Quora Answer: What is the Best Advice for a New Toastmaster?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What is the best advice for a new Toastmaster?”

You have paid money to be a member of the club, so make it count and turn up.  You have invested time in turning up for the chapter meeting, so make it count and be a part of it.  You can take up appointments, choose to speak, or simply attend.  However, consider that every moment of speaking, that airtime, is a moment to be taken advantage of, to learn, to fail, and to be better.  As long as you can understand that, you are likely to benefit from your Toastmasters experience. 

The people who drop out of Toastmasters within the first year are those who did not take the first step of being a part of the chapter meeting.  Sometimes, they never turned up.  There is nothing to be gained if you did not even do that.  You have simply donated money to the club with no gain to yourself.