My Takeaways: New Learning, Relearning, Unlearning

I delivered a prepared speech to my fellow Toastmasters last night.

This speech was special to me because it was the final one I needed to deliver to complete my chosen learning path on Pathways, Toastmasters’ online platform. I selected this path nearly two years ago when I joined Toastmasters, a nonprofit educational organization. Therefore, delivering this speech marks a new milestone in my learning journey at Toastmasters.

The objective of this speech was to reflect on my learning—including new learning, relearning, and unlearning—within a time frame of 10 to 12 minutes, nearly double the usual 5 to 7 minutes required for standard speeches. Finally, with the title My Takeaways Along the Way, I delivered my speech in 11 minutes and 37 seconds, making it the longest speech I had ever delivered in English—yet another milestone.

It has been a great learning journey, and here is my speech script.

_______________________________________________

My Takeaways Along The Way

Life is learning, and learning is living. 

But apart from learning, have you ever relearned or unlearned something as part of your life journey? 

Good evening everyone! I’m honored to make a speech tonight, at this very first meeting after our long holidays, officially kicking off our endeavors in 2025. 

And , what I’m going to share with you tonight is about my takeaways. These takeaways are not from Starbucks, not from McDonald’s, but from the path of Visionary Communication in Toastmasters’ learning Pathways. Yes, as suggested in both my opening questions and the speech title, I’m going to share with you my takeaways along the path of Visionary Communication, including my new learning, relearning and unlearning.

To start with, I’m grateful that I made a great decision to join Toastmasters about two years ago, having retired from my long career. During my career I accumulated 30 year experiences of being a manager, a leader, a coach, and a mentor. Communication and leadership was the most important part of my work, day in, day out. Therefore, when I embarked on my learning journey here at Toastmasters, I found it surprisingly similar to what I had experienced during my career time. This is one of the reasons why I’m completing the path after this speech tonight, in less than two years, which is considered faster than the average.

On the other hand, in spite of the similarities with my work experience, I learned profoundly through the path of Visionary Communication by relearning, which means I had the opportunity to learn again those good things that may have been forgotten over time. In addition, I also unlearned, which means I got rid of old knowledge or skills that were obsolete, so I could learn something new. Therefore, my learning through the path refers to not just my new learning , but also my relearning, and, not the least, my unlearning.

As you may be aware, there are five levels, of which each requires completion of several projects, in a learning path. As I reflect now, I benefited from every single project along the way. But in the interest of time, I will tell my story, or my takeaways, by reflecting on just one project from each level of the path, in terms of relearning, unlearning and new learning.

The first one is Evaluation and Feedback, a project of Level One. This is basically relearning for me because as a manager I had to give feedback to my employees and evaluate their performance all the time. However, through the project I had the opportunity to revisit all the crucial skills of providing evaluation and feedback, of which the skills of active listening and encouraging others are most important, in my view, followed by giving constructive feedback.

The second one is Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring, a project of Level Two. This is basically relearning for me, too, because mentoring and coaching was an integral part of my job as a manager. Yet, again, through the project I was able to revisit the most important skills of a mentor, which, in my view, is to understand the mentee, help him find his goal, so I can customize my support to assist him in his journey towards his goal. Of course, I mean not just he, but also she. By the way, I am now mentoring two new members at Sandwich Taipei, another club that I also belong to.

The third one is Connect with Storytelling, a project of Level Three. This is both my unlearning and my new learning. While during my career I talked to my team every day, the speeches I made were all about business which focused on efficiency and effectiveness, different from what I newly learned from this project, which focuses on connecting with and engaging the audience. So, in a way I had to unlearn my old speech style so I can form my new speech style. I think I am a better story-teller now, thanks to new learning from this project.

The fourth one is Write a Compelling Blog, a project of Level Four. This is my new learning. Through this project I was able to find my new passion and to establish my personal blog for the first time in my life, combining my love of both the English language and writing. Now there are already 43 posts in my blog, and my goal is to write at least one post per week, which is a good way to discipline myself in my new role as a blogger, too.

The last one is Develop Your Vision, a project of Level Five. This is something I relearned because I started using the tool of personal vision when I was young. Still, revisiting it through the project helped me fine tune my compass and develop a plan for my lifelong learning, as I shared in my last speech, titled My Vision and New Hats. 

In conclusion, I would like to use the following key words to represent my takeaways, including new learning, relearning, and unlearning, along the path of Visionary Communication:

Level One: Active Listening, Encouraging Others

Level Two: Understand, Customize

Level Three: Connect, Engage 

Level Four: Passion, Discipline 

Level Five: Compass, Lifelong Learning 

That concludes my speech. Thank you for your attention. Toastmasters of the evening!