winning | Thomas Dowd

I have lost many things in the professional world. I have lost promotions. I have lost the next great position. I have lost confidence. I have lost my passion at times and sometimes lost my way. The great news is that there have been very few times that I can remember when things did not work in my favor after a loss. If things did not work out as planned, I at least typically learned a valuable lesson. When I have lost, I have found myself building up my character, or something better has come along. The premise of this book is obviously my transformation based on key lessons during my professional career. This premise is based on many of my losses that really turned into wins—this book being one of them. You have two paths to take when you lose. You can get up and do something about it, or you can lick your wounds and do nothing.

I was asked to apply for a position that many thought I was qualified for in a call center. It was in a place where I had extended family close by, I was willing to relocate, and I had more than fifteen years of call center experience in quite a variety of roles. I was not an expert in the new field I would be entering, but I had taught myself all of the positions in the past and I was eager to learn a new one. The final candidates were narrowed down to three of us for two openings. Can you guess who was ranked number three?

The other two candidates had fifteen or more years in this particular business. I’m sure each of them was qualified for the job and would be great hires. I felt I could have had an advantage and could make a difference by sharing my diverse background, my experience from my other internal businesses, and my objectivity as an outsider to the business. The decision-makers didn’t think so.

I was upset after learning I did not get the job, but, knew I had to do something positive about the experience. Instead of accepting the statement, “You didn’t get the job” at face value, I dug in deeper with the decision-maker. I learned through his feedback that I needed to sell my diverse background, my experience level, and creative objectivity better during the interviews. I was told I could have also networked more effectively in preparation for the interview process, and prepared differently. The difference with this lesson was that I stayed on the phone and had a real conversation about what I needed to do better the next time. I was asking questions and genuinely felt good after the conversation, reassured that I had been well thought of throughout the process, but I had room to improve for the next time. What I was beginning to realize was that the “next time” was all around me if I kept my eyes wide open.

Three days later, I heard about a brand new position that was in the works to increase employee retention. I proactively went after it. I produced a clear plan of attack to address the issue, spoke to the appropriate people about my interest, and utilized my background to effectively sell the point that I could build bridges across multiple businesses to expand the impact of the work. I didn’t realize I would get to implement the feedback I had just received so quickly. I was given the job and taught a valuable lesson: certain things happen for a reason. I did have control of my career and could make a bigger impact to the overall company in my new role.

In another example, as an avid speech competitor with Toastmasters International, I have learned that competing helped to prepare me for the most stressful situations. The competitions also taught me how to clearly engage an audience for a short period of time, and showed me how to send a message that the audience would remember for a long time. I enjoy the challenge of these contests.

As I became more successful in the contests, I realized I needed to learn from my more-experienced fellow competitors. In addition to picking up many tips and learning how to broaden my style, I also learned to lose. Losing speech competitions was a great thing to push me to write a better speech, to prepare differently, and to get more people involved in the overall process by offering their input for the next competition. I knew I could always be better.

In the International Speech Contest in the spring of 2010, I was the only competitor in my club who was available to continue in the next competition. I knew going in I would ‘win’ by default. I had practiced for over a month. You’ll notice that I didn’t say I prepared well for over a month. I practiced a speech that lacked a clear message for the audience. I finished in third place, out of three people. To increase the intensity of my loss, I found out that the second-place finisher forgot he was in the competition until that day, and only practiced for forty-five minutes.

I was forced to re-write my speech. Apparently, the weekend of the next contest must have been a bad date, because only two of us were there. Again, the top two progressed to the next level. I had no idea if the changes I made worked or if I moved on by default again. I was not going to leave it up to the unknown. I asked everyone I knew what they thought. I presented the speech to my club more times than they probably wanted. I gave the speech as a guest to a club in Florida while I was traveling on business. I invested time each day on my week-long vacation with the family to fine-tune my message. I interjected myself into a company meeting to spend seven minutes giving the speech because there was a large gathering of people. Everyone had an opinion, and I listened to them all. I placed second in the next contest and moved on to the regional finals. The final competitive speech of the season went well, even though I did not win the competition. However, I did win by gaining valuable experience and lessons. By losing, I had won. I lost to some fantastic speakers who gave me the encouragement to continue to drive myself. I was a better speaker, a better networker, and a more confident individual because of this experience. All of these lessons would prove to pay off in future competitions and within the workplace.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com. Book, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only) purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

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In 2009, I wrote a speech for Project Six in the Toastmasters’ Competent Communicator manual. I was more than halfway to my competent communicator goal of ten speeches and was very proud of my progress. A fellow club member said that I should enter the upcoming international speech competition. My response was, “What competition?” I had no idea there were speech contests. I am a competitive person by nature, so I entered. Being introverted like so many people within the Toastmasters organization, I could see the value of being thrust in front of a bunch of people I didn’t know to share a story that I had only shared in front of my club—I think. Being a consummate learner, I knew my learning curve would grow exponentially with the added pressure.

I need to set the tone that I had just learned to let go of the lectern with clenched fingers and was only starting to understand that I didn’t have to stand behind it. I was also still weaning off my addiction of looking at notes. The contest day came quickly. I stood in the middle of the floor at my very first contest. I looked good—for a stiff, upright, tensed shoulders-looking speaker afraid of moving from one spot. Apparently, I owned that space on the floor and feared someone would steal it if I moved—so there I remained for my six and a half minutes. The verdict was announced. I didn’t win. However, I finished second in our club and would move on to the next level—the area contest.

I was given feedback going into the area-level contest that I could actually move—if I wanted. Being a literal guy, I let it all loose at the area contest. I think I scared the audience, or at least distracted them a little, as I quickly scurried back and forth across the stage with no thought of anchoring my story, let alone stopping long enough to have the audience absorb the poignant points that must have sounded like a training whistle speeding by. I didn’t win. Yet, my content must have been strong enough to get some of the judges’ attention since I received the second place nod to move on to the division level. I had yet to win a contest, but was finding some success, was having fun, and was gaining confidence. At the divisional level, I was blown away by the other competitors’ speeches. I didn’t even close to placing. To make excuses, I didn’t write my speech as an “international” contest speech entry since I didn’t even know what one was. I did learn more about how contests work and found out that I had grown. Additionally, I learned a valuable lesson of looking at the speech ballot so I would know how I was being judged going forward.

I was feeling good enough to try the next humorous speech contest. I was fortunate enough to move on to the division finals—again, I finished in second place. I still had yet to win a contest, but second place continued to be good enough to advance. As I stood in front of about fifty people, the first line became locked in my head and I didn’t have the key. My brain refused to release my thoughts to my mouth while the second line was bursting to come out. There I stood in silence wondering what to do next. After what seemed like an hour, I chose to skip the first line and just started on the second. I finished in third place. I had learned another lesson. I realized my preparation technique of standing in front of a mirror or talking to my steering wheel in my car while I drove wouldn’t cut it if I wanted to succeed in speech competitions. I significantly revamped my preparation by finding live practice audiences beyond waiting for Toastmaster meetings.

The following year, I made it to the District 45 finals of the international speech contest. One of the competitors jokingly told me before the contest, “I hope I win the world championship so I can quit my day job.” I said, “What’s the world championship?” I had no idea the winner would advance to the world semi-finals. My confidence took a little hit when I found that a few competitors were professional speakers. Additionally, during lunch one of the organizers announced that two-thirds of the conference attendees were from Canada. As a U.S. member who had written a speech with U.S. statistics, I panicked and modified my speech two hours before the competition. I stumbled on a line mid-way through my presentation later that night. I didn’t place in the top three. I learned another lesson. Know your audience better. More importantly, I learned the value of having mentors. The contest winner provided me support, encouragement, and feedback after the contest. He became a mentor and a long-time friend.

Fall rolled around again and it was time for a new humorous speech. In the middle of my contest speech at the division level, a jackhammer was hard at work in the background. I was so distracted that I lost my place. Although I had made some changes to my practice preparation, I would typically search for complete silence so I wouldn’t be distracted. Yes, I lost again—I didn’t even place in the top three. Lesson learned! I started searching for distractions, whether it was my daughter playing the piano or turning on the television or radio.

The competitions continued. During the international speech competition at the district level again, I had a picture of the main subject that I flipped around for the audience to see in the middle of my speech. After losing again, I was given feedback that the props weren’t needed for this speech since I had already painted the picture for the audience with the descriptive words I was using. The blank sign was also seen as creating too many questions in the mind of the audience until it was shown while making my stage movement predictable. I was learning lessons about the appropriate use of props.

I am a loser—and I wouldn’t want it any other way. There can be only one winner who gets a trophy, but I can’t count the number of wins I’ve had while competing without receiving the hardware. These losses led me down the path of in-depth concentration on understanding audiences, learning to play to my strengths, and setting my goals higher. More importantly, I realized who I am and who I want to be as a speaker. During this time, I’ve continued to participate in contests, including having the fortune to win the District 45 Table Topics Championship in both 2012 and 2013. The desire to better myself led me to write two books on personal growth which include many of these same lessons. I’ve also started my own business. I blame Toastmasters for much of this. I tell you this not to be boastful, but because I am a loser. I am better because I joined Toastmasters. The Toastmasters program has given me confidence to try things I never thought I would while showing me the importance of the journey, not the end result. I am better today than yesterday, but not yet as good as tomorrow—and that’s okay. Every loss turned into a win when I found nuggets of information that could make me a better speaker—and person. The contests are just a microcosmic look at what has driven me to become who I wanted to be. The contests, for me, became a spring board to look at my life as a whole and became a driving factor to make many other decisions to personally and professionally transform me. Each loss catapulted me toward another challenge and more success. Have you lost, yet really won lately? You too can become a loser!

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World (Honorable Mention at the 2012 New England Book Festival) and From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide (2013 Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal Winner and 2013 Paris Book Festival Honorable Mention) are available under “Products” on www.transformationtom.com. Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

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