Skip to main content

Yea! Second place!

This week I participated in my Toastmaster International's club speech competition and I came in second place.  I was surprised that I wasn't extremely disappointed. As one of my favorite quotes from an episode of The Golden Girls goes, “You know, that would have devastated the old me, but the new me? Just an emotional owie!” 
I tell my son everyone wants to win, but since we all can't,  it's how you handle losing that makes all of the difference.Sure, I would have liked to have won and gone onto the next level of competition. Did my losing sour my resolve to try again? Absolutely not! I identified the areas I need to improve and will compete in the next competition in the fall.  I also found myself  focusing what I had accomplished.

The person I competed against is a professional speaker, so I’m getting out of my comfort zone and strengthening my speech-delivery muscles. After the competition, a few people told me they really enjoyed my speech, so hopefully my speech’s content touched their hearts.  Also, someone told me, in true Olympic fashion, that I was bringing home the silver--that’s nothing to be sneezed at!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How's the haircut?

Isn't it amazing how a bad memory can stick to you like a wad of gum in your hair? You try to remove it, but in order to do that, you need to cut off some of your hair? At first, you’re apprehensive, but in the process, you end up with a nice hair style? At the beginning of my career, I was working at an apartment complex.  I must have upset my boss by interrupting him when he spoke to me.  I hadn't realized I was in a bad habit of talking over him. I was so anxious to prove I was on top of all the assignments, but in this process, wouldn't let him get a word in edgewise. One day, he held up an eyeglass case and said this signified when it was his time to talk. In front of the other staff, he actually held up the case while he spoke to me. I was embarrassed by his demeaning ways. I didn't put any credence in his opinion. I wrote him off as being a mean old man! For a while, I carried this memory like a wad of hardened gum in my hair. It was brittle and would have...
Post a Comment
Read more

Just a note

If you visit my website, you can now read the first chapter of my book for free! Please feel free to click on its link below: website All I ask is please leave me a comment. Even to just say "hello" so I know that some people are reading it! Thanks everyone, and I'll talk with you later!! Diane
Post a Comment
Read more

Lessons from Teachers

Many times when people talk about the teachers they have encountered in their schools, usually the lessons have been of the traditional sort.   A teacher has done or said something inspiring that has changed their lives for the better.   Actually, I have had a teacher show a negative trait that was a positive life lesson to me.   She was my seventh grade teacher.   She was a very large woman—she had to make her own clothes to fit her.   Not only was her physique large, but also her personality.   She was a very aggressive and no-nonsense woman.     “You can’t get away with anything in Miss C class!”   was the comment we heard from previous teachers and older students.   When she hosted detention, she made a sign to put on the clock that read: “Time passes—will you?”             Being in her class, she made it very clear that she was the boss.   Now, most of the time, she wa...
1 comment
Read more