When you’re new to Toastmasters, it can feel like a lot to manage when you take on a role at a meeting.

Maybe you’re the timer, watching the clock and nudging the light stack from green to orange to red. Or maybe you’re the grammarian, with an ear cocked to count every “um” and “ah.”

Louis is one of Vancore’s newest members. This week he somehow ended up with three roles – two evaluator roles plus grammarian. And he participated in Table Topics.

Remember that classic episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel get a job in the chocolate factory, and the conveyer belt starts moving faster and faster, and they only way they can keep up with the chocolates coming at them is to pop them in their mouths?

That was Louis. At one point there seemed to be sweat running down his brow.

But Louis happens to be not just one of Vancore’s most recent members but also one of its most enthusiastic. And so he embraced the chaos.

“I must confess, I’m a little disappointed in you all,” Louis said in jest for the general evaluation shootaround. “None of you managed to work in my Word of the Day.”

The word was Ridiculous.

Juggling in life

Many people walk around thinking that they can’t do something and that, even if they could, they wouldn’t be good at it. Part of that is the knee-jerk reaction we all have to something we’re not comfortable with.

To learn how to be successful, to learn how to learn, we have to be willing to do lots of different things (like juggling multiple Toastmasters roles), and to be willing to accept when things don’t go perfectly or as expected. And that’s what our newest member did with great humility. This is how we teach ourselves to be confident in many situations.

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