Martin Csepregi (at 26) is one of our youngest members and only started considering visiting a Toastmasters club 4 years ago. He has now been a member for 3 years. With 39 speeches behind him, he gained the Advanced Communicator Bronze this July. Here he tells us about the ups and downs along the way.

ÉT: What motivated you to attend Toastmasters meetings?

MCs: My reason is twofold: as a university student I was completely fed up with boring presentations which are delivered without any practical purpose.
On the other hand I was lucky to have met a grandiose chairman during a 4-day training day when I participated at an AIESEC (the largest international not-for-profit providing young people with leadership skills development) event. I was truly amazed by his personality and how he was able to deliver his training while also keeping the attention of the participants.

ÉT: How have your skills been developed along the way?

MCs: I am much more confident now. As an example, at the start of my Toastmaster journey, I had to prepare a lot for evaluations while this past Tuesday I evaluated spontaneously and benefitted from this challenge and I feel that the speaker was happy with the feedback too.
As for speeches it now takes much less time to prepare..
Now I am able to evaluate and prioritize the feedbacks I receive and determine which feedback is of the most benefit to me.. Unlike earlier when I was truly offended by some of the opinions!

ÉT: How do you decide to sign up for a new speech?

MCs: In the early days, I picked a date once a month and when the date got closer, I started frantically preparing!
Recently I have turned this around and only apply for a speech when I am completely ready and have developed a thought-provoking and structured speech. 
Right now, I have 5 or 6 topics lined up that I could turn into speeches but I am waiting for the right opportunity to deliver these!.

ÉT: How do you usually get inspired?

MCs: A good example of how I found inspiration was last time when I had already written a speech and then I went for some beers with friends. At the meetup, we developed a hilarious llama story. It was so good that I changed the content of my original speech to include the llama theme. . Inspiration cannot be forced instead you have to remain open-minded and go with the flow and just let the ideas (and llamas!) flood in.

ÉT: What are your current challenges?

MCs: In recent years I have delivered 29-30 speeches where I set myself strict guidelines & rules in terms of number speeches delivered.
Now I am moving more towards quality over quantity.  meaning that I will only deliver a speech when I feel I can’t make it any better. . I am taking the red pill of self-improvement and pitch only when I feel happy with the value created by the speech. Of course it is true that you can never feel completely satisfied but when I compare myself to my earlier days with Toastmasters, I know I have made a lot of progress.

(Cover photo by Éva Tamás)