ToastMasters “surprise” event
This was the second event we attended while in Bay Area. Every morning, we were searching for pitching, startup, business events and this one contained the word pitch :) so we applied without reading the details. It was mentioned startup pitch so it had to be what we were looking for.
We arrived 2 minutes late, the meeting had just begun. It was about presenting & speaking in public. It was a very interesting structure of the event and of the club, which we later found out it had worldwide branches, with a very elaborate structure.
The events’ core was to learn how to talk, how to tell a story and connect with the audience using words, intonation, body language. Two presenters were telling a story, and both of them had a reviewer, a designated person to give them structured feedback in the open, which would be discussed with all the people in the room.
It was like a primary or secondary classroom, but with people in their 40’s. The vibe was nice and everybody was there for the content. In the first 30 minutes, I was a bit bored and wanted to leave, but as the reviewers started to talk I began to notice something very interesting: the way they gave feedback and the different background of the reviewers and the people from audience. It was such a nice blend of positive attitude, national and background diversity, all together for love of language, structure, and helping one another. Those people were truly communicating, without any financial incentives.
I noticed a guy filming the event, he was in his 60’s. After 1h 30 min the camera guy started talking 😃 he was announcing the pitching section and asking who is there to pitch. A complete surprise as I was not expecting any pitching anymore.
The idea was to learn how to structure the pitch, the language, the intonation.
This guy was a jolly old timer, with sales & marketing background. In Romania, a guy in his 60’s would sit home, go to the park, play some chess, watch TV, gossip about some neighbour. This one was very active, teaching young professionals how to structure their speech and ha was pretty damn good at it. If he would have had something to sell I would have bought it just to hear him tell the story. He was very excited he had something to do, and announced in the end even more activities to come in different parts of US that he will be attending or presiding. He had more mental and geographical mobility than us.
Sharing mentality is needed to create a powerful community & business. I am not referring to services like Uber — I mean the deep social sharing mentality where people talk to each other exchanging valuable information. It can be scaled by incentives, but if it is not shaped in early stages by education you are left with events where people come together to eat, drink, share stories about friends, family, sport, politics as these are public domain and is “OK” to trade public information, GOD forbids to trade a bit of your hard earned info and view on the world.
