On 5th October 2019, I was at
Clementi Toastmasters Club as Project Evaluator, my 80th club visit
on the 97th day of the Toastmaster year. Diann Liew served as Toastmaster of the
Day. Putu Sanjaya served as General
Evaluator. Edward Lim served as
Timer. William Tang, DTM, served
as Ah Counter. Vimal Kumar served as
Table Topics Master.
Burnout, Traced to Its Actual Root
Miranda Zhang asked the room whether we
felt burned out, sharing her own realisation that she had become a doormat,
always pleasing others while never finding fulfilment for herself. She concluded that this pattern grows from a
lack of self-assurance and confidence, which eventually curdles into
burnout. Research backs her diagnosis
with unusual clarity. 56% of women
self-identify as people-pleasers, against 42% of men, and the underlying
mechanism is well documented: constant monitoring of others’ reactions keeps
the nervous system in a heightened alert state, flooding the body with cortisol
and adrenaline until anxiety, fatigue, and burnout follow. Miranda did not stop at diagnosis. She offered detailed steps to address the
pattern, which is the part most speeches on this subject skip, content to name
the problem and leave the audience without a way out of it.
Selling as Diagnosis, Not Persuasion
Venkatesh Narayanan explained that
different archetypes of salespeople exist, and roleplayed them alongside Suresh. His core point held: an effective salesperson
establishes a need first, then matches it against the right product or
service, rather than pushing a product and manufacturing the need afterwards. Every weak sales pitch fails at exactly the
point this speech identified, treating persuasion as the whole job rather than
the last step of one.
Leadership, Earned Rather Than
Assumed
Chia Yee Xin paraphrased Vincent Thomas
Lombardi’s line that leaders are made, not born, before walking through her own
leadership journey across school and beyond.
She established her credentials first, then explained how her leadership
style had evolved, a structure that earns an audience’s trust before asking
them to accept the conclusion.
The Evaluators and Results
Gareth Chin, Antony Hardjojo, Ivan Lee, DTM,
and I served as Project Evaluators. Best
Speaker went to Miranda Zhang. Best
Evaluator went to me. Best Table Topics
Speaker went to Antony Hardjojo. A
meeting spanning burnout psychology, sales strategy, and the mechanics of
leadership gave this room three different lenses on the same
underlying skill: self-awareness applied deliberately, rather than left to
develop by accident.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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