Be Proud!
by Zhi-Ren Chow
Today, I delivered my second speech at Toastmasters. The title of my speech was “The McGuire Programme – The Sport of Speaking”. When I did my first speech (The Icebreaker) a few weeks ago, I told them about myself, how I was before the McGuire Programme and how it changed my life! My speech went really well! I used total technique throughout the speech and I DIDN’T stutter once! My evaluator was VERY impressed, mentioning good voice projection and excellent pausing in my evaluation. What was most surprising to me was their interest in my recovery and of the McGuire Programme itself. The consensus was even fluent speakers can benefit from certain aspects!
Last Thursday, we had our Toastmaster Christmas Dinner. Almost all the members went and it was a fantastic get together. I didn’t speak very much during the dinner (for obvious reasons…choke choke 
but towards the end, I talked to everyone. Again the subject of the McGuire Programme came up so once again, I was the ‘center of attention’, ‘TEACHING’ them, would you believe, about speaking! I decided to dedicate my next Toastmaster speech to the ‘McGuire Technique’, which is the speech I did today.
When I arrived at the meeting, feeling nervous as you do, I was surprised to see the person who was going to evaluate me, set-up a video camera!!! I asked him was it for me, jokingly and he said ‘YES’. He knew that I was going to talk solely about the McGuire Technique and wanted to ‘keep it on record’, so everyone can learn from it! I was delighted to know I would get a copy but I knew it would put extra pressure on me to ‘do well’. I just had to focus even more before opening my mouth!
The speeches must be between 5-7 mins so I prepared my speech such that it would cover 3 areas of the technique that ‘everyone’ can use. Breathing, Pausing & Good Eye Contract. I gave reasons for why it is important in my recovery, and why everybody should use it to better their own speeches. Again my speech went really well…with nice comments at the end.
I guess what I’m trying to say is the Technique is something to be proud off! I have to use it to be stutter-free but at the same time people think its great! So to all you new graduates out there…don’t be afraid of using the ‘McGuire Technique’!!
Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Regards,
Zhi-Ren Chow