Dancing My Dance (My Keynote speech at the Division F Toastmasters Conference, 2023)

 It was during my senior one when there was a huge dance competition to which I entered. There was a dance which I had been rehearsing and that no matter the song they played, I would dance my dance. And that is how I won. No matter wat tune they played, I knew my dance.

Next week, I will be dancing in Milan, addressing young professionals on the need to integrate art into the corporate space.

Next month, I shall receive an invitation from the UN Secretary General to deliver a keynote address on education and epistemics. Do you know why? It’s because when you know your dance, you will become recognized all over the world.

Preparing the teams for the dance, Uganda Toastmasters Annual Conference, 2023

Receiving an appreciation certificate for my keynote address. Photo by Edgar Batte.

Addressing close to 180 participants at the Division F Toastmasters Uganda Conference, 2023.

Live Science explains that babies learn to dance, even before they learn to speak. They move in rhythm to the music that is around them. When they grow older, they begin to understand what it means to develop their own tune and dance and that is what they call purpose.

Today I stand here content. My cup is brimming. My heart is scintillating with the symphony of a supernova. And that is because I have completed my race here in Toastmasters. From January 2016 when I sat next to Gilbert Rutebemberwa from Kampala Toastmasters Club and paid my membership fee, I determined to experience Toastmasters as purposefully as I possibly could.

That conviction carried the weight of a winner and the burden of brilliance. That conviction led me to stages where I sat and discussed with brilliant minds, while at the same time I was met with treachery and arduous hours pondering over my decision.

One of those decisions was starting Bukoto Toastmasters Club. So much of my personal life was inflicted in this process, and there were days and weeks where I questioned my quest for success.

Some members of Bukoto Toastmasters Club

Serving as the first Ugandan on the District Cabinet as the Public Relations Manager and founding the Sauti ya Toastmasters Newsletter, brought endless joy and with it, ceaseless anguish.

After seven years of navigating this journey, I know that those who lives their lives with purpose, will walk a path that will become unbearable but with confidence, with timeless drive, they shall say with contentment, that this particular journey is over and it’s time for another space.

This is my journey and not yours. This dance is mine and not yours. Some members have been Toastmasters for five years and they are still unsure why they are here. Convincing themselves that the busier they are, the closer their purpose will avail. Busyness does not necessarily equal productivity.

 

To identify why you are here and who you are, it necessitates lessening your activities and not increasing them. Look at the five main competencies from Toastmasters. Public Speaking. Do you still speak while unsure, or are you filled with certitude. Excellent communication influences excellent leadership. Possibly, the reason you are still stuck after five years is because you have not yet mastered this skill. Or, after delivering one great speech you stopped practicing.

With Baldwin Okello, Bukoto Toastmasters, runner up in the Evaluation contest

Confidence, another competency, comes from practice. The more you practice, the greater your confidence. Compare the day you learned to swim, to now.

Interpersonal communication. I have learned that when I move my faith, my need for validation disappears. Are you dancing everyone else’s dance, because you desire their validation? Move my faith. Learn your own dance. And remember, the people whose validation you seek, do not care about you at all.

 

The true leaders, honest in their journey, will never make you feel small, they will lift you and guide you. If anyone makes you feel like you do not deserve them, actually does not deserve you. Walk away. Strategic leadership. With Toastmasters, I learned how to lead with people who were so driven by their inflated egos that strategically, I decided to give them a platform where they would star in their own film, until they realized that the only audience was themselves and until they learned the lesson themselves that Toastmasters was not a stage with one spotlight, but it was a ray of different lights made up of individuals, clubs, divisions and the district.

My first mentor by choice, because the one assigned to me left Toastmasters after a while. My first mentor by choice in Toastmasters, was Philippa Nanyondo Byamah, who now heads Blue Hearts DFCU Toastmasters. She's firm, kind and encouraged me to reach my best, always guiding on the basics of Toastmasters until I firmed my grip.

Each time I receive an award  from the Distinuished Toastmaster award and others for my recognition, Philippa is amongst the first to cheer me on. I have had mentors whom, upon realizing my excellence, are threatened by my verve, brilliance and ability and in vain and futile effort, thwart opportunities. These type of mentors are insecure and I have learnt to veer from their energy.

 

I have also learned to stop saving people. Some people need to learn their lessons on their own. If you keep on saving people like a glorified baby-sitter, then your self esteem needs checking.

Maybe that’s why you’re stuck. You’re still holding the hand of someone who has relentlessly refused to budge. The best thing for you is to let them go. They will learn better when you let them go.

 

Each of us is more useful by doing three great things, than fifteen small things. You are dancing so many dances, instead of developing your own, that nobody even knows what you really stand for. You may justify it by declaring the Toastmasters promise but you also made a promise to yourself, a vow, to be the best. You cannot be the best, if you’re still wallowing with the rest.

 

Your talents, energy and God-given abilities, are resources for the main plan for your life. By saying yes to every single task, you are abandoning who you are.

I leave behind a team of notable leaders who shall manage the District newsletter, even more successfully that I ever did. To run the race, is to run forward.

Erik Erikson was an American German ego psychologist who developed one of the most popular and influential theories of development. While his theory was impacted by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's work. Erikson's theory centered on psychosocial development rather than psychosexual development.

Each stage of our lives, paves the way for periods of development. In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a turning point in development.

In Erikson's view, these conflicts are centered on either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. During these times, the potential for personal growth is high but so is the potential for failure. At each stage of your Toastmasters journey, are you developing or retrogressing? Maybe that’ s why you’re stuck and others are growing.  Become unstuck. Learn your dance.

If people successfully deal with the conflict, they emerge from the stage with psychological strengths that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.

Erikson also believed that a sense of competence motivates behaviours and actions. Each stage in Erikson's theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life.

Let us all at the stage of life we are in. I will represent this stage of Toastmasters. Have you mastered yourself enough and your journey here, enough to confidently say, “I have run the race?”

Next week, I will be dancing in Milan, addressing young professionals on the need to integrate art into the corporate space.

Next month, I shall receive an invitation from the UN Secretary General to deliver a keynote address on education and epistemics. Do you know why? It’s because I am dancing my dance and I thank Toastmasters for showing me the various tunes to my life, to make all that I desire, possible.

Thanks to our Division F Director, Jesse Ainebyoona, Agnes Tushabe the Conference Convenor, Ann Marie Nakimera the head of finance and admin, Joy Talemwa who ran the publicity, to the entire Division F Council, sponsors and all participants. Huge appreciation!

Toastmasters at the Uganda Conference, 2023.

All photos by Edgar Batte.

 

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What's The Story of Your Birth?

 I was brought into this world by metallic fingers that yanked me out of my mother's womb. What a strong woman!

It was difficult. I was difficult.

 A sign. 

Wait...a sign? What sign? And who's giving the signal?

Those were some of the versions surrounding my birth. That Saturday night, Ward 6 at Mulago Hospital.

 

My life, marred by difficulty, has also seen diamonds formed from coal and because I desire it to, continues to experience laughter, dance and blessings. 

What was your birth like?

Was there a sign, some convoluted narrative? 

Or was it a well-meaning prophecy that you've seen unfold?

 What were you told? That labour pangs hit in the middle of an important decisive exam, or that it was the result of a tempestuous romance? ⚡

Was there no room in the inn?

Whatever happened, you're here now.

The Nnabagereka of Buganda, Queen Sylvia Nagginda Luswata. Now, that was a birth. Under no circumstance was her birth filled with signs and wonders of a Queen in waiting. 👑

Photo by Edgar Batte

Born in England in 1962 to unwed parents who were students, given up for adoption at just a few months and then raised by her grandparents.

What part of that story tells you that there was a Queen in waiting?

How about you? What was the story of your birth?

What was the story of your childhood?

And what's your story today? Remember, you're in the middle of God's work. 

I was highly blessed to receive an advanced copy of The Nnaabagerekea's captivating biography.

A story that weaves from the unknown until it dispels onto a fascinating surface, written by Dr. Dennis Sempebwa (PhD), Pastor, Speaker, Leadership Trainer, formerly with the gospel group, Limit X.

When copies hit the bookstores, buy yours immediately.

Bless!

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva, March 2023.

Please, say No

 Please, Say No.

Every responsible parent asks their child if they need help with their homework, hoping against hope that once in a while, the child will say no.

Every responsible employer asks their employees if they need help with a task, hoping against hope that once in a while, they will say no.

Every responsible team leader asks their team members if they need help with support with a task, hoping against hope that once in a while, they will say no.

Photo taken during a Babishai Poetry Training, 2017.

We’ve all done it. We tell them to reach out, tell them not to sit on their difficulty and that we have an open door policy. We mean to be kind, we really do. There are just those times when you need an extra ten minutes to kick back, close your eyes and think of nothing except day dream. You want to have an extra time in the bathroom without someone knocking on the door, with an urgent need. You want to take your tea while seated, not spilling it on your clothes and on the floor, because someone urgently needs you.

Yes, every responsible parent asks their child if they need help with their homework and yet we hope that once in a while, they will say no. Maybe they do say no, and they say it often and then we feel irrelevant in their lives.

Where do we find the balance? Do we want our staff members to never have to lean on us. It may mean that we have fully equipped them, or it could mean that they do not find us useful.

Keep on being  a responsible team leader and ask them if they need help.

Keep on being a responsible parent.

And don’t scald yourself with hot tea. Learn to take ten minutes break, long baths and long walks too.

 

Breakfast at Eden Camp in Pader, during the Rich Diction 'You and Your World' Trip.

Bless!

 

Beverley

When A Woman Meets A Woman, For The First Time

When A Woman Meets A Woman, For The First Time

In my senior one, I won a whopping Three Thousand Shillings (just slightly less than a US dollar now). Then, it felt like I had won a Hundred Thousand shillings.

It was a school dance competition at the famous all girls school, Gayaza High. Even before I showed my dance moves to the sea of onlookers, whose faces I couldn’t make out in the dark, I already knew which dance moves I would use, no matter the song they played.

And that is how I won. I won, because in my mind, no matter what they played, I had my dance ready. It’s a lesson I use in life. I am always ready to dance. It wasn’t the prize that mattered, as much as what it represented. The entertainment prefect at the time, Susan Nsibirwa, met me on the school compound and said, ‘Beverley, Congratulations, here is your prize.’ As she handed me the money, I knew that I had sat in the place of privilege.

An A-level prefect had walked up to me and spoken to me, without the need for me to fling myself off the pavement, which has always been an unwritten code. Senior ones never walked in the path of their ‘elders.’

There are some women you meet for the first time and they give you a seat of honour. Susan was one of them.

My favourite type of woman, is also the one who makes me understand that the two of us, in that moment, are enough. It may be a phone call, a lunch, a female client, or someone I meet on a taxi.

Early March, I served as an adjudicator at Kampala International School Uganda's Poetry Slam. The talent there is potent and mind-blowingly impressive. The English department staff told me that Tusiime Tutu was my co-adjudicator. Concentrating on the programme and filling in notes while waiting for the contest t begin, I see her walking in. With her Karamoja beads, short stylish kinky curls and dressed in a comfortable way that also says, ‘I am content with who I am and I love life,’ I immediately felt at ease.

And indeed, as we chatted and pored over the poets’ deliveries, never at any moment, did I feel I needed to impress her in order to feel I would fit into her life. The most confident people are those who put others at ease. The people with the highest self-esteem, are those you are able to rely on. And we relied on each other’s skills, to deliver our results.

To the women whom we meet for the first time who mix the red in their white to create pink and who mix the yellow and brown to make the gold, Happy Women’s Day.

 

Bless!

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

Demystifying The Universe of Motivational Speakers

 Each of us has a list of speakers we return to when we need a boost of energy, an inspiration for the day, an affirmation from a YouTube stranger whom we now call friend, to tell us that we are able to achieve the impossible. 

Increasingly, many of us feel that without that daily dose, we are unable to function. They are the life-line, the oxygen and the one that calms the storm in our tempestuous lives.

When did God not become enough? 

Or was it the mushrooming churches and pastors that caused so much befuddlement, we needed to turn to people who spoke a language that gave us that warmth and fuzzy feeling again, that gave us specific direction on how we needed to smile, dress, and even think, in order to live our best lives.

Is it possible that we are becoming addicted to this? 

Is it possible that the line between our ability and our insatiable appetite to seek advice from a known or unknown person, has been blurred and we find ourselves incapacitated without them close to us, breathing near us, their messages inscribed on our WhatsApp statuses and Twitter feeds?

 

According to Speakers Associates, the top motivational speakers, a list decided by a variety of factors, like popularity, impact, number of bookings, books sold and so on, with some subjectivity, places Oprah Winfrey at the top. 

The world’s leading talk show host, first amongst firsts in the billionaire world, media and so much.

A close second is Bear Grylls, an adventurer, writer and TV presenter who has been to the North Pole, climbed Mount Everest and crossed the Pacific Ocean in a rowboat. 

Nick Vujicic, an evangelist born without arms or legs who inspires the world to continue living their best despite their circumstances.

What is similar amongst these? They have achieved what the world would have deemed as impossible. For Nick, by any standard, he was not meant to become successful and yet he beat the insurmountable odds to become everyone’s favourite chum.

Bear Grylls has borne every possible human impossibility in extreme physical conditions and overcome.

Oprah, facing discrimination and abuse from early childhood, has risen and continues to rise. The connection; each of them overcame, they built brands and their life stories are highly admirable, leaving us with the knowledge and relief that we too have it within us.

Uncle Mo, who is easily one of Uganda’s most intelligent comedians, says of some motivational speakers, that we should be wary of those who speak of the possibilities of wealth, who dress in threadbare clothes and shoes, or whose lives are riddled by debt and questionable career reputations.

Motivational Speakers are not above reproach, far be it.

We must agree though, that they do hold a consistent life filled with courage, charm and breaking of barriers, and it appears that they do it mostly for themselves. That is what makes them appealing.

They are experts in an area. They are learners; hungry for knowledge. They travel. And, what makes us run to their corner of the internet most, is their ability to connect with us, as they share their stories, their escapades and their aspirations. It’s almost as if they seek our permission, or as if they are inviting us into their world of winners.

I am a speaker. I’m not sure which category of speakers. Come this Saturday, on 11 March at Silver Springs Hotel in Bugolobi, 9am. My keynote address is on inward leadership, the inward journey that makes the outward journey successful. The fee is only 70,000 UGX.

Great week!

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

 

 

I was disqualified from the ‘Children’s Olympics’, at the age of 8.

 

I was disqualified from the ‘Children’s Olympics’, at the age of 8.

 

I must have been 8 years old, during which, a pupil at Child’s Hill School, which still stands there on Dersingham Road, this time with an electric gate, I was the fastest girl in my class.

Selected amongst dozens of others, to represent the school in a form of children’s Olympic-like event, was an honour. To me though, I was all butterflies, moths and mosquitoes buzzing in my stomach. That morning, I gulped down raw egg and orange, which my P.E teacher said would boost my energy. Holding my nose and closing my eyes, I gulped down this concoction of yuck and torture.

It wasn’t the Olympics, of course but it was a grand sports event. The bleachers were filled with spectators, the stadium was either an actual Olympics size, or half. I was eight and while my memory remains fuzzy, I do recall the hundreds of people and that all runners were taken to a specific place for preps.

Sizing out my competition, I was neither petrified nor confident, because of the butterflies. My mum was somewhere nearby, I think. I don’t even remember how I got there. I do remember the raw egg and orange juice.

A few of our school-mates and teachers came to wish me the best. It was time for us to walk to our places. There were many eyes. The painted lines could have fit three of us, they were huge. Only 100 metres, I think, or at least it was a distance I had run many times and won. It may have been less than 100 metres, since we were only 8 or 9 years old.

Why did everything appear so different? Everything was ten times the size of Child’s Hill School. Even the adults appeared more domineering.

Each of us girls, about six or eight altogether, stood by our places. I wore a number 13 bib and the Japanese girl next to me, wore a number 30.

Why was I given 13? Everyone who lived in the eighties, in the Northern Hemisphere, knew that 13 was an unlucky number of that time.

I had run this distance many times and always won. Why did today seem so different?

The clapper went and we began running. There was a short curly-haired girl who led the line. She was a speedy Gonzales. Three others were ahead of me. I don’t know how. Looking behind me, I saw the Japanese girl directly behind. What!

Didn’t she know that we were each supposed to stay in our own lanes? We started doing our own zig-zag dance. She, trying to overtake me and me running right in front of her, until the end of the race. I must have emerged 4^th. At least I beat No. 30.

And that’s when I heard the announcer say,

“Number 13 has been disqualified.”

What! No. Surely he meant No. 30.

My P.E teacher came and put her hands around me. Well Bev, well done but you were disqualified.

“No Miss, he said No. 30!”

One of the sports officials came and explained to me, with N0. 30 in tears, that I was running in her lane, which led to my disqualification.

I went home and shared my version of events. That I would have been the first or second if Number 30 was not in my lane.

I want to share this with my children, without forcing a life lesson. Sometimes a story is for entertainment.

And I’ll never take raw egg and orange juice together, again.