Toastmasters have taught me to create opportunities in my career.
In mid-August 2021, Distinguished Toastmaster Lee Chen Choon has shared his achievement on hosting and mc the Town Hall meeting with 450 audiences. Many of us are proud of his accomplishment, and we congrats on him. He stated, without his toastmaster experience, he might not be selected to host the meeting.
Who is him, and how did toastmaster have taught him to create opportunities in his career? I have the fortunate pleasure to interview a dear and truly experienced member of our club, Lee Chen Choon.
My name is Lee Chen Choon, and my official title is Management Consultant. I’m helping businesses move from where they were and where they want to be—for example, digital transformation, change of culture, and entering into a new market. In summary, I bring people into the journey. I specialise in and belong to this team called “Human Potential”. Generally, my work revolves around preparing people. I work together with the IT Team, whereby they develop the apps. One of my roles is to facilitate by transferring the app to the end-users and helping them understand the system. Therefore, I deal with a lot of people in my career.
I joined Toastmasters in August 2010, and it was a corporate club. During that time, I was attached to the company. I saw this, and it ticks my interest. I was in the corporate club for about three years. Then I decided to move on to a community club and learn more social sides of things. In the year 2014, I decided to create a club. A club that is different, unique and vibrant. Therefore, Elite Toastmasters Club was established in the year 2014. I was a member of three clubs from the year 2010 to 2014. Currently, I am with Elite Toastmasters Club. In summary, I have 11 years of experience in Toastmasters.
The decision to join Toastmasters in the initial stage is without any thought. It happened; I was in the speech contest, I felt good, and I enjoyed myself. From there onward, I decided to sign up with Toastmaters without doing the research. When I joined, the speech contest was my primary objective for the 2 to 3 years. That was the main reason I joined in the first place. When I progressed further into Toastmasters and experienced different club roles, my perspective started to change. I began to concentrate on my self-development and personal growth. From then onwards, I commenced serving others by mentoring people. By mentoring people, I hope to inspire my mentees to become a mentor. I have noticed in Toastmasters, I have to deal with people’s potential, growth, emotion, and belief in themselves. Because of that, I get to see a variety of people’s styles. With all these little things and opportunities to serve at all times, that is what keeps me going.
I deal with a lot of people in Toastmasters with different goals and aspirations. It has taught me a lot. From there, my level of observation has become better, and my level of empathy is higher. I learned to be more sensitive when I say certain things and feel if the person is demotivated. Other than that, my listening skill, listening between the lines, thinking skills, and structuring thoughts have helped me view from many angles. Eventually, I mastered my language, and it makes me feel better. I can respond more smartly, and I am not reactive to unavoidable circumstances or things people say. The talent that I learn from Toastmasters has taught me how to diffuse any conflict and stir up people’s spirits. I can control all the situations in my hands with all this, and I felt perfect. All the skills that I have acquired from Toastmasters are essential when it comes to my job. As a Management Consultant, I’m required to know all the answers to complex and obstacle inquiries. I have to deliver my unprepared point of view even in a tricky situation. My experience in table topic sessions has helped me to tackle that kind of situation. It moulded me on how to think, react and change the case for any impromptu questions.
In summary, my observation of people’s behaviour and character has become sharper. It has also strengthened my ability to express my thoughts. Finally, my listening & my thinking skills have also improved.
When I have all these skills, eventually, I have become more visible. Every time I say and facilitate something, I create an impression. Because of that, my visibility in the company has started to grow. Thus I made an opportunity for myself, whereby people will begin to think about me first. That is how I landed the opportunity to host and emcee the APAC Town Hall for my organisation. The Town Hall was a live broadcast with an estimated 450 attendees. With my toastmaster’s experience, I was well equipped. I am so used to preparing the meeting agenda and being the host for a meeting. My mind is almost thinking two steps ahead. I contextualised how I am going to give a transition while the speakers are speaking. I am still nervous, even though I prepared myself for the Town Hall. With the training I received from Toastmasters, I mask my nervousness by covering my gestures, using vocal variety, and doing humour. In a typically Town Hall, the emcee will greet the audience with “Hi! My name is Chen Choon, and welcome to APAC Town Hall.”.
Instead, I greeted the audience with, “Hey Guys! Welcome to the Town Hall. As you know, the Olympics has finished and what a fantastic event it was. It was one of the very few times you brought a lot of people to an event.”. Whereby this triggers the crowd to interact, and I have created the first impression. I received many texts that mention, “Hey! Chen Choon is doing the South East Asian proud!”, “I love his energy!” and others. Eventually, this will make me different and unique. It is what made me different and unique.
There are a few instances that Toastmasters has helped me a lot in my career. I turn into a mediator and facilitator in difficult conversations and conflicts between my client and team. Sometimes I can see them hitting the tables, shutting their laptops, and people talking in an aggressive tone. I know that both of them are not listening. With my observation sense, I can choose the right words to ease the situation. For instance, I stepped in and said to them, “Guys! Guys! can we not agree that we are doing the same objectives?”. Finally, I became good at resolving conflicts between people. With many disagreements and conflict issues, I can still joke with them. Without Toastmasters, I don’t have the gut to joke with them. I wouldn’t have had the courage to joke with them.
Distinguished Toastmaster Lee Chen Choon has taught many of us that his toastmaster journey is not about public speaking. It has led him to self-development by taking up Exco roles, coaching new members, being more empathetic, improving listening skills, and mastering the languages. With all the talents he acquired, he created an opportunity to host the Town Hall Meeting. From there onward, everybody knew who Chen Choon is, and he turns into a bright spotlight, aka Grand Mentor Chen Choon.
If you wish to learn more about Chen Choon, please do not hesitate to meet him in our club meeting. Alternative, you view his Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaIYBvS29UU-36gCE5rUgSg.
Finally, I hope that sharing Chen Choon stories will inspire all of us to be better. In toastmaster “Where Leaders Are Made”, and DTM Lee Chen Choon is one example.
