New Accredited Speakers Exemplify Resilience

Lauren Parsons, DTM, and Maureen Zappala, DTM, earned the coveted title of Accredited Speaker (AS) at the 2024 Toastmasters International Convention in Anaheim, California, becoming the 94th and 95th candidates to achieve the designation since the AS program began in 1981.

The AS designation is given to professional speakers who combine expert knowledge in a particular subject with mastery of the spoken word. It’s the highest-earned designation recognized by Toastmasters. Applicants must pass two levels of judging, including a live convention presentation.

As unlikely as it might seem now, both Parsons and Zappala have grappled with letdowns and self-doubt during their speaking careers. Both have felt the sting of failure and the warmth of appreciative audiences. Each shared messages of resilience and self-awareness, peppered with insight and humor, in their final-round AS speeches.

 

Accredited Speaker Lauren Parsons

Lauren Parsons

“I want to create a positive ripple in the world,” says Parsons, who joined Toastmasters in 2014 in Canberra, Australia, and is now a member of the PN Advanced Toastmasters club in Palmerston North, New Zealand. She’s an author, television host, and renowned expert and speaker (including giving a TEDx Talk) on workplace well-being. She’s also been recognized as New Zealand’s 2023–2024 Keynote Speaker and Educator of the Year by the Professional Speakers Association.

Parsons’ “positive ripple” became a formidable wave of an AS speech, as she told the convention audience of a devastating flood that swept through their family home and Parson’s home office, and how her family gathered the resilience to “not just survive but truly thrive,” a phrase she used as the title of her AS speech. Positive thoughts were unthinkable at first, as they watched muddy water flow into their home. Dealing with the lengthy list of recovery tasks was like “juggling balls that felt like boulders,” Parsons said.

Yet love, gratitude, staying active, and being present—resiliency principles Parsons has shared with audiences for decades—repeatedly proved their validity as the family united to navigate the storm life had thrown their way.

“What this flood taught me is that these principles really do work, and you have to apply them, even if you don’t feel like it,” Parsons noted in her speech. Resiliency, she added, “doesn’t come from luck. It’s a skill you can learn.”

 

 

“I wouldn’t wish a flood on anyone, but I’m grateful for the lessons we’ve learned and the blessing of sticking together through all the ups and downs.”

Connecting With the Crowd

As she presented her AS speech during the Anaheim convention, Parsons’ connection with the audience was obvious; they listened intently, laughed vigorously, and eagerly joined calls for audience participation. The response delighted Parsons, who knows that “putting the audience first is everything.”

In her blog post “The Journey to Becoming an Accredited Speaker,” Parsons notes that not every step in her quest to earn the AS designation was easy—or pleasant. In 2021, she made it to the second-level presentation, which was held online that year due to COVID. She didn’t receive the award. The loss hurt; however, she eventually saw the situation’s silver lining.

“Fear of failure can stop you in your tracks, which is why we’ve got to learn to carry that fear with us and have the courage to turn up anyway,” she wrote in an article in New Zealand’s Good magazine. “You are not your results. Whether you win or lose … whether they say ‘yes’ or ‘not yet’ … you are still you. You are amazing just the way you are.”

 

Accredited Speaker Maureen Zappala

Maureen Zappala

Zappala is a longtime professional speaker and expert on impostor syndrome. She became both because, despite her professional achievements, her inner career critic would often tell her she was a phony and not nearly as capable as those around her.

“I had to talk myself out of my own impostor syndrome, so my first audience was myself,” she laughs. It’s an unusual confession for a woman who knew from age 7 that she wanted to be an engineer and went on to a notable career as a rocket scientist.

Zappala earned a degree in mechanical engineering and began her “dream job” at 22, as a project engineer and later Facility Manager for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Propulsion System Laboratory at the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. She loved the job but struggled with self-doubt when she compared herself to her impressive colleagues. How could she ever think of herself as a peer, or a valued contributor to the work?

Over time, Zappala learned that her “fraud fears” were symptoms of a thought pattern held by thousands of people—impostor syndrome. She wanted to break free of it and support others in making “peace with their impostor” so they could finally see the unique qualities in themselves that were already obvious to those around them. 

 

 

 

Speaking and Solutions

Zappala is an inaugural licensed associate with the Impostor Syndrome Institute, which bills itself as the world’s leading source of impostor syndrome solutions since 1983. Earning the AS designation has been especially gratifying, Zappala says, as it’s a rigorous program designed just for Toastmasters. She credits the organization with influencing her speaking life since she first joined in 1999. 

She credits Toastmasters for helping her hone speaking skills and providing decades of evaluations, stage time, and practice before real audiences from the club level to the international stage. As a member, she’s won well over 50 speech contests and advanced twice (2009 and 2020) to the final round of the International Speech Contest: the World Championship of Public Speaking. She has belonged to several clubs and is now a member of Henderson Toasters in Henderson, Nevada.

 

Zappala is known for bringing practical solutions and, often, belly-laugh humor to her speeches. Her AS speech, “Confidence is NOT Rocket Science,” was no exception, and earned her a standing ovation.