Take the risk (my first speech at Toastmasters)

Hello everybody,

I am Nicolas. I am new at Toastmasters. Something like a big month ago, I came here for the first time. It was a nice experience, but at the same time: scary!

Scary because the level of the speakers was so high and I did not dear to do any table topic until now. I was afraid to fail.

And that is also exactly what I want to talk about today, being afraid to take the risk.

Because if you think about it, that is how it goes in our success-driven society. Success is the norm, failing is not an option. And if you fail, it is always your own dawn fault. So, we are afraid. Afraid that we break a leg. Afraid to loose money. We are afraid that the police will come. Afraid that people will laugh with us …

So, we teach ourselves, and even worse, we tell our children, not to take any risks anymore! Don’t climb that three, you can fall of; don’t throw with that snow ball, the window could get broken and even worse in Antwerp, you can get a fee for that …

That is of course, the wrong message. Because it is only by doing new things, taking a risk that we learn to know our environment and ourselves better. It is like these big turtles that you find in Southern America: “They can become very old, but they can only advance when they stick out their head!”. So everybody, once in a while stick out your head.