Imagine that Toastmasters is a big hotel. What would it be like? Shiny, baroque, aristocratic? Or simple, modern, ergonomic? I think the second option is closer to the truth.
Imagine that you are afraid of staying in hotels, but you want to overcome that fear. You don’t know much about Grand HotelToastmasters, but are curious, so you enter through the front door. You are now in the waiting room. You are a bit tired and lost, so you sit in a chair. It is very comfortable and fits perfectly. You are looking around from your chair. You see the reception. The receptionist is walking towards you with a smile, and hands you a fancy paper: House rules. You skim through the rules, and chill in the waiting room. After a while the receptionist comes back, and asks if you want to stay and book a room. You are enjoying yourself, so you decide to stay for one or two nights. To your surprise the receptionist does not give you a key, but directs you in the right way. You are now headed through hallways to a secret destination. You enter a big door, and see a smaller reception. “What has just happened? A smaller hotel in the big hotel?” That’s right. The Grand Hotel Toastmasters is a skyscraper with a complex structure. It is like a Matryoshka doll: the hotels of decreasing size placed one inside another. There are hotels for the different districts, divisions, areas, and clubs. If someone wants to, they can build a new hotel inside another, but each hotel have to contain at least 20 rooms and 5 floors.
You are staring at the price list displayed on the recepction for minutes. “Every room costs the same.” – you mutter. “Then can I have a room on the 20th floor?” The receptionist answers: “Did you read House rules? The 3rd point is about having a room on the next floor after staying at least 3 nights in your current room. And there is no elevator, only stairs. So you can walk to the highest floors, but you can’t have a room there until you are ready, and comply with the rules. The truth is the higher you go, that prettier the view will be, but you can only see the view from the rooms, not from the hallways.”
The rules are a bit strange, but the cost of the room is affordable, so you pay, and go to your room, which is on the ground floor. You realize that the wall between the rooms is truly a sliding door, which is open in the daytime and pulled at night. You see the people from the other rooms, so you walk towards them. They greet you like an old friend. They are here longer than you, so they explain some rules. But they did not know everything. They say, if you want to know more, go at 6 p.m. to the community room, which is on the ground floor.
At 5:45 p.m. you are walking to the community room. A man greets you, and says he is a supervisor of this hotel. He is currently staying on the 4th floor. “The rules apply for the employees of the hotel too?” He explains that he and other employees are doing voluntary work, because they want to be better at staying in hotels. Wow, you are wondering: “Are really this many people who want to be better at staying in hotels?” You mingle and chat until 10 p.m., than you go to sleep. Your bed is very comfortable, you have a good night’s sleep.
After 2 days you think: “I’m feeling good here. I want to stay. Am I bewitched? Is this place truly a prison?” You go to a friend for advice. She says: “No, it’s a place where you can go higher with every step.”
After 2 month you look out of the window, and see how high you got. Isn’t it beautiful and uplifting?
It is great to have a destination you want to reach. On the way up you can grow and harvest the gifts of your improvement. On which floor will you be in October 2021?
