Fairmont Toastmasters Club

[Tareq Hawwa]

Tareq Hawwa: Icebreaker Speech "Flying" (Mar 16, 2005)

Introduction:

"He grew up in a small house with a loving family. He is the eldest of four brothers and has always taken the responsibility but has always been the shy and more reserved among them. Tareq studied in one school and went to one university after which he decided to leave home and travel to the United Kingdom to complete his post graduate studies. From there he never came back home. Home for Tareq has been 4 continents and 7 countries since age 21.

Married with three children (two of which are twins a boy and a girl), Tareq strongly believes that the only reason he exist is to make his family happy and provide what they need. Tareq joined Fairmont corporate office in mid February this year as Director Operations Accounting coming from The Fairmont Dubai where he was the Financial Controller.

It might have taken Tareq a good initiative to join the "Fairmont Toastmasters Club" but it took him even more courage to volunteer from his first session to do this speech today. Please join me in welcoming Tareq Hawwa for his first speech at our Fairmont Toastmasters Club titled "FLYING".

Speech Script

Flying

Toastmaster, fellow toastmaster and guests.


In the beginning I had a dream and the dream I had was in the beginning.

My dream was to fly and fly high in the sky.

I studied hard and read magazines and kept in touch with the powers to be.
My father worked at the national airline for over 20 years and he had a lot of friends that promised to take me onboard and even pay for my pilot training tuition. They had one condition that I had to pass the medical, physical as well as the mental and written exams.

Everything was fine until I made the medical exam and my life was turned upside down. I failed the eye exam and I had to wear glasses. This meant that I couldn’t fly. Not Then, not Now and not Ever.

Anyone else would have been in a very difficult state of mind. If you have lived all your teenage just dreaming about one thing and for me that thing was becoming a pilot and fly an airplane. I will share with you something that I didn’t share with anyone before. On that night when I knew, I went to the beach alone and walked for a long time. My tears started to pour. I couldn’t stop myself. Let’s keep this between you and me because I never shared this with any soul before. My conduct was “Beyond the Pale”.

But I didn’t want to be a failure. No not me. I joined the university and studied Environmental Health and proudly achieved my Bachelors of Science degree. I was top of my class and received an honorary award from the dean. I couldn’t stop thinking that this was not enough. Deep inside me I felt that I was missing something. Deep inside me I felt that I still failed. I failed to fly.

I insisted on doing something more challenging and dangerous than flying. I decided to learn diving (not scuba diving, not for fun but real commercial diving). Deep sea diving welding oil pipelines, fixing ship hulls and using photographic and other equipment under the water.

I had to fly to the UK to do a medical and physical exam in order to satisfy the requirements. My heart was pounding and I thought if I fail in this again, I don’t know what I can do next to get myself out of the hole that I’m digging to myself.

My eyes were still the same and the medical exam was the same but wait don’t feel bad for me because neither I felt bad for myself nor did my instructor who told me that diving is different than flying because goggles under water are the same as glasses above and I have no problem in seeing under water.

You cannot imagine the joy that I had. I called my loved ones and told them that I succeeded. I told them that I made it. I went for one whole month to a training school in the cold of March in Plymouth, England. I spent most of the month in the sea, shall I say under the sea. I enjoyed every minute of it and learnt that success can only come from inside me. I swam under the water where there was quiet and peace. Every day I used to put my diving gear on and jump from the ship into the sea with a big smile on my face. And I made it, I got the highest certificate in the world in deep sea diving.

So, as you see accountants are not always boring, as they seem because behind each one of us is a story and that story might surprise if not shock you. If you want to know how I ended up working for a hotel company and in accounting, please stick around in our Fairmont Toastmasters Club and I’m sure I’m going to tell you my story one way or another.