This is my first Toastmasters speech. It’s intended to introduce myself to my fellow toastmasters, and get my feet wet.
The title of my speech is: “And the best is yet to come”.
You probably recognized the title of my speech from the famous Sinatra song.
“Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum. You came along and everything’s startin’ to hum. Still, it’s a real good bet, the best is yet to come” It fits me perfectly.
As you all know, this is my very first Toastmaster speech, and I’m quite nervous. I’m humbled by all the great speeches I heard while attending the < >, they were delivered with such confidence and eloquence. I can’t help but ask myself when I can do the same. As Nalla pointed out in his outstanding speech last week though, it’s not those great speakers that we need to measure ourselves against, but our former selves. I decided to start doing my speeches because it’s the only way for me to learn, and I’m as eager to learn from all of you.
Since this is the ice breaker speech, let’s go ahead and break the ice. My name is Lu Wang, and I joined < > as an Enterprise Architect about four months ago. Of course, many things happened in my life before I joined < >. Some were of greater significance than others. I’d like to share with you three significant changes that affected me greatly.
I was born in Beijing China. At the age of 16, I came to the US to join my parents in Philadelphia. This was the first significant change in my life. I was living without parental supervision in China for couple of years, then suddenly I came to America, where people spoke a different language, have different customs, and are mostly from different racial background.
I remember being depressed for the first year because I had a hard time communicating with others in English, and I missed all my friends back in China.
My savior came in the form of an ESL teacher. Her name was Dr. Teddy. Being an ESL teacher, she dealt with a lot of kids whose first languages were not English. She was very encouraging and very attentive to her students’ needs, which was a great contrast to the teachers I had in China. Through her classes, I learned not only the English language itself, but also to respect people’s differences, to value others’ ideas, even though they differed from my own, and to make choices and to take responsibilities for those choices.
There was one time, while in class, I was shaking my legs vigorously without knowing it, I think the medical term is dyskinesia because I was so nervous. A girl who sat next to me asked me loudly why I was doing that. I was too embarrassed to respond. Dr. Teddy saw the situation, and intervened. She first asked me whether I was feeling alright. I told her yes. She then asked me if I knew why I was doing that. It just happened that I was taking a psychology class as well, and they actually covered anxiety just days ago. I told her that I was probably feeling anxious, and I tried to practice the relaxation techniques I learned in the psychology class. Dr. Teddy encouraged me to share the relaxation techniques with the whole class, which I gladly did. After that I never experience dyskinesia again.
Looking back, I thought she must have known the reason all along, and could have explain it better than I did. However, she was trying to encourage me to share my learning with others, and thus making the information exchange much more useful for all of us. I slowed gained confidence in my choices, and gained appreciation of the freedom and choices we have in this great country.
The second change that impacted my life greatly was my weight loss program. At around 2003, due to the stress at work as well as my lack of exercise, my weight ballooned to 170 pounds. I was carrying all these extra pounds, and it was taking a terrible toll on my health. When I got the result of my annual checkup back, I was shocked to discover that my blood cholesterol level was sky high, as well as my blood pressure. My doctor at the time, Dr. C, told me if I don’t get my cholesterol and blood pressure under control, I was at a real danger of suffering a stroke or a heart-attack. I was barely in my 30s, and the news was a shock to me. I also just started dating my wife and things were going very well. So I made up my mind to improve my health. I talked to Dr. C extensively on what I should do to improve my health. He provided medical advice, hooked me up with nutritionist and exercise specialist to access my needs. I also did quite a lot of research, and discovered tons of good information on proper nutrition and all the diets on the market. I implemented a rigorous exercise program that forces me to run at least 5 days out of every week.
The result was dramatic, I’ve lost more than 30 pounds, and am keeping the pounds off. My blood pressure and LDL level are well within the healthy range, and I feel great and more energetic. Dr. C played a crucial role in helping me lose the weight and keeping it off by offering advice and encouragement. I will share my weight-loss experience in more detail in a later speech. This change really helped me to realize that if I set my mind to it, and change good actions into habits, I can accomplish great things.
My latest life-changing experience was the birth of my first child, my daughter Lauren. She was born in January 2006, and she’s just had her one year birthday.
My wife and I planned for her arrival for quite some time. We attended all the requisite classes, read quite a few books on parenting. I thought we were well-prepared, and boy was I wrong. Earlier one morning, closing to my wife’s expected delivery date, she woke up and cried out for me, and proceed to tell me that her water broke, and she thought the baby stopped moving. This was a terrifying moment for me because I didn’t have any prior experience to draw on to reassure her, or myself that the baby is OK. I put on some cloth, and rushed my wife to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, my whole body was shaking so violently, I had a hard time steering. Once we reached the hospital, I actually hit a security truck behind me. Thankfully, I was able to sort it out with the hospital security staff, but my priority was to get my wife to the maternity ward. It took what seemed like an eternity to get her to the proper location, hooked her up to the instruments, and with great relief, I learned the baby was still breathing just fine. I then spent the next five hours staying with my wife through the whole delivery and C-section. After the baby came out, and I looked at baby, I was amazed at how much hair she had, and how she looked so vulnerable. At that moment, I also realized that I can no longer focus on myself, because now I’m in charge of my baby’s life, and it’s one of the greatest responsibility I’ve ever had.
My mother and father in-law actually came over from China to help us care for the baby during the first nine months. I was very graceful for their help because being a first-time parents, I had tons of things to learn, and my parents in law, especially my mother-in-law, was very experienced in childcare, she took the burden of inexperience off me, and provided Lauren with the care she needed.
Recently research has shown, people with kids generally die younger than those without because of the amount of stress kids brings to their parents. I’ve also read Daniel Gilbert’s book – “Stumbling On Happiness” where he said that, and I quote “The only known symptom of the empty-nest syndrome is increased smiling. Careful studies of how women feel as they go about their daily activities show that they are less happy when taking care of their children than when eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television.”
I’m a student of psychology, and read through the researches and found their methods were solid. However, at an emotional level I just couldn’t agree with that I’ll be happier without kids.
One day not long ago, when Lauren was about 8 months old, she was playing in her playpen. I just came home from work. The moment I opened the door, Lauren saw me, she opened up her arm like this, and excited cooed “Arh, arh”, as if she’s wait for a big hug. This was one of many precious moments that makes all the hard work of raising kids worth it for me.
From the day of Lauren’s birth, I’ve became a more responsible person, and now my work and life has a new meaning. I also appreciated my wife much more because what she went through during the child-birth process, and her love and devotion to Lauren.
Now, I stand in front of you, and am facing some new challenges – of improving my public speaking and communication skills in general. It’s a vital skill that will help me both professionally and in my family life.
What I ask of you then, is to help me along the way, by providing your honest and timely feedback, by sharing your pass experiences. To help me to achieve my goal of becoming a great communicator.
So, as you’ve heard, I’ve had a few life-changing experiences, and they were overwhelmingly positive because of the help I got from these wonderful individuals. Looking ahead, I envision an even brighter future. Toastmasters so far has been a great experience for me, and with your help, I can say with certainty, that the best is yet to come.
