Why public speaking?

Here's a great article I found about public speaking:

http://www.freetoasthost.org/A_Quick_Guide_to_Public_Speaking.html

Exactly explains why anybody should bother about honing their public speaking skills. A few additional points on why I myself have joined the Toastmasters club, an organisation for developing your speaking skills:

1) Effective public speaking not only helps you in your career by giving you that edge over your colleagues, it also helps in every other facet of your life, in your relations (as I have been learning myself), in your friends, everytime you interact with people. Because as they say, "Man is a social animal" and You have to have good communication skills to make your presence effective in your society!

2) Different people speak different languages and have their own accents while conversing in English. Its unarguably useful to be able to understand what the other person is saying, without getting bogged down by his/her heavy or different accent. Atleast for me, this has been a strong motivation to join Toastmasters, ever since I moved to the US of A! We Indians are not at all used to the heavy American accent!

3) To carry forth my second point, A good conversationalist is always a Good listener first. I have myself being a very impatient listener in the past. Listening to other speakers in the club, performing small roles like checking grammer and verbal cliches, and taking part in the club activities, i believe, will definitely improve my listening skills.

Enough for a good motivation to myself! Yeah, I am happy I joined the toastmasters. I am already on my path of being a confident speaker.