I see a lot of motivational quotes from my friends on the various social media services that are related to living life to its fullest or making the most out of your day. Thinking like this is a great attitude to have but it is one of those things that are easier said than done. After all, we often get caught up with our day to day tasks and by the time we get around to making the most out of our day, it’s practically time for bed.
Speech contests are a huge part of Toastmasters and can be interesting to watch. While I’ve never competed, I’ve had the pleasure of acting as contest master and chief judge (on separate occasions, of course) and have really enjoyed being a part of them. But the big question about speech contests is whether or not it’s worth all the time and effort.
Like anything, it really depends on your goals. I know people that make thousands of dollars for each speaking engagement they do, yet have never participated in a speaking contest. I also know of people who have won the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking that haven’t been able to leverage their win to create a successful speaking career. But on the flip side, I know people that haven’t participated in contests that have struggled to make a career out of speaking and people that have won contests and have done well for themselves. And of course, there are thousands of us in between.
I love video games (it’s one of my few addictions) and one of the ways games become exciting is the concept of a power-up. A power-up can be something that you earn (such as completing a task in a short amount of time) or that you find out of pure luck (looking in a container). Power-ups can give you special powers, send you to a bonus level or let you jump ahead so that you’re further along in the game. To add to the challenge of a game, many power-ups disappear after a few seconds or if you move off the screen, so you need to get to them right away — many gamers risk their lives (within the game) to get certain power-ups.
Over the past fifteen or so years, I’ve interviewed probably hundreds of job applicants. Some have been in person while others have been phone screens to weed out potential duds. I’ve even volunteered to help friends by mocking interviewing them. If there’s one thing that truly astounded me in each of these job interview situations, it was how many of these people barely did any preparation (and some did none at all).
If there’s one thing we can learn from our politicians, it’s that you should always be on your best behavior because someone is always watching — especially now since most people carry cell phones that capable of taking still pictures and many can even capture high definition video. To spin that around and look on the bright side, that also means that you have a lot more opportunities than you often realize.
In my public speaking classes, one of the first things I teach is that you won’t improve your speaking skills unless you get up in front of an audience and speak. I was sharing this story recently at a networking event and a friend said to me “wait a second, don’t you sell CDs and books about speaking?” When I confirmed that I did, he asked then how do I expect anyone to buy them.
When most people see the term “system” they associate it to something complicated or in the personal development world, something you need to buy. In reality, systems are simply a set of steps to follow and creating systems is a powerful way to become more efficient by minimizing the duplication of effort.
I have systems for a lot of the things I do professionally – and I’m always tweaking them and adding more. Sometimes my bigger systems have smaller ones within them. For example, I have a system for creating a new course and within that, there are systems for creating the audio program for the course as well as the course workbook.