It was dark, rainy, and cold. I was standing alone, on the sidewalk, on a busy street just north of Istanbul’s Taksim. I had forgotten my umbrella at home, so the wind was blowing the rain into my face. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and typed a text to Aytuğ:

“We got a place. Let’s get our people together and call our first meeting. Gotta go home, more details later.”

The place I was referring to was the Korean-Turkish Association’s office in Elmadağ, a neighborhood just north of Taksim. One of our first members, Ceyhun Choi, knew someone who knew someone, and they thought we might be able to meet there. Ceyhun had just called me to tell me they had said yes. I don’t know why I was standing out in the rain, maybe it was because Ceyhun wanted to meet them alone or something.

That was how the first home of Istanbul Toastmasters was found. We only lasted there, at the Korean-Turkish Association, for a month. They didn’t like our hours, so they kicked us out. But it was enough to get started.

Istanbul Toastmasters is still alive and well today, 18 years later. At one point it was the largest Toastmasters club in the world, with 100 members. I can’t claim to have done that, though. That was someone else, like maybe Alper Rozanes (my podcast co-host), or maybe the president who came after him.

(I stopped being a member about 8 years ago.)

Anyway, the reason I mention this is that that group of people was one of the most dynamic, interesting groups of people I’ve ever known. One of the early members was Şebnem Dağ Güven, now the CCO (Chief Commercial Officer) at iyzico, a Turkish payments processor. A few months ago, we did a podcast episode with Şebnem, and in this short she talks about the process she walks her teams through when they are preparing for a sales call: