The Speech that Started Before I Ever Stepped on Stage

When I was younger, I had a few traumatic experiences that left me extremely afraid of people. I had a hard time talking to people, making eye contact, and interacting with others, especially if there was a crowd.

One day, my therapist suggested that I join Toastmasters. At first, I thought he was the crazy one! I had just got comfortable talking to him, much less talking to strangers. Now he was not only asking me to strike up conversations, but to get up in front of them to give a speech? Um, no thank you! I seriously thought I would die.

But, I finally decided that living in fear was not the way I wanted to go through life, so I joined our local Toastmasters chapter. At first, it was overwhelming just to sit in a room with strangers. What if someone came up to me and wanted to have a conversation? And they did! But before panic set in, I remembered why I was there. I put on a fake smile, wiped my sweaty palms on my pants before shaking hands, and kept my shaking body under control with a lot of breathing.

In the beginning, I just listened and watched as other brave souls got up in front of the group to give their 2-minute speeches… and get critiqued. They took the feedback and kept improving. And as time went by, I finally gathered enough courage to give my first speech. It was a train wreck… but I didn’t die!

Over the course of a year, I kept at it, working on cutting out filler words and building my confidence.

By the time a Statewide speech competition came around, I had already been practicing something far more important than public speaking.

Every meeting, every conversation, and every speech had given me another opportunity to choose courage over comfort.

The competition wasn't really about winning. It was another chance to keep showing up.

Guess what? Not only did I go through with it, I won! And I didn’t die.

For that speech, I talked about transformation. One idea in particular had been following me throughout my journey:

What if our greatest obstacle isn't that we're incapable?

What if it's that we're far more capable than we've allowed ourselves to believe?

For years, I had spent so much energy trying not to stand out, not to be noticed, and not to draw attention to myself. Toastmasters forced me to confront a different possibility: 

Maybe my fear wasn't just about public speaking. 

Maybe it was about finally allowing myself to be seen.

This was a major turning point in my life. What struck me later was the irony of it all. I was standing on a stage talking about transformation while actively living through one of my own.

The shy young man who was afraid to make eye contact had somehow found himself speaking in front of a room full of people.

Not because the fear had disappeared. But because I had stopped letting it make my decisions.

Looking back, winning the speech competition wasn't the victory. The victory happened the first night I walked through the door. It happened when I sat in a room full of strangers even though every part of me wanted to leave. It happened when I shook someone's hand with sweaty palms. It happened when I gave my first terrible speech and realized I was still standing afterward.

The trophy simply confirmed something that had already happened:

I was becoming someone different.

That night, as I walked onto that stage, I stepped from who I thought I was, and walked forward into who I was becoming.

That's why I write the way I do. I don't write from the mountaintop after everything has been figured out. I write from the middle of the journey. I write from the uncomfortable conversations, the difficult lessons, the moments of uncertainty, and the small victories that often go unnoticed.

Because transformation rarely happens all at once. It happens one choice at a time.

One conversation.

One step.

One act of courage.

Long before anyone else sees the result.