Icebreaker — I Joined Toastmasters
Well! as they say actions speak louder than words, it was about time for me to do something about my attraction towards toastmasters. Since I moved from my very relaxed life to a crazy SaaS world ;) I joined hands with few of my colleagues and started building the club. As the word spread and thanks to our HR as well as Facilities managers who made this a reality by registering the group as a formal Toastmaster club and got the buy in from the leadership too yay!
Slowly and steadily the day came, when I had to present my ice breaker. The time couldn't have been worse as it was year end and work load was huge, however looking at the enthusiasm of my fellow toastmasters I made time and finally scribbled my ice breaker.
While I was drafting, I wanted to do some research and woila! I found a treasure, I recommend to read Linda Lam’s story as it inspired me to be more open and honest as well as gave an excellent structure.
Long story short, I prepared well in couples of days time and was thrilled that all the toastmasters and guests loved my speech, it was voted best prepared speech of the day, I was humbled as others who presented were equally good.
Hence, here I post my ice breaker with the world:
“Hello and thank you fellow toastmasters and guests for providing me an opportunity to share my story in the form of an ice breaker.
I am Ravi Kant Verma and I like to keep “Kant” silent, as it sounds like “can’t” and I am exactly the opposite. I have a strong belief in I am possible as all it takes is a conscious effort.
Coming from a place where people still mumble words and make funny sounds to pretend as if they can speak fluent English, it was a dream of my parents to listen to us converse in this alien language.
I was sent to a convent school and that was it, now everybody thought, in the next 14/15 years — Fast forward like a Bollywood movie, I would walk in looking like a Englishman. However my humble parents forgot, I was spending a lot of time with my “Bhojpuri” speaking friends.
So, by the time I graduated I was okay however all my uncles and elder cousins were hit by the mandal commission and joblessness in India. My Dad used to be so worried about how I would get a job and brought all kinds of forms for me to apply for, you name it and I would have applied for it.
Like everyone’s favorite “Dhoni”, I was almost sent to become a ticket collector in Easter Railways, however fate had different plans and ended up getting a job in a call center.
Remember, while growing up who I spent my time with. Thanks to all those crazy friends it was really tough to survive in a call center environment, where we had to roll the “R’s” and bite the “W’s” ( Whiskey ) :)
Long story short, I wanted everyone to listen to the journey in detail so far as it was impossible for me to survive and I was almost fired from my first job. I made a video about the details and is available on my you tube channel — just in case if you are curious you can always watch it and probably subscribe too ;)
This is when I realized getting fired was not an option and I turned impossible into I am possible, Thanks to my trainer back then who believed in me and got me a month’s time to show improvements, I worked hard — I read a lot, spoke in front of mirror and that’s when I also picked up the habit of watching Hollywood movies — Believe me its helped.
It was then and it is now, I am in the same profession improving my speaking skills every day, This incident in my life taught me many things and above all was “empathy”.
People tend to judge without really understanding someone’s situation and if we can take that one extra min to listen to someone and understand their situation. The world would become a much better and safer place to be.
Thank You so much for listening to my story and have a brilliant day ahead!”
