#132
Purpose: The purpose of this project is to clearly define how Toastmasters envisions mentoring.
Overview: Write and present a 5- to 7-minute speech about a time when you were a protégé. Share the impact and importance of having a mentor. This speech is not a report on the content of this project.
Script:
Fellow TM and guests, what are we all doing here? Why did we join toastmasters?
For some of us it was to improve our communication for some it was to improve leadership, for most of us here as we heard in the earlier speeches it's a bit of both.
By joining this wonderful platform, on the one hand we have groups of people who want to be good orators and leaders. on the other hand, we have experienced folks who have been with TM for a long time and know certain lessons and tips and tricks that some of us newbies don't know yet.
Wouldn't it be a great idea if a person from the former half could be paired with a person from the latter half i just described?
Well, that's what TM mentoring is all about. It will not only be a wonderful learning adventure i can say, for the newbie speaker but also a wonderful teaching opportunity for the mentor as well, since one of the best ways to learn is by teaching. The mentor can use his or her speaking and leadership skills they improved via TM to coach someone else to build on that path.
In my Toastmasters journey, I was influenced and guided by my mentor. One of the best ways to learn something is also by observing. There's this quote by Marilyn vos Savant. She was listed as one of the people having the highest recorded IQ in the Guinness Book of world Records. She said "To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."
As soon as i became a member in TM, I was assigned a mentor and the first thing I did after connecting with him was to go and observe his speeches. I searched on youtube and although I didn't find too many, the ones i did find were enough for me to understand his speaking style. Simply watching those videos itself was a great learning experience for me.
The clarity and coherence with which he spoke, the words which were appropriately and amazingly alliterated and rendered rhythmically, and the perfect places he paused for enhanced effect, i observed all of these.
I not only found his TM talks such as the Jerrified speech but since he is a CEO, I also found some keynote speeches he had been called for in various summits. In those speeches too, his wordplay, his structure, flow of thought, and of course his ingenuity all these were something i was inspired by. Apart from this, i also had a couple of phone calls with him where we discussed on my further course of action in TM, how to prepare content for speeches, and how to excel at the leadership roles I take up.
One specific instance that was extremely helpful was when i reached out to him for help on shortening my speech. in my initial level 1 speeches of TM, i knew i used to pack way too many words into my speeches but what I didn't know was which words to remove and how to shorten my speech. For my 'Scrabble as a way of life' speech, I sent my entire script to him and within a day he got back on exactly how I can reduce the content in my speech so as to allow for more pauses. Well, I followed his advice and when I gave my second version of the same speech on another occasion, I was a lot happier with it.
After having such enlightening phone calls and words of advice that I can see through and follow, I cannot wait to be a TM mentor to someone else. I'm sure if learning can be so rewarding, teaching must be an even more enriching journey. For me at work, I discovered more about myself than the person I mentored. I can only imagine it's the same with TM.
One last point I would like to leave you all with is that mentorship is a two-way street. It may be easy to think that the mentor plays a dominant role in the mentor-mentee relationship, but as a mentee or a protégé, what I've learnt is I must take ownership of my own growth and development. I shouldn't hesitate to reach out to my mentor for any TM-related concern or idea that I may have. It is my responsibility to stay curious, ask questions, and actually work towards bettering the entire reason I joined TM for.
Having an awesome mentor means to have someone who is not only open and honest during conversations, but also someone who is thoughtful, supportive, and engaged in your development. I would also argue that the role of a mentee also holds the same significance. I as a mentee must strive to be ingenuous, prepared, inquisitive and learn to challenge myself and step outside my comfort zone to become a better communicator and leader in TM and also extrapolate that to other areas of my life.
I hope we all find or have found amazing mentors in our journey here at TM.
Thank you, over to you TMOD.
Video:
Intro to TM mentoring: https://youtu.be/ufCEyH3w_3g?t=2504
Evaluation: https://youtu.be/ufCEyH3w_3g?t=5328
No comments:
Post a Comment