Ever felt stuck in your development as a leader? Have you ever noticed how the best leaders – you know, the ones you really respect – tend to also be great communicators? Would you like get unstuck? If so, read ahead to learn the correlation, and learn how you can make one change and see [...]
READ MORE »When you speak to a friend or your boss, do you simply talk for 30-minutes without a pause? Do you ask a list of questions and proceed without hearing any answers? Do you read slides to him/her the whole time? If you answered “no”to these questions, you’re probably normal in that regard. But, would the [...]
READ MORE »Have you ever taken in more information that you can process? Some of the notes below may be familiar to you if you’ve read my blog before, or if you’ve studied with the Toastmasters World Champions of Public Speaking. There are some new thoughts, some mindset changes, and some of the best advice you’ll ever [...]
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Tonight, for the first time, I was a guest speaker at a college graduation. The ITT graduation ceremony at the Century II Center in Wichita, Kansas. It was a unique experience. 1. I’ve never spoke with the blinding stage lights before. 2. The whole event went much quicker than I expected. 3. The students seemed [...]
READ MORE »Have you been practicing? Working on your contest speech? Did you manage to win your club, area or division contest? You probably did it one of two ways. Either you are beyond awesome, which means you aren’t even bothering to read this anyway, or you did it despite a few minor imperfections. If you were [...]
READ MORE »Editor’s note: this post is a compliation of my notes for the morning. I’ll edit it in the next couple of days for better clarity. The day started with Ed Tate leading his customary “Follow the Leader” opening that involved some dancing, along with whatever it is that I do that is like dancing. Yes, [...]
READ MORE »Have you found times as a speakers where you made a mistake, even though you already knew how to avoid that mistake? I recently gave a session to about 50 people, and three lessons I didn’t follow have made me realize that I need to make some adjustments before my next presentation. Last weekend I [...]
READ MORE »I know many Toastmasters who tell me they struggle to come up with a topic for their next speech. For me, I just use questions I’m asked and the answers I have to dig up/find/glean for them. One of those questions is on Leadership. Many times when I’m asked to define what Toastmasters is, it’s [...]
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Today, Toastmasters International held its Annual Speech Contest here at the convention (We also had a business meeting this morning, but an evil virus ate that post…sorry). Crowned the 2010 World Champion of Public Speaking was David Henderson, with his speech titled The Aviators. Why did David win? I think that beyond the obvious speaking [...]
READ MORE »Are you a member who struggles to understand (or care about) the Distinguished Club Program? Imagine yourself at a running track, and all of your Toastmasters club members are there too. You are there to improve your communication, leadership and running skills. You join at the starting line, and you receive your CC and CL manuals. Around the corner [...]
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