Surviving the Engaging with Humor Pathway (Without Dying of Embarrassment)

On Wednesday, I visited the Super Speakers Toastmasters Club at Bandar Kinrara 5 in Puchong, Selangor. I went because I had an invitation from its president, Kong Meng Shen, whom I met at the Hashim Adnan event in Jalan Tandang, Seksyen 51, PJ, on August 25.

The meeting featured two project speeches, and I took on the dual roles of speaker and evaluator. 

As a speaker, I tackled the "Know Your Sense of Humor" project from the Engaging with Humor pathway. My task was to identify what makes me laugh, discover my personal brand of comedy, and deliver a 5-to-7-minute speech that shares how my humor translates to an audience. 

I must confess that I am not a funny person but I took this on as a challenge to develop my comedic speaking skills. 😅

I relied on self-deprecating humor – the safest style for the occasion – in a speech titled “Enigmatic Me”. According to my evaluator, Gan Shin Wei, the speech went exceedingly well. I was pleasantly surprised by her comprehensive feedback, which showed her strong potential as an evaluator.

Afterward, I evaluated Khalid Idris, who delivered an excellent presentation from the Successful Club Series. With several young members in the audience, I used the opportunity to showcase the "sandwich method" of evaluation to model constructive feedback. 

The evening concluded on a high note commercially. A Toastmaster guest, Nina Randhawa, who had previously bought my two books, kindly promoted my work to the audience. Thanks to her endorsement, I sold one copy of Diamond and two copies of Pearls.