Page 8 - June 2020

COVER STORY

I might have watched each of last 15 world Back to the biographical info – Married? Children?
champion speeches 50 times. Every time I What do you do outside of Toastmasters that

watch the speeches, I learn something new. makes you happy?
3. Mentor: I can’t speak enough about this. I am married with a 2-yea-old son. Outside
Getting mentorship from Toastmasters of Toastmasters I love making YouTube videos

members has helped me immensely. I for the channel Success Wheels. Friday evening
revalidated my speech with my mentor cooking is a recently discovered hobby.
many times and received valuable
feedback.

James Wantz, DTM The problem was that I thought I did a good
job. My mentor was aghast.

The first time I competed at an Area “What do you think you are doing? This is not

evaluation contest, I lost because I was a jerk. your club. That doesn’t work out here.”
“You were clearly unprepared to give your The next evaluator showed me exactly how
speech,” I said at the beginning of my evaluation. poor my evaluation skills were. She opened my
“I think you had it in your back pocket and pulled eyes to caring and constructive feedback. I knew

it out at the last minute to present. You did not I was at fault.
prepare.” The rest of the evaluation was hyper I used to give terrible feedback! That was the
critical. club culture in my first Toastmaster club in 2008.

8 ONE COMMUNITY