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Toastmasters Made Me Better — The Faux Louvre pg262
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
I went back to the Toastmasters club, joined, and trepidatiously signed up to give my ‘icebreaker’ talk. It was pretty bad, what with sounding pretentious and being too frightened to look at anyone. But they were kind and supportive and said helpful things anyway. Giving presentations was deeply scary for six months (I will die/they will kill me/I will pee my pants), then something odd happened.
At a certain point you just get bored with imagined fear. Terror can’t be sustained when no actual harm occurs and finally, mercifully, it stopped in that safe little room of generous friends… and then in the rest of my life. Just gaining some confidence made it so I could sleep the night before a weekend festival. — From Chapter 14
Some talents we are born with. Talent usually comes with desire, but hardly ever the opposite. Chapter 1 of my memoir is a fanciful explanation of how we arrange aptitude and goals for our next life with a committee of spirit guides on the Celestial Side… and how even the best laid plans can screw up. I don’t think talent comes from some mysterious blessing, but from many lifetimes of devoted practice.
