On March 3, Micheline Cummings appeared on the daytime show hosted by Rachael Ray, the perky TV chef who first gained notoriety with her Food Network programs. Micheline (“It’s pronounced like the tire company”) runs her own custom cake shop, but she wasn’t on Ray’s show because the two share common culinary ground. Her presence was tied to a fear of public speaking – and how to overcome it.
So, naturally, Toastmasters played a starring role.
In many ways, Cummings’ story is the type that’s familiar to any Toastmaster: The 35-year-old has long been terrified of the prospect of talking in front of people – to the point where it held her back professionally. But in another way, her situation is starkly different: The New Yorker participated in her first Toastmasters meeting under the scrutiny of a United States television audience.
At the meeting of the SEC Roughriders in New York City, Cummings took a turn at Table Topics, then later gave a short talk about her business – Madame Butterfly Cakes. As painfully nerve-wracking as it was, Cummings says that successfully participating in the Toastmasters meeting – simply surviving the speaking experience — was a huge confidence builder. She says it has marked a turning point for her.
“I was on such a high after that meeting,” Cummings says, “I thought, ‘I did it! I didn’t fall apart.’ I was so happy. I was so amazed. I thought, ‘I can do anything now.’”
Madame Butterfly emerges
Since 2002, Cummings, a self-taught cake designer, has operated her shop in Babylon, New York. It has won a fiercely loyal following and been written about in several magazines. Cummings decorates diversely flavored cakes — meticulously handcrafting each one — for all kinds of special occasions.
But despite her confidence as a maker of edible art, she’s been crippled by anxiety when it comes to communicating with people. She says she’s always been highly self-conscious when meeting strangers or feeling out of place. And she admits she’s passed up business opportunities rather than veer out of her comfort zone.
For example, one of her customers has a contact at the Food Network, and for years she has urged Cummings to reach out to that person. “I’ve avoided it like the plague,” says the shop owner. Nor has Cummings wanted to teach cake-decorating classes or compete in contests.
She says she also used her boyfriend, Terry, as a business crutch. He is everything she’s not: socially confident, assertive and a talker. So when it came to business-related errands, such as visiting venues where she would be delivering cakes to a client, Cummings had Terry get out of the car and do all the interacting, ask all the questions.
“I realized I was using him like a front man,” she says.
A Friend, a Pep Talk and…
One day Cummings’ good friend came into the shop.
“She’s very outgoing and we got into this discussion about my fear of public speaking and how it’s kept me from doing certain things. She gave me a pep talk: She said, ‘You’re 35; it’s time to get past it; don’t let it stop you from doing the things you want.’”
The very next day, as fate would have it, Cummings heard about a contest being sponsored by the Rachael Ray program: The show wanted to help someone with a fear of public speaking. So she decided to be brave, take a chance and send in an entry form.
Two weeks later, she received a call. The Rachael Ray Show had selected her.
Screen Tests
Ray recruited the actress Valerie Bertinelli to help Cummings conquer her fear. Bertinelli gave her particular challenges to help her grow and gain confidence. Cummings didn’t know what any of the activities would be before she arrived at them. One was visiting a hypnotist, and another was participating in an improvisation class with a group of actors.
The third challenge sent her to Toastmasters. Cummings arrived at the downtown New York building on February 13, and after a while of waiting and wondering what she was there for, she was introduced to Jerry Wolf, president of the SEC Roughriders. He welcomed her to Toastmasters. Suddenly, Cummings’ mind was racing. Toastmasters?
“I thought, ‘Am I going to a toaster convention?” she recalls. “Then my brain sort of kicked in. ‘Toastmasters, wait, I know that phrase — one of my customers told me about it. Her brother is a member in California, I think.’”
While the cameras rolled, Cummings watched the Toastmasters meeting in rapt attention. Then came Table Topics, and suddenly she was called on to answer a question. The topic? “Octomom” – the California woman who sparked major media attention and controversy after giving birth to octuplets earlier this year.
Cummings decided to try responding. She stood up…and couldn’t think of a word to say.
“I had a moment of intense panic,” she says, “but then a little bit came to me. And then everything clicked, and I started speaking, and I was shocked that I was speaking and making sense, actually, and I was proud of the fact that my hands weren’t shaking.”
In fact, she spoke for a full two minutes.
Toward the end of the meeting, Cummings spoke again. She gave a short talk about her business career: how she got into cake decorating, started Madame Butterfly and what other ventures she has pursued. As was clear to both club members and TV viewers, Cummings displayed a warm, likeable manner and a gently self-deprecating sense of humor — even poking fun of her own nervousness.
Rande Gedaliah, a veteran member of the Roughriders, presented an evaluation, mainly so Cummings could have some feedback before tackling her final challenge: giving a speech about her custom cake business on the Rachael Ray Show.
“I mainly pointed out her courage, her humor and the fact that we couldn’t tell she was nervous because she was always smiling,” Gedaliah says. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of her.”
Cummings feels a new sense of confidence and ambition.
“I’m playing around with the idea now of going ahead and teaching classes and maybe having an interactive presence — putting myself out there in a bigger way to interact with people and teach,” she says.
She also plans to join a Toastmasters club in her area.
“I really feel that I gained so much from going through that Toastmasters meeting and actually standing there being part of that group,” Cummings says of her TV experience.
“I know that if I can gain so much from Toastmasters that there are so many other people who could gain from it, too.”
