Why I speak
My job is to break things on purpose. As a performance engineer I put software under load until it fails, and then I write down exactly where it gave way and why. I have been doing it for years. It is a strange kind of training: you stop asking whether something works and start asking how much it can take.
Running found me the same question in a different body. First a few kilometres. Then half marathons. Then full ones, including a start line in Valencia that I had trained months for and that did not go the way it was supposed to. Somewhere around kilometre thirty, with everything in me arguing, I learned the difference between determination and judgement — a difference I had been measuring in systems for years without ever applying it to myself.
Speaking came last, and it came badly at first. I joined Toastmasters expecting to pick up a technique. What I found was the same test again: a room, a clock, a limit, and nowhere to hide. The first speeches were rough. So I did what I do with a failing system. I measured. I found where it broke — pace collapsing at the emotional moments, breath running out on the line that mattered most — and I worked on that specific thing rather than on being generally more confident.
That is the method behind “The Cost of Yes”, the speech I carried through area, division and district rounds in 2026 — rebuilt between every contest, and all three versions now sitting on this page for anyone to compare. It is what I brought to New Horizons Toastmasters Club in Amman as Vice President Public Relations and then as President, and to District 105 as Assistant Director for Club Growth. And it is why, in May 2026, I was standing on a stage in Abu Dhabi.
Along the way something shifted. I stopped enjoying the winning part most. What I actually wanted was the moment a nervous member finishes their first speech and looks up — the moment someone finds out they have more room than they thought. That is why I now build workshops instead of only speeches, and why I take a microphone at other people's events rather than only my own.
So: why do I speak? Because I spend my working life finding out where things break, and I would rather help people find their limits on purpose, in a room where it is safe to, than by accident at kilometre thirty.
