Episode 16 - Building Your Confidence Through Public Speaking with Christina Pooran

10/13/21 • 47 min

Transformational Pathways

HIGHLIGHTS

01:59 Growing up in Guyana and moving to New York

07:22 A fascination with the moon and her emotional arrival in New York

12:17 Working and studying full-time and joining Toastmasters as an extracurricular activity

17:17 Being welcomed into Toastmasters and doing her first Table Topics

23:14 Toastmasters is a platform for sharing and learning

26:41 Losing her confidence and walking out of the room and the audience

33:19 Facing her fear of speaking in front of an audience and overcoming it

39:52 Joining a bilingual Toastmasters club

42:16 Keeping an open and mind listening to each speaker and their stories

44:17 Growing with Toastmasters and working on areas for improvement

QUOTES

10:01 "There's the other side of the world in Guyana where people who have seen you for all this time can't bear to let you go. So here I was sort of stuck in that limbo. Should I be happy that I'm here, or should I be sad that I'm here?"

15:43 "To be honest, I wasn't looking to go do speeches. I just really wanted somewhere to be, somewhere to go, so I can feel that I was a part of college outside of the academics."

23:46 "It's such a good platform. the way you can share and you can learn from people. So people go there and yes, they are improving their public speaking skills, but they're also sharing something that people in the audience would have never known."

31:51 "From that day on, I never went back to speak in front of an audience because there was this always lingering fear that okay, this happened, and this will probably happen again."

34:34 "Are you waiting for some miracle to happen for you to say, oh yeah, let me do this. I mean, I guess I realized that if I don't make that effort to work at it, I'll always be a prisoner to this fear."

Connect with Christina in the link below:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-p-bb350294/

Find out more about Toastmasters, visit https://toastmasters46.org/ and follow District 46 on:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/toastmasters46/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/toast-masters-district-46
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TMDistrict46/

Please rate, review and subscribe!

Toastmasters - where leaders are made.

HIGHLIGHTS

01:59 Growing up in Guyana and moving to New York

07:22 A fascination with the moon and her emotional arrival in New York

12:17 Working and studying full-time and joining Toastmasters as an extracurricular activity

17:17 Being welcomed into Toastmasters and doing her first Table Topics

23:14 Toastmasters is a platform for sharing and learning

26:41 Losing her confidence and walking out of the room and the audience

33:19 Facing her fear of speaking in front of an audience and overcoming it

39:52 Joining a bilingual Toastmasters club

42:16 Keeping an open and mind listening to each speaker and their stories

44:17 Growing with Toastmasters and working on areas for improvement

QUOTES

15:43 "To be honest, I wasn't looking to go do speeches. I just really wanted somewhere to be, somewhere to go, so I can feel that I was a part of college outside of the academics."

31:51 "From that day on, I never went back to speak in front of an audience because there was this always lingering fear that okay, this happened, and this will probably happen again."

Connect with Christina in the link below:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-p-bb350294/

Find out more about Toastmasters, visit https://toastmasters46.org/ and follow District 46 on:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/toastmasters46/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/toast-masters-district-46
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TMDistrict46/

Please rate, review and subscribe!

Toastmasters - where leaders are made.

Previous Episode

Episode 15 - Find Your Voice And Invest In Yourself with Radhi Spear

HIGHLIGHTS

02:47 Radhi's journey: Growing up in Nigeria, India, and the US

09:08 Barely speaking at her father's toast and joining Toastmasters

14:32 Running for area director and creating an impromptu speech

17:43 Becoming a leader in Toastmasters and building confidence

23:38 Join the Toastmasters club that's right for you and learn new skills

28:16 Toastmasters' international conventions bring the world together like never before

33:42 Radhi's commitment and plans as a leader in Toastmasters

35:10 Even Mahatma Gandhi had to learn how to speak publicly

37:06 Connect with any Toastmasters club around the world and make new friends

QUOTES

09:56 "My hands are all shaking and I'm like, To the best dad. One sentence. It was awful. And at that time, my two sisters who had come from India, belonged to a Toastmasters club in India and they said enough, you have to join Toastmasters."

19:14 "Everything in Toastmasters, it is all about experiential learning. You're learning by doing, and not only that, everybody there in your club is also having their own goals and trying to get there. But we give each other feedback. We support each other."

20:35 "The skills you learn in Toastmasters is general. It's what you need in everyday life, at home, at work, everywhere. So this is a skill that you take with you. It's always something that will benefit you."

22:32 "Women sometimes underestimate themselves. They're really capable of so much. Maybe it's my mom would always tell us, you can do it. You can do it. But yet, it was easier said than done, but Toastmasters gives you that confidence."

32:46 "Ours is the only organization dedicated to the individual. We use the skills to help each other and then move on. We don't care about the stock price. We don't care about the stock market. It's nothing. It's just to help each other."

Connect with Radhi in the links below:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/radhi-spear-b769061/

Find out more about Toastmasters, visit https://toastmasters46.org/ and follow District 46 on:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/toastmasters46/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/toast-masters-district-46
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TMDistrict46/

Please rate, review and subscribe!

Toastmasters - where leaders are made.

Next Episode

Episode 17 - Learn to Speak Your Mind or Others Will Do It for You with Jesse Scinto

HIGHLIGHTS

05:15 Toastmasters instilled confidence and a sense of accomplishment from the get-go

06:05 The Foreign Service Exam made it clear that public speaking is a necessary skill

07:36 Learning through imitation and challenging himself to join Toastmasters

12:30 Nurture the fire that led you to Toastmasters: Nerves are normal!

16:41 Public speaking is a practice in leadership

18:27 Story-telling as an executive skill and exercising leadership for a Fullbright scholarship

27:00 The lasting change of video conferencing and its effectiveness in teaching

30:53 Coaching and corporate training with Jesse

33:20 Barack Obama as an example of great executive presence

34:38 Being nervous means stepping out of your comfort zone and growing

QUOTES

02:33 "What I realized is that when you don't speak, other people make assumptions about what you're thinking. You don't have to dominate a conversation or try to control other people's thoughts, but it's really important to speak your own mind."

10:48 "I'm Toastmaster even now because I realized that the most important thing to public speaking is regular practice. It's like playing an instrument or playing a sport that, to keep up your skills, you have to do it regularly."

16:49 "That willingness to step forward, to put yourself forward, and willingness to put yourself forward. That's what leadership is. And when you practice public speaking, you're literally taking a step forward."

22:33 "I need to be out there putting my ideas in the world, publishing articles, giving guest lectures, basically going beyond what's asked of me. And when you start going beyond what's asked of you, that's when you start to exhibit leadership."

35:09 "The only way you know whether you're really pushing the envelope and challenging yourself is if you feel some nervousness about what you're doing. If you're completely comfortable with everything that you do, you're not stretching in any way whatsoever."

Connect with Jesse in the link below: