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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!

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