As part of learning to pitch myself and my stories, I took standup lessons in Los Angeles. And I also did a little standup. Dude. If you’ve ever done standup over Zoom? You know it’s incredibly humbling. EXCEPT I loved that silence after what I hoped would be a joke landing: it gave me time to breathe. Yes. Despite being a breathworker? I’m still a work in progress with my own breathing.

The thing about living in Billings is a lack of opportunity to perform standup like I could in Los Angeles. In all truth? I only did so much standup in Los Angeles cuz things like commutes and the open mic times were hard to accommodate with the rest of my life.

I digress on purpose.

See… I built up what seems like reasonable reasons for not doing standup. In reality? Those are stupid excuses wrapped up in easy to swallow packaging.

I absolutely feel lame due to so many lost opportunities. In fact, I used all those excuses a bazillion times over to not participate with Da Poetry Lounge WHEN REALLY? I wanted to do that more than anything. Yup. I was sissy pants.

So now that I’m putting down the foundation for the rest of my life? I joined Toastermasters cuz they give me space to give longer speeches and off the cuff ones on the regular WITH FEEDBACK. Dude!! Love it.

Last night? I did my Ice Breaker speech. This is a simple four to six minute speech to introduce myself to the group. BUT BUT BUT I was terrified and overwhelmed: How could I possibly condense 53 years worth of living down to a very long sound bite? The result? I spun instead of writing out a solid outline.

Yup. I ended up winging my speech. You could easily call out “squirrel” from the movie UP in terms of my tracking. As part of my anxiety, I also tend to swallow my words when speaking. This was an issue since there was no sound system due to the space being decorated for Christmas. My voice also gets beyond super high – I sound like what I call a “chipmunk on speed.” I also went too short for fear that I would go too long and get lost in the weeds.

But as a way to ground myself? I acknowledged my nervousness multiple times. And you know what? The world didn’t end or gobble me up. Such a relief. Bahaha!

And here’s the things that my evaluator pointed out that I did well: I made great eye contact, my body movements fit with my speech, and she loved my energy.

Things like better projecting and structuring my speeches are all very teachable. As for the rest? They’re all teachable too and generally take a long time to master. For now? I feel like I have an solid start. And like they say in a Toastmasters intro video? People join it to become good speakers rather than necessarily starting there. I also signed up for the humor track to build on my stand up skills.

To say that I’m excited about what I’m going to learn here? Absolute understatement of the year. Do you also know where the real growth will happen? It’s through the process of consistently showing up and participating even if it’s just a little. Too much snow/ice and traveling will be my only acceptable reasons for not showing up. Otherwise? You bet your sweet ass that I’ll be there.

How about you? Any hard truths for you too?

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