Fast Results through Powerful Communication
It’s amazing what can happen when someone overhears something out of context. Frankly, some of the word choices we make can be improved significantly, mainly the way we talk about ourselves. A lot of us are guilty of self-depreciation — I tend to use it a lot in my classes just to add some humor and levity to the class. But I’ve seen some people take it a bit far where their entire personality is dumping on themselves. It’s not the best way to become a confident and successful person.
One of the things I’ve learned recently as I’ve started to seriously workout again is that achieving a goal is a lot less complex than we make it out to be. Really, there are three basic steps: set the goal, create the action plan and then follow through with it. As I’m sure you can guess, most people fail on one of the last two steps.
Okay, you might have noticed that I haven’t blogged in a while — a long while. Was I too busy? Something bad happened? No ideas for writing? Well, fortunately nothing bad (at least nothing too bad) has happened and I have a lot of ideas for writing. But truthfully, I’ve been really busy with a lot of other things going on my life and I’ve been rethinking a lot of things. I know, sounds heavy but don’t worry — it’s nothing too crazy.
The big change in my life is that I started seriously working out. You may wonder what that means as it can mean practically anything. To me, it means a structured weekly workout programs created with targeted goals in mind. In my case, I have some pretty particular goals for how I want to look and feel so I train seven days a week with a mix of cardio and weights. Today, I just completed day 52 and it feels great.
When I was an instructor in graduate school, the syllabus I handed out to my students had a part that said “there’s no such thing as a dumb question. The only dumb question is the one you didn’t ask.” Having just finished my undergraduate studies, I knew this statement was garbage. I explained my thoughts to the person who insisted we put it in the syllabus, but she insisted that I was wrong. It wasn’t long before my point was proven.
In one of my classes, I was explaining how we’d be learning to use the internet – a relatively new concept back in 1996. One student raised his hand and asked “are we going to look at porn?” I replied by pointing out the dumb question quote in the syllabus and thanked him for helping me prove my point.
Whether it’s a goal, resolution or something in your life has made it you no longer able to procrastinate it away, you’ve decided to finally attend a Toastmasters meeting. If you keep in mind that the two biggest social fears are public speaking and meeting new people, you can probably see that going to a Toastmasters meeting for the first time is a double challenge. So here’s some of the advice that I give to those who attend my public speaking classes that are interested in Toastmasters. Much of this advice is applicable to attending any club meeting for the first time — I share most of this with those who attend my Networking classes.
Okay, so you want to learn about Toastmasters but feel overwhelmed with all the information out there. Well, here’s a cheat sheet to help you learn what you need to know about this member-run organization.
History:
Clubs:
I don’t usually put personal posts on this blog but given that I haven’t posted anything in a while, I figured it’s time to at least let you all know that I’m still alive. Like most people in the US (and especially in the Northeast where we literally have wicked weather), December is a busy time for me. On the personal side, I celebrate Christmas and several birthdays of close relatives and friends. And this year was especially hectic because I actually did some traveling — I spent ten days at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.