Toastmasters has become an important part of my life, both my professional and personal.
In our job, regardless of task, we need to be competent. According to ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.2, competence is a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skill. While being competent is great, it is not enough. You have to share it to others. That is the ultimate goal in life.
Acquiring knowledge and skill requires hard work. While, demonstrating them requires patience, persistence and even faith.
Patience and persistence are quite obvious, but why is faith important in our job? It’s because sometimes, even when we have a career path in mind, there will always be humps, bumps and detours.. Even if we don’t like it we got plenty of those at work.
And sometimes, you get assigned to certain roles that require you to do tasks that you hate. It makes you ask yourself, “what’s the point of doing these things?”
That is where faith comes in. Faith makes you see what your eyes cannot see. I learned that from my mentors in toastmasters. From them, I learned how to find meaning and value in anything that I do, whether it’s in my job or in other aspects of life.
In my personal life, toastmasters helped me unleash my truest self-confidence. Growing up, my confidence was so-so. Before toastmasters, self-doubt was best friend.
For instance, in college, I was a dean’s lister this year. The next year, I was a failure. “But why bother getting good grades when my parents were always busy minding their own personal lives, that they missed to give time to validate my little achievements?” That was me talking to myself as a self-doubter.
In toastmasters, I’ve met people who constantly remind me that I am good at this or that. And yes, it gave boost to my self-confidence, BUT that is not what true confidence is all about. True confidence is having a strong will to help others without soliciting for any validation, without blowing one’s horn and without asking something in return.
Mahatma Gandhi once said that the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. That is where my confidence was honed.
Being an officer of any organization, regardless of position is an opportunity to lose yourself. Losing yourself means commitment. Commitment means sacrifice, with your time and sometimes resources. And despite all your sacrifices, you will still receive some soul-wrecking criticisms and objections. That’s part of the challenge. And even if you’ve done it before, it will always remain a fresh challenge.
With that I say, fellow toastmasters, I humbly take this challenge to serve you once again, as President of Pillars Toastmasters Club.
To paraphrase President Duterte's statement, I cannot do this alone. But together as officers and members, we can!
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