viewers what Toastmasters is because maybe some people don’t even know. Yeah, so Toastmasters is a club where usually they meet once a week for an hour. And the purpose of that club is to teach you how to become a better public speaker. And so the way that Toastmasters works is that it’s broken down into three phases. every meeting has table topics, speeches, and evaluations. Maybe you can tell us about the process of just

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I went once. And there are a lot of different things that I had no idea about. So maybe you can tell us about how they evaluate people like what kind of things they look for what they look for anybody, everyone’s free to go, whether you’re a perfect speaker, or whether you suck, you know, and the reason why we go isn’t because we’re already perfect, or we’re already great speakers, because we all want to improve. You know, we’re all on this giant gradient of public speakers. So, which did to improve ourselves? So, again, the three phases, table topics, prepare speeches and evaluations. So table topics is when they asked the whole group a question, and they randomly choose someone to come on stage and answer that question and give a one to two minute answer. So it teaches you to think on your feet. They ask you something really weird, like, your favorite holiday and you talk about whatever for one or two minutes. The second part is prepare speeches. That’s when you’re going home and you prepare a five to seven minute speech. You deliver it, okay, yeah. And the last part is dying.

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So based on those speakers who gave up five to seven minute speech, some people are writing down and they will give a two to three minute evaluation on that speech and telling them how like the good things they did and also how they can improve for next time. Okay, the first time I went there was like this bell they’re ringing when people said arms and likes and then like cards they put up Can you talk about that a little bit? Okay, so every club is different. There is something called an all counter so there’s different roles for every meeting. One of them isn’t all counter whenever you say filler words like likes, you know, they were usually tell the it I guess in your particular club, they actually had Adele to like you for shaming, whatever, but not every club does that. And another thing is they have cards. So like I said, it’s a one to two minute table topics five to seven minute prepare speech. When you’re up there speaking, you don’t really know how long you’re doing it for. There’s not this giant clock in the back room in the back wall. So what they do is at like five minutes, they would say yes, you qualify you meet the minimum. So don’t throw up the green card.

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The new way through till the yellow card and then when you got seven minutes that’s you know, when she was finished, throw up the red card and you have 30 seconds to complete it otherwise you’re disqualified. Cool. I feel like you already are so much better when it comes to the ons and the likes because I don’t hear him speak. Whereas right here I’m like saying it all the time as I said like is like one of them like this definitely. Okay. Yep, I do that. So no is a big one people see, you know, a lot. Oh, you know, go you know, you know any of that. I think I’m like, right. And right

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here.

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I’ve known Sean for a few months now. And something I really respect about him is that he is pretty self aware and he’s always trying to work on himself. So do you think you always have that within you though, about you know, you heard your professor preaching public speaking and like Toastmasters and stuff was it always inherent with you that you want to get better and be successful?

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Because I think a lot of people are lazy and are not going to actually take that action. So are you asking was already like a decent speaker to begin with? No, I’m asking Were you always an actual person wanting to strive for success and your best self? Okay, that’s a great question. So actually know when I was in high school, my dad was telling me to read things like Fortune Magazine, Money Magazine, and I’d be like, Dad, you know what, I just want a regular job. I don’t think I’m very special. I have nothing going for me. And I mean, I truly believe that I didn’t know outstanding qualities. No, you’re dancing and singing. I had none of that stuff, I think was after college while I was in my, you know, fraternity. I became more outgoing. And I learned that I do have different abilities than some people. So then I had more confidence and that’s why I decided okay, I think I can do more than just the average person can do. Okay. Good. Do you feel like being good at public speaking has helped you in your life has Toastmasters?

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Sirs, improve your self confidence in my day job, I haven’t had an opportunity to really use Toastmasters to present. But I am very confident presenting. So I mean, there are some times when I do present and when I do it sounds like relatively good compared to my peers because they don’t have the password. So yeah, I never I’m never scared of presenting and I don’t hosting meetup groups now. Sure. I have a podcast, so I’m not scared of speaking. Yeah, it just sounds just, I understand the mechanics behind it. Okay. So yeah, Sean actually has his own podcast about real estate investing, and he’s always helping me. So fun. Whereas for me, if I had one, I’d be like,

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I’m not ready. It would be something I dread. So I think, you know, doing it over and over again, would probably make you just more confident in speaking with people. I mean, do you feel like not just you know, speeches? Has it impacted you in your daily life when you approach people or things like that doesn’t make you more confident.

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Well, it’s like my life skills. You know? I’m pretty good at shaking hands now. I always shake on and off the stage. We clap every single time. So now I have a pretty good clapping. You know, Dave, I said you want to clap? It sounds weird but clapping was was weird for you. You know, I didn’t know that if you just do this. It’s not good. But you go like that sounds a lot louder. Okay. I think Toastmaster overall it’s pretty good. Pretty good. But Oh, another thing is it taught me how to tell a story better. So another part evaluations is telling you look, if you just tell them facts, they’re not gonna remember it when you tell them stories that have like lesson. Yeah, they will remember that. Yeah, be. Feel it. I remember that story. Yeah, I am being in poverty. Now. I’m going to take my last class very soon. And I was wondering, what’s the difference with improv in Toastmasters because I was initially going to do Toastmasters but I decided on improv instead. So what would you say is the difference? Toastmasters is way cheaper.

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We send me

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Bugs for six months. Yeah, mine was 200 for, I guess two months. Yeah. 200 for eight classes. Yeah, I mean, all kidding aside, I think they’re different. I mean, they’re meant for different purposes and Toastmasters meant for giving public speeches. improv is more for thinking on your feet and collaborating with other people. In Toastmasters, your speakers are one on one, you very rarely do you have a second person up on stage with you talking and going back and forth. I do think both probably improve confidence. And I think that’s a big reason why I wanted to join either one. Because I thought it would make me able to talk to people like without tripping, you know, or going on stage. I psychologically think I suck at both. But I can tell that like, at least improv is already making me feel more confident. I can see how Toastmasters might for you because I feel like you have this nature about yourself where you don’t trip out when it comes to, you know, talking to other people like he hosts meetups. He has podcast

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He’s totally comfortable speaking at, you know, conferences probably right future if I have some good content to talk about no problem. Cool. So yeah, I definitely think Toastmasters is a good thing to try. I’m probably going to try it in the future. So I think that covers mainly what I had to ask, do you have any last pieces of advice for the viewers out there? Yeah. So Toastmasters again, is a great way for you to boost your public speaking skills. And I think besides table topics, this writing speeches and getting comfortable being able to crank out five to seven minute speeches is great for you, too, because now you know how to write. It teaches how to write in a very casual, casual way. And on the flip side, evaluating is great too, because now you know how this guy messed up on this part. I do the same thing. And you able to see that and break that down into valuation, and then give that feedback. Cool. Thanks for speaking with me. I think we learned a lot about public speaking and Toastmasters and I definitely recommend you guys try out Toastmasters. See you guys

Transcribed by https://otter.ai