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Cari Corbet-Owen won first place in the Speech loved the Q & A section when I’d never know
Evaluation contest by providing Joe Anthony, target what questions I’d be asked—it felt like an
speaker, with excellent feedback. You can view Joe’s exciting challene. I’d no sooner given one talk,
speech, I Learned A lot about Myself That Day, when invitations to speak at other clubs and
by clicking here. schools would arrive, or a newspaper reporter
would call me to do an interview or be on TV.
Why did you originally join Toastmasters? Every time this happened I remembered feeling
Mrs. Torr, my teacher when I was eight, was this how unexpected and magical it seemed.
neat-as-a-pin, itty bitty little lady, but she was When I heard about Toastmasters, it felt
a giant in my life. When she chose me to read like I’d come home and found my place in the
a poem for a record the school was making, I sun. Here was a place where I could not only
could barely contain my excitement. I remember practice something I loved, but where I could
how her prim writing looked and how juicy that get feedback and improve. I would come home
dry piece of paper of invite felt when I held it in from meetings so excited I could barely sleep
my hand. Years later, I would take it out of my and prepare speeches deep into the night.
treasure box just to feel the magic it held.
Many years later, as a Rotary Exchange How have you used the skills learned
Student in 1980, (a year when I did 65 speeches), to advance your communication and
I realized how much I loved public speaking as a leadership skills over the years?
way of sharing information and discovered that I was lucky to receive unusual promotions
people seemed to enjoy my talks. I especially at an early age. I have absolutely no doubt it
was because of Toastmasters.
Leadership didn’t scare me,
I’d held many Toastmasters
leadership roles. Things like
job interviews never scared
me—they were just table topics
in disguise.
Doing presentations in
front of groups didn’t scare me,
they were just another semi-
prepared speech.
In 2009, I was being
interviewed for a 6-figure
income job I really wasn’t
qualified for when to my shock
I realized, I’d managed to leave
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