I first attended the Claddagh Toastmaster’s club in early 2022. Fast forward to three years later, I’ve now been elected as the club President for the 2025-2026 term.
I had never heard of Toastmasters until I came across it in a personal development book. It highly recommended as a space to improve yourself, particularly around public speaking. Having spent many years doing Model United Nations during my youth, public speaking was already rather up my street.
Since coming to Brussels, I’ve tried many different clubs and social organisations. Yet Toastmasters, for one reason or another, has been the one that stuck. Perhaps it’s because meetings have a particular focus on structure and timing – this made it feel a lot more conscientious and efficient than other organisations (and no powerpoint either!).
But I think it also is because I’ve felt a consistent opportunity for growth, and a wide variety of ways to do so too. Whether it is to get better at doing ‘table topics’ (unprepared quickfire speeches), completing a new speech project, entering contests or taking up a meeting role.
Often with clubs, we first come with a specific goal in mind. But what keeps us coming back is whether we feel we belong. Fundamentally, Toastmasters brings in people looking to improve themselves. It makes for a gathering of people who tend to be more open. I’m also privileged that the club I attend gets people of different nationalities, ages and walks of life too.
Over the last few years, my Toastmaster club has been a refuge in a sea of political chaos and radical personal shifts. It is one of the few in-person meetings with a regular schedule in my life.
I’ve taken up several committee roles over the last few years. So it’s no great surprise that I ended up President. Indeed, I’d already been asked last year, only for my burnout to wipe away any chance of that being a practical reality.
But this year my energy has returned, and it’s felt the right time. The outgoing President basically started to speak about the next year saying ‘when you’re president’. Sometimes we need these little nudges in life.
From a spiritual perspective, it also feels very much in alignment. I’ve been focussing on living in line with the Universal Law of Nature.
When things feel too difficult, it’s probably a sign that something is not in alignment. But when things flow, they come together so naturally, it’s as if destiny itself has created each step in front of you. Your only job is simply to walk forward. That’s basically what it has felt like with this position.
In all honesty, I’m not nervous about this responsibility. I’ve done other leadership positions before, and I know I have a wealth of experience to draw upon. From a rational perspective, there’s no reason I cannot do it well.
But at a deeper level, I know there is no reason to be worried.
I’ve had months of facing myself at the deepest, most painful and rawest level. My life has fundamentally changed. The past version of me is gone. It’s something I’ve had to also mourn.
Facing myself has been the hardest challenge I could ever go through. And it still feels a challenge today. So, in comparison, any particular challenge in the material world feels relatively minor. Be a club president? Sure, why not.
Some people may label this as having ‘confidence’. But I’ve also heard this as having a ‘knowing’. I know that I’ve faced far greater challenges, and that I have a wealth of skills and abundance for this. So, barring any aberrations beyond my control, I know I’ll do a great job at it.
As long as I stay on the path hat life has set for me, through discipline and diligence, wonderful things will follow.