Today (and every day) I'm thankful for that time I was immediate past president of the Hopkins Toastmasters Club.
I have learned so much from Toastmasters, and possibly the most important thing I learned was when I was IPP.
When I was president, the previous year, I poured my little heart and soul into the club. I had no idea what I was doing, so I made lots of mistakes, learned from them, and through my experience, formed strong opinions about what worked and what didn't work.
The next year, the club had a new president, who didn't necessarily do things the way I would have done them. And once again, painfully, through making mistakes, I eventually learned perhaps my most important Toastmasters lesson yet: that just because someone does something differently than how I would have done it doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.
Knowing the difference between an actual mistake (which, depending on the situation, may require my calling attention to it) and just a different choice than I would have made is a crucial skill, in all areas of life. It's a skill I'm still trying to develop every day, but, because of my time as IPP, I'm much better at it now than I was, and I am thankful.
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