After TOCA

In the end of summer I met with the winner of the Toastmasters Open Central Asia speech contest (TOCA) Vladislav Son. He is still a member of Almaty Toastmasters club(ATM) and from the beginning of the new term he became a Vice President Education in ATM. Vlad shares thoughts and feelings about life after TOCA, public speaking and leadership insights.

How do you feel after TOCA?

Well certainly when I won I felt great. It was great experience for me. First time I was performing before big audience. I don’t say that it was that big, but for me it was. I got a lot of energy from the response of the audience during the contest.

My life changed in terms of understanding myself. There was a moment of self-discovery. When you go for a new experience that experience allows you to discover and learn more about yourself. Certainly that experience gave me tremendous self-discovery. I started understanding my skills and how I can use it.

I didn’t think that my story and the delivery of it can have this impact on the audience. When you get to know something new about yourself that definitely changes your attitude towards yourself. I believe that every person not only in public speaking should experience this self-discovery because the more you discover about yourself the more different attitude towards yourself is. I think it opens more ways for self-development.

Did you have a star fever afterwards? How did you feel coming back to the club?

Great question. When you have such an accomplishment you certainly have a temptation to act as if you are a star or that everyone has to treat you as if you are. But what didn’t allow me to act this way is understanding that this achievement isn’t just my achievement.

In the process there were other people involved in helping prepare for the contest. I am also a believer. For all my accomplishments I give a credit to god. So this also humbles me as a person. Understanding that it wasn’t only my achievement – I had so many people helping me to come up with the speech, to structure it, to make it perfect – better and better with every time. That keeps me humble. My personal feelings about God.

Certainly I was in so many situations when I was tempted to act this way. I think it’s a very difficult way to do. You have to really work on your character in order not to allow yourself not to feel as If you are higher than anyone. But I had a great community behind me. I had my club that was always encouraging, helping, motivating and with this people you can’t feel that you are greater than anyone. The only thing that I can say is that I got the sense of uniqueness. Somehow I as a public speaker I am unique and I can serve this uniqueness to other people.

What was people’s reaction on you? Did you see envy?

As of now I can’t see that I could observe any envy. When I came back the community our club organized a great reception. They all congratulated me. They were so excited about this event – victory. Everyone approached me with the sense of excitement, with the sense of gratitude. It was sincere. I have confidence in our club, that everyone is interested in each other’s success. It’s a principle of our club. You have to work towards someone’s development and achievement. If you always follow this value and fully internalize the value within yourself, than no envy could affect you.

You have really high principles, if you say so but why does it work so good?

I think the leadership team and team that was before that leadership team did a great job to build  this environment, whoever comes to this environment he automatically follows the culture. The culture is to help other people develop, is to be a servant, leader. I would say it’s both: people who believe in this values and as they believe in this values the whole community becomes friendly. So it’s all about the culture. If you have this culture in your club, whoever comes to this club he or she will follow this culture. That’s how it works.

Success presses a lot. Do you feel the pressure? Do you afraid to fail? Do you have a right for that?

I don’t really think a lot about pressure. I think more about how I can do better. Of course I make some jokes. When someone calls me the winner of the Central Asia is going to be a toastmaster today. I am just cracking some jokes about this. But I don’t think about this much because even though people say that. It’s certainly a proof that you need to do better. People have high expectations. But it’s not about meeting people’s expectations. It’s about your personal understanding, you personal development. As a man, as a public speaker I think that I should be more preoccupied about my development, not about meeting people’s expectations.

How do you see your way as a speaker? What are the weaknesses or room for improvement?

There’s always a room for improvement. I am one hundred percent sure that there are still some people who are much better than me. Even in my speech at the contest I find some things that I could have done better. So of course I have a lot to improve. May be I’ve grown up as a storyteller but may be as a lecturer – it’s another type of public speaking. As a lecturer I am not that strong. In public speaking there are so many ways and directions in which you can go. I have so many ways to choose and certainly I need to develop. I want to improve as a storyteller, as a lecturer, as an MC (toastmaster), improve in debating. There is such a huge room for improvement.

What's your opinion about the level of public speaking in Kazakhstan?

I think the level of public speaking is really high. Before joining Almaty Toastmasters club I was a member of toastmasters club in South Korea and I couldn’t  experience such a tremendous growth as in ATM. It’s because our club is so big. As you see we have about fifty people at the meeting, our venue is always crowded. It definitely pushes you to prepare better for each role that you take. This environment as whole because of the number of people forces you to become better and better with time. In South Korea they barely have 20 people. They have a lot of clubs in the country but each club in its scale is small it gives you a completely different experience.

I would say that in our club we have such a great performances. It’s a good thing to compete with them and to learn from them. Each of them has something to teach them. The same thing I can say about Astana toastmasters club. I saw several people who have this high level and who can lead club to even higher achievements. So we’re n the right way but we need more clubs like this. In the more clubs more ways will be open for us.

What about leadership? Did the contest push you to start you leadership path? What led you to the VP Education role: a need in challenge or a desire?

Firstly it was the desire to serve the community. I thought that through this role I can improve the level of the club and also help others from the club to improve. It’s a very challenging role in our club because we have such a big number of members and not every member has an opportunity to speak frequently. As you can observe you each speaker can have only one speaker slot a month. It’s a very very challenging in this system - how to figure out how members can improve. Also this make me able to express gratitude to the club. That’s why I decided to be VP Education. Also it’s a personal challenge that I took. I have a lot to learn.

Should we wait any special improvements introduced by you?

Now I am learning how to perform this role properly. In the future I think we should figure out how to organize this big amount of people, how we can give them more opportunities to grow up as a public speaker. As of now I am thinking how to perform all my responsibilities and duties. For the future I will come up with something more. May be more workshops, may be my club and your club can come up with more ideas, share the knowledge and experience. It’s an educational thing. But still we have so many things to do internally.

Some people become tired of the toastmasters community from time to time aren’t you tired of the toastmasters?

I think that people feel like this that the community is always the same. The good thing about our club is that we have such a diverse community in terms of interests, activities and area of their work. When you come together with this community you share all these things. When this environment is already created you don’t feel bored because always something good is happening. In this month we have at least 4 events together: hiking, cycling, eco-festival etc. it’s now only about the public speaking. It’s also about the external activities. So in this environment you don’t feel bored.