*~*~*

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Welcome Changes Radio with Bo Bennett

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Help us reach our goal of 10,000 listeners! 

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Show Topic:  Year to Success

Who is Bo Bennett?

Bo Bennett is a business man, author, programmer, philanthropist, martial artist, motivational speaker, amateur comedian, and most of all a husband and a father devoted to improving the lives of others. After selling his first company of significant value, Bo began writing Year To Success, the most comprehensive book ever written on success, based on his experiences, thoughts, and timeless success principles. Year to Success is a book Donald Trump calls, “an inspiration to every person who reads it.”

His website is http://www.yeartosuccess.com.

See you there!

Invite Your Friends!

Show up live, and you can win a copy of "Juicy Bites of Welcome Changes"! Be sure to stay in the chat room AFTER the show. You must be there to win!

Upcoming Shows:
October 14, 2008: Cheryl Simone
October 21, 2008: Suzanne Burns
October 28, 2008: Lynn Andrews
November 4, 208: Guy Finley

Download Past Shows:
http://www.welcomechangesradio.com/downloads

Help Welcome Changes Radio touch lives across the world!
Share it with your friends!
http://www.welcomechangesradio.com
(Use the Email buttons with each page and post!)

Show Topic:  Year to Success

Who is Bo Bennett?

Bo Bennett is a business man, author, programmer, philanthropist, martial artist, motivational speaker, amateur comedian, and most of all a husband and a father devoted to improving the lives of others. After selling his first company of significant value, Bo began writing Year To Success, the most comprehensive book ever written on success, based on his experiences, thoughts, and timeless success principles. Year to Success is a book Donald Trump calls, “an inspiration to every person who reads it.”

His website is http://www.yeartosuccess.com.

See you there!

Invite Your Friends!

Show up live, and you can win a copy of "Juicy Bites of Welcome Changes"! Be sure to stay in the chat room AFTER the show. You must be there to win!

Upcoming Shows:
October 14, 2008: Cheryl Simone
October 21, 2008: Suzanne Burns
October 28, 2008: Lynn Andrews
November 4, 208: Guy Finley

Download Past Shows:
http://www.welcomechangesradio.com/downloads

Help Welcome Changes Radio touch lives across the world!
Share it with your friends!
http://www.welcomechangesradio.com
(Use the Email buttons with each page and post!)

Investor Alert!!!>>>>>>Great deals in Florida!! Do you want one?

Good Morning Investors,

I am blessed to be with you another morning to give you advice that only intelligent investors pick up on.  I leave out for a two city trip that starts in Florida and ends in Charlotte, North Carolina.  This trip will be quite lucrative for my students.  We will be purchasing beautiful lots in Florida that we will purchase at historic lows and sit on them for a few years.  We are also open to selling them to anyone who would love to have lot for a bargain basement price. (email me at cljones2008 for a great lot at yesteryears price. )

Hopefully, you understand the value of land.  If you own all the land, you will truly become an intelligent investor with options. (Let's face it, the good lord isn't making anymore land.)

Here are a few options:

• hold it in your self directed ira
• build your dream home on it
• lease it
• sell the trees for cash
• sell it with owner financing
• sell it to reia members

Any of these options can be very profitable if you have the right knowledge!  Education is why my students are cashing $10,000.00 checks (remember Maria?).  Members of my network get the absolute best education and support on how to construct the very best deals in the industry.  Respond to this blog if you would like more information on the CL Jones Real Estate Network.

Economy

Don't let this economy take you out!  Your thoughts have brought you to this precise point in your life.  Knowledge and action will take you to the next point in your life.  Learn about self directed IRA's. The tax free benefits will make your family very wealthy.

Equity Trust Company

I can say it enough, Equity Trust Company has helped transform my business, and my life.  It as allowed me to have freedom and control over my life.  I have eliminated most of the chaos (still working on it....lol).  I now get tax deferred and tax free profits on my real estate deals.  ETC has allowed me to really live my dream of traveling and buying real estate on a regular basis.  I also get to help many people by telling them about the benefits of Equity Trust Company vs the stock market.  I don't see why anyone would keep their money in the market when ETC can help make sure that you never lose your money again.

Word to the Wise

There really isn't any reason for you to struggle with finances anymore.  You can open up an account with Equity Trust Company for as little as $500.00.  I am going to give you a "golden nugget" right now.  Call ETC today and ask for Jeff Walker.  He can be reached at 1-888-382-4727 ext 169.  I believe Jeff's hours are 10am -5pm cst  Monday -Friday.  Tell him CL Jones sent you.

Here is my closing thought for today:

To get what you never had, you have to do what you've never done"  - unknown

Hopefully this blog will help inspire you to take action today.  Maybe you will be my next student to cash a $10, 000 check.

until tomorrow,

Keep God 1st, Invest in People

CL Jones

Since the club bag was with me I asked Vivek to pick it up before the meeting. He pleaded me a lot to come for the meeting but I did not heed to his words.Vivek was worried that only two contestants are available for todays contest. Being a active member of a less active clubs requires extra energy and Vivek has plenty of it. That makes him a lot better.It was Sastha and Vivek who kept pinging me and dragged me to todays meet. I was attending it after a making a deal that I will only participate in evaluation contest.

Hari was the contest chair and he was briefing the participants and there were five of them. Hope Sastha and Vivek told all the other speakers the same thing that they told me to make this contest happen. Lalitha Mam opened the meet describing the contests and handed it over to the contest chief judge Sastha. Sastha - Young in age but senior in experience; He passed on the stage to Hari who was the contest chair. Ranjith from caterpillar toastmasters was the designated speaker and his speech was challenging enough to evaluate.

Once again It was made clear to me that I need to concentrate more on my presentation skills. I had my points on evaluation clear but couldnt present it well and missed out lot of points which I had noted down in paper. Later I had a chit chat with veteran Ravi on how evaluations should be organized. He suggested to model it as any other speech with an introduction,body and conclusion. Evaluation is one of the most important art in toastmaster since its the place where we learn to appreciate and also criticize others constructively both of which are must in any corporate situation and we certainly do less of both. Among the contestants Vivek alone was close to toastmaster standards and I feel we need to improve a lot in standards.

Next was humorous contest and RamPrasad was the first to open.He was also a instant speaker today but that was rarely evident in his speech. He had narrated a story on why Honesty is not the best policy. He brought out humour at regular intervals by narrating a finely woven story on career. Especially the way he quoted about the job in the middle of street - traffic controller drove non stop laughter in us. It was amazing to see him turn the serious tale on career in to a humorous speech. Rest of the speakers including me were betting on some well circulated jokes and nothing appealed much.

Nina Mam flashed in towards the end and was asked to give an inspiring speech which she did to her best as usual. "It up to you to come to toastmasters with a teaspoon/mug/bucket ...... toastmaster has lot to offer!". That for sure would have inspired us to bring big containers to toastmasters next time:).She also insisted that toastmasters is not just for communication skills but also a place to groom leadership skills. Yep Sastha and Vivek were testimonials to it. You should have asked them how they felt for pulling todays show from almost an impossible stage. Vivek and RamPrasad were winners of the day. But it was the Toastmasters movement which is the real winner which brought in people like Lalitha,Hari,Ravi,Thomas Sir to make this event happen. Also not to mention SasthaRam and Vivek must be the happiest hearts back home. I was also equally happy for participating in it rather than my earlier decision of skipping it.

Toastmaster is synonymous to non-stop learning! As Nina Mam said the more you involve in it the more you reap from it.So true.!Let me wish my club members all the best for the area contest ahead!

It is no secret that one of the best ways for authors to sell books is at speaking engagements. Becoming a published author stamps you as an "expert" on your non-fiction subject and there are eager audiences everywhere ready to listen to you.

Join Stephens Press author and pro-speaker Judi Moreo for an evening of in-the-know tips and tricks in the world of professional presentations.

In this exciting program, Judi will answer your questions about: How to get started ~ What makes a great speech ~ How to choose a title ~ What you should do to minimize disasters ~ How people will find out about you ~ Whether or not you should buy advertising or hire a pr firm ~ What promotional materials you will need ~ How much you should invest ~ How much you can make ~ What is product and how you can get it?

Powerhouse Pros Toastmasters
U. S. Bank Building, 11th Floor
West Sahara and Rancho Drive
Las Vegas ~ 6:15 pm ~ October 6th

Email pamela_shinkle@yahoo.com to reserve your seat.

The meeting was scheduled to start at 5:00 but because Maliha's brownies weren't out of the oven in time she was late - others had better reasons except for Arshad who was there on time.  We all need to learn a lot from him and how he manages his time. Incidentally his prepared speech on the day was also on time management. Other prepared speakers were Saad and Suhail with Altaf presenting his Ice Breaker speech.

The meeting was well arranged as usual by Nauman and started off also beautifully. Arshad recited a prayer from the Quran which was followed by a prayer for those affected by the blast, and for peace in general.
Clouds of sadness were hovering on the meeting, Asim was unable to come as he like so many people working at Software Park were busy rummaging through the debris trying to pick the threads of life and of our economy - its sad, sad what pain and suffering humans inflict upon humans. but life must go on. No matter how painful, day follows night and night day.

Maliha was Toastmaster of the evening, Table Topic Master was Saad with very lovely ideas to speak on like being Gulliver. Sarah ( our next regular guest ! ) had us in stitches over her Lilliputian 1, Lilliputian 2 and Lilliputian 3 - she would have gone on and on had it not been for the red light. Nauman ( who was also the time keeper) informed that all qualified by time and was voted as the best speaker.

The next part of the meeting was prepared speeches, Suhail was voted as the best speaker with his grasp on his objectives he modulated his voice and added expressions and pauses very beautifully.

Evaluations were hurried a bit because of Iftar time drawing closer each day. Mujahid evaluated Arsha's speech, Maliha Suhail's, Suhail Saad's and Saad evaluated Altaf's Ice Breaker. Maliha was voted as the
best evaluator.

We did not get to vote for the Big 3.

We were quite enjoying the one dish Iftar parties that we have. every step of our lives teach us something, like we have learned that Shahid's wife makes excellent dahi-bara, and that he is a maestro with drinks, we had a very interesting cocktail-fruit- puch cum bubble-up - Shahid you must christen it. Samosa, Pakora, Khajoor, Brownies, Qeema samoosa and H2O made us hover around the table for after prayers as well. Arshad is also our unofficial Imam, while the Masjid is setup by yours truly.

We hope we see better days and meet in better circumstances - looking forward to meeting you on 9th October 2008 at an Eid Milan Party.

That saying has always been true for me.

I just finished writing a post that talked about our thought for the week being "Peace of Mind."  The card suggested to the reader that:  No matter what goes on in your life, maintain your inner sense of peace.  (Good advice for the times we live in!)

I wrote the the post, added some fuel treatment to my gas tank, stopped to get more gas, and left for a breakfast meeting.  On approach to the Interstate, my car stalled.  I have an old car with carbon buildup that we're working on eliminating, so I thought I just hadn't added enough fuel treatment to the gasoline.

Called my brother.  He was too far away to be of assistance.  Called the mechanic.  He said, "Yes, get Roadside Assistance to bring gas.  If that's not it, we'll work on something else."  (We've been working on it since December, but my Ford Escort has 196,000 miles on it and didn't have any problems until this year, which is actually amazing.  The most I typically do for Old Blue is pat him on the dash and tell him he's doing a great job.  My friend, Henrietta, actually jumped started him once using only Reiki.

Anyway, the Road Service guy, got there in the allotted 40 minutes.  But he said it was the fuel pump, which I just replaced in December.  While waiting for the tow truck, my Toastmaster buddy, David, called.  I told him what was going on.

"Can I help?"  were his words.  Spoken like a true Toastmaster and Southern Gentleman.

"Naw, I said independently, "tow truck is on it's way {an hour estimated arrival time.}  At least I'm not a Hurrican Ike victim, or dying of cancer or having a limb amputated.  As a hypnotist, I hope I know how to not sweat the small stuff."

"Right," said always agreeable David.  "I'm surprised you didn't hypnotize the car."

So this lesson is:  Don't sweat the small stuff.  If you do, bad things tend to snowball out of control.  If you stay focused, they will turn around. 

Gotta go!  Here comes the tow truck.

I hope this blog blesses everyone who reads this today.  Its seems that folks all over the country are freaking out because they don't know what to do in this chaotic time.  Most people have invested their money in the stock market.  Many people have lost there life savings.  The sad thing is that their brokers(salesmen) are telling them to wait it out. 

Don't Wait!

 Everyday people are being told that the market will come back around.  Folks, the market will come back around, but are you just going to sit there and wait?  Now is the time to educate yourself and stop listening what the so called experts are telling you to do.  I have said this many times, and I will say it until the day I die..............Learn how to invest your own money! 

Stop listening to your so called broker.  No one is going to look out for your family like you will!  Take back your power and surround yourself with people who are in the "know". 

I thank God that I have taken the time to educate myself to the point where the market has had NO affect on my investments.  I have my funds invested in a self directed IRA with Equity Trust Company.  ETC allows me to do my real estate transactions inside of my sep account, coverdell, HSA (health savings account), roth, and traditional accounts.  Most of my profits are tax free!!  Please take the time to email me so I can let you in on some of my insider secrets to investing with ETC.

Options          

There are so many options that you are unaware of, I would like to see you build a real estate empire for your family.  Get the right knowledge and mingle with the right people.   I would be more than glad to help you get started in the right direction.  Email me for more info at cljones2008@gmail.com

What are you waiting for to change your life?   Everything you need is right in front of you.  All you have to do is ask God for what you want, and then take action on it.  The lord blesses you through other people.

Until next time,                    

Keep God 1st, Invest in People              

CL Jones

I know I talk a lot about speeches and toastmasters but as I tell people about my speaking and toastmasters it's quite surprising the amount of people who've never heard of the organisation and know nothing about it.

It's not simply about picking a topic and then getting up and talking about it, there is a plan and a set of projects and for each project the aim is to learn something new, learn a new techique or style of presenting a talk or speech. And this is what I've done. The first three were about getting up there, organising your speech and making sure you get straight to the point and don't waffle too much, so  not too bad or challenging.

This fourth one was interesting, it was all about using descriptive words and good language, which sounds to me like the perfect opportunity for a story but that's not all, another requirement is to use short sharp sentences, not big long rambling ones which doesn't fit in with my idea of a story. When I tell a story I do long rambling descriptive sentences, they're great and an ideal way to draw an audience into a story.

But it got me to thinking, would it be possible for me to tell a story using quick short sentences, would I be able to rise to the challenge? I've probably mentioned how different my written and spoken words can be, something that works really well written down (in this blog for instance) has the wrong rythym for the spoken word and the whole transition of a written speech to a spoken speech is quite an interesting transformation in itself.

This time doubly so, I had to convey a sense of drama and athmosphere in the shortest sentences I could manage. It was difficult at first but once I came up with the seven lines that I used as a beginning and end, I had a model I could work from, a template.

Using this template I created a non-typical speech for myself, told in a completely new manner, it was a true challenge. One comment given was that it was too rehearsed, it didn't flow enough and that's very true, it was such a different way of speaking that I wanted to have it down-pat, I didn't adlib like I usually do, as it might not have fit into the tone of the story, instead I stuck to the delicately crafted script and it worked really well.

Too well, I was given another suggestion that I should try something new, something challenging!

So I learnt something new, if you're going to do something challenging, try to at least look challenged, if not and you instead overcome your challenge successfully and subtly then people may not realise that you were challenging yourself!

Friday is the next challenge. This time the emphasis of the speech is to incorporate body language into your speech, it's also the humourous speech competition, I'd be interested to see how the audience reacts to the speech, it could be really funny or it could fall flat on its face, there's a delicate line between playing it dead-pan and being treated seriously, maybe I need to throw in a little slapstick....

The images are all in my mind's eye as I plan and observe the skies, assessing the light and the possibilities, the chances for the perfect shot. This morning on the train, about five minutes outside Utrecht, I had the perfect picture. Well, perfect except for the fact I was speeding along in a train without a camera but it was beautiful all the same.

My photography club has a competition running through the year, it's made up of a set of monthly competitions. The theme for the October is Sunset/Sunrise and at the moment my focus is on these changeover times, this morning's lovely image of the sun shining through misty trees is something I'd like to try and capture as a sunrise shot.

I've already made an attempt on a sunset shot though I'm not so happy with it. It was on a beach in the west of the country where they had an International Kite Festival. I soon lost interest in the kites (too high, too fast, too boring) but there was plenty more to catch my eye , the most exciting being a full set of photos of people silhouetted against a golden sea...

More words are the ones that I speak on my way to and from the train station. I've found that time it takes to walk to the station is just the right amount of time to practice a speech. I have another Toastmaster speech scheduled for this Saturday afternoon, my fourth and this time I'll be telling people about the journey taken back to the Base Camp by the three men Scott hadn't thought good enough to go all the way to the Pole.

My speech giving doesn't end there, next Friday we have the Humorous speech competition and so since for some reason I think I'm funny, I will be speaking then too. If someone had suggested six months ago that I would be giving two speeches in the space of a week and getting excited by the prospect, I would never have believed it but here I am, working on these two speeches and getting ideas for more all the time!

Words and images fill my days.

Takalah was another man who has a life story to inspire. Check it out in the link below:

http://www.inspiring-quotes-and-stories.com/takalah-tan.html

And I invited him to my club to give an inspiring speech.

And I made my speech too on that day! I spoke about my experience on my first ever public speaking contest which I took part last year!

You saw that white shirt guy? We both are the Vice-President (Education) of our club!

Wow, so that's how I look like when I gave a speech?!?! How serious...

If only I had got my haircut then!

Ten years, twenty years or thirty years down the road, maybe I can even end up being a motivational speaker!

I've been in Toastmasters for just over a year now and greatly enjoying it. When it came time to elect a new executive for my club, several of the more experienced members suggested quite strongly that I take the post of VP Education. Now something like that takes a lot of time to do right and really my extra time right now should be dedicated to getting a job. Added to which, when I do get a job who knows if I'm even going to be able to make it to the meetings at 7pm, let alone have the time to dedicate to a VP role. So I decided not to get myself involved in the executive and stood firm.

In a way it was lucky I did because I'm now taking an evening course on my Toastmasters night so I won't be attending any club meetings at all for three months!

We have a new Toastmasters club forming in my neighbourhood with a specific focus on business and technology people. "Perfect," I thought, "let's go network there". So I attended a couple of meetings as a guest during the summer. One of the experienced Toastmasters mentoring that club took me aside and asked me if I was interested in being the new Area Governor. Whoa! That's a heck of a vote of confidence (or desperation *LOL*) - but also something that sounds quite exciting. The Area Governor is responsible for serving the needs of the clubs in their Area (in our case, 6 clubs), visiting them and motivating them.  Despite my reluctance to be on my own club's executive, I did consider this for a bit. But again, it's a commitment of time and energy that should be going somewhere else so I said no.

Fast forward a month... and one of the experienced members of my club announces that she's decided to accept the offer of becoming the new Area Governor. Good for her!

Fast forward another month... and I get a frantic 3am email from our new Area Governor begging me to help her out as she's too busy to do it all herself. Of course put like that, that's a request that I can't turn down... and so I'm now Assistant Area Governor.

What does this mean for me? Well, I've attended a couple of Toastmasters training sessions, networked with a lot of experienced Toastmasters. I've also become a regular at our new still-getting-off-the-ground club, taking on whatever roles are vacant to help make sure they've got enough experienced people to conduct each meeting. And last week I visited two other established clubs in our area, with my official hat on.

A club visit is a major thing. It takes preparation (contact the club president, find out about the club, find out what the president's direction is for the club, prepare a presentation that fits along with that), then the visit itself, then a meeting with the president afterwards to discuss things face to face, then a write-up, a thank-you email and some form-filling.

Historically speaking, all the clubs in our area have kept themselves to themselves - not a lot of contact between them. Which is a shame because I find you get a lot more out of Toastmasters if you're listening to different speakers, and it's more of a challenge for you when you're presenting to strangers. So one of the things that I personally want to do this year (and fortunately our Area Governor wants the same thing too!) is encourage the clubs to communicate with each other. Get some of the members to drop in on other meetings, maybe organise a debating contest or two between clubs... that sort of thing.

My club visits went very well. Both clubs are stable and well run. Both clubs would like to have more contact with the other clubs in the area. I'm greatly looking forward to facilitating that!

For this speech, I don't particularly want to follow the rubric I've followed for the other speech posts. It leads to long posts, maybe too long, and I don't feel like making a long one right now.

Suffice it to say that this speech was clever when written, mediocre(at best) when delivered. I did use a visual aid - the muffin worked out well as it rested on the podium next to me.

Here is the speech, as written. Time limitations(7 minutes, after all) forced me to cut parts, I won't tell which parts were cut, you'll have to have been there:

A few days ago, as I was browsing an online food forum I came across a study that takes a curious look at the human condition. In the study, titled "Muffin Consumption Characteristics as Correlative to Normative Attributes" Drs. Boris Glib and Felicia Brautigan took a group of 100 subjects, and had them each consume identical chocolate chip muffins. After the study, each subject was given a questionnaire to answer. Their findings were published in the scholarly journal Culinary Sociology. I'd like to share their results with you, but before I do that, we'll take a quick tour of some related research.

Though I have yet to find a study quite like the muffin study, in the 1890s and 1900s Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov carried out his now famous experiments on the conditioned reflexes of dogs where food was combined with another stimuli to make dogs salivate. After a time, the food was removed and the stimuli by itself was able to arouse the dogs interest. This research has subsequently been applied to several branches of psychology. Doing a survey of food-related research is beyond the scope of this speech, but rest assured that bulimia, anorexia, irritable bowel syndrome are all being actively studied - but what do they have in common besides food? Negativity. I was drawn to the muffin-eaters experiment because it used food as a means to tell us something about ourselves, rather than working to fix a problem.

In the muffin study, the experimenters separated the subjects into "eating styles" base on how they consumed the muffin. In the course of comparing the "eating styles," Drs. Glib and Brautigan found some fascinating connections. (here I insert and audience participation section). By far, the most common "eating style"(59%) was to consume the muffin top first, gradually moving down. The second most common "style"(21%) was to eat around the edges first. The third "style"(14%) was to take off the wrap and eat the bottom first. 4% of the subjects did not fit into any of these patterns. As I describe the characteristics of these 4 groups, think about where you would fit into this spectrum.

The subjects who did not fit under any pattern varied greatly in responding to the questionnaire. The largest number of blank spaces were left by this group. Contrary to the other groups, wool was chosen by the majority of the respondents, over cotton. "Instinctual," "shiftless" and "fay" were words found in the responses of this group. They were most likely to prioritize family and had a slightly higher regard for money over inanimate objects. About half of the subjects in the non-pattern group had pets, including several parrots and a mongoose.

The 14% of subjects that unwrapped and ate the bottom of the muffin first tended to have the least commonality within their group. When asked to choose between wool and cotton, many opted to write-in other options including polyester, denim and "camouflage". This group described themselves with words like "exciting," "creative," "special" and "extemporaneous." Four subjects in this group who marked "unique" as one of their characteristics prioritized art over money and immediate family. They also felt inanimate objects were generally less important than the natural environment. In the same vain, the subjects in this group almost exclusively did not keep household pets, opting to support the zoo instead.

The second largest group, which ate around the edges first, most often described themselves as "planners," "schedulers," and "future-oriented". Though despite a focus on the future, the second group as a whole did not enjoy venturing into the unknown. These people prioritized balance and stability over fast-pace or excitement, even to the point of preferring to stay home rather than go to a horse race, or a Nicholas Cage movie, even if offered free tickets. Like the first group, they preferred cotton over wool. As far as pets, they were unlikely to go beyond small fresh-water fish, however, many were most comfortable with plants.

Among the largest group, there was a definite preference for cotton fabric over wool. Aside from this, people who ate their muffin top first were more likely to dive into tasks with minimal preparation. They ranked immediate family over money, but money over fourth cousins twice removed in terms of priorities. Nearly all of them had pets of some sort, mostly cats and dogs -- one subject, however, had a pot-bellied pig and a guinea pig.

Clearly, the muffin study cannot be dissected in a short speech so I won't try. Instead I will leave you with three short thoughts. Firstly, finding a scholarly study done about such a pedestrian act as muffin-eating made me consider how every moment of our lives can be impregnated with deep meaning, especially by PhDs. Second, though they were categorized by how they ate muffins, the subjects were incredibly different, more so than I expected. Finally, the absurdity of the muffin study amused and astounded me. I love muffins, especially chocolate chip muffins, and I eat them from the sides, but should that mean anything to you? I'm thinking now, "what defines me?" Is it the color of my shirt? My astrological sign? The books I read? Or is it how I eat muffins? And beyond muffins, I pause to consider...Who we are.

Responses were varied. I did get a few laughs even though I endeavored to keep a straight face the whole - except one - time. A few people interpreted the speech as a sort of raspberry to academia; that I was satirizing the occasionally kooky world of theory and experimentation, which don't always have much to give in terms of real-world contribution. I think this is an astute interpretation, though one I didn't intend when I wrote "The Muffin-Eaters". I merely like muffins and figured I'd write a speech about what it means to eat them.

On a more serious note, my delivery of this speech was way below the standard I set for myself. This is my seventh speech in around as many months as a Toastmaster member(that's approximately 12 meetings). The reason I didn't do well is simple, not enough rehearsal. I read the speech out loud a few times, and silently a bunch of times, and now I know that the only way for me to give an excellent delivery is to say the speech out loud around twenty times. This is a ballpark figure, but it's a good aim, as far as methods go. Throughout these seven speeches, as has been documented in this blog, I've been trying different methods of preparations, from nearly zero, to a whole bunch - varied ways, from in my head, to written etc. At this point, I can reiterate that one thing is currently set: I must practice giving a speech out loud around twenty times before performance. This is the way for me to deliver it effectively. Less will not do.

I've already started writing the next speech I'm going to deliver on October 1st. The big subject is creativity. It's going to be a good one.

Post about Lawrence Clark Powell's speaking to follow soon.

I was there in advance - to put up the banners and the placards. Managing people and sharing -rather making people do their work is the most demanding challenge to the human hood and you can learn a plenty of them when you are in toast masters. When I was checking with everyone whether I can start I was told that when the clock strikers four its my decision to start leaving others worries to them! Thats a real nugget - its the sign of better men management like that chinese cliche about fish.

I fumbled while starting the meeting since I didnt prepare quite enough for it. I forgot to mention to mute the mobile phones and when fellow toastmasters shown symbolic gestures I didnt get it quick enough. Thanks for the toastmasters to bear my mistakes and i guess this new role is beautiful. I am the first speaker and the face of toastmasters for the next one year. That excites me for sure.

Vivek was the stand-in president and the enthusiastic Zac was our toastmaster of the day.He spoke on how general electric did his hiring. Enthusiasm - energy - energize -execution were the four E's they look for when you go to them for a job. I liiked that energize part.

Aditya- the youngest president among all the clubs in the universe was our general evaluator for the day. Krishna Prasad was our joke master and he spoke about the mom who tried hard to send her troubled child to school. We couldnt stop laughing when the mom asked her child not to try to play any truants - "Son you are 52 years old and you are the principal of the school."

When it came to the prepared speeches I observed a good practise. Zac first mentioned the speech and asked the evaluator to read out its objectives only after which he read out the speakers name. Thanks. I was struggling with this.!

Gaurav Jain did his ice breaker - and his life should be inspiring. Unconventionally he has chose to work very early in life and he has already started reaching up the ladder. He seems to have the niche to speak and I will be very glad seeing him realize his ability and giving some awesome speech.

Anupam -The man of determination told us the story of Abhinav Bhindra for his project-5 .It was a perfect topic for the speech "No Pain No Gain" . Words really started flowing from his mouth at a point. "No body had belief in him except him". Those were the only words I wish to take home that evening. Thats inspiring Dr.Anupam.

Sastha Ram - Was presenting his project nine. The man has a commending authority and he spoke on "What right do you have ". He enacted a conversation first - dropped it there went on to the greetings and back in the introduction he referred to the conversation and that was magical. His presentation was good and could have been a world famous speech if he had little more care for the content to be aligned with his objective. When I spoke later with him I found that he had a noble objective but couldnt find time to put that together. All the best man. Would like to hear the same speech with your best abilities for I know that its going to be one of the best.

I am going to write a separate post on Table Topics since it would extend the already lengthy description.

Lalitha - the sympathetic evaluator did a great job evaluating Jain. Hari was inspiring Anupam and Ravi was sharp on target and didnt have even sweet coating for his pills! (Thats Ravi for you !) Overall that was three different evaluations each standing as one of the reasons why you should attend toastmasters.

Sastha was the best speaker and Lailitha was the best evaluator of the day. With that the president closed the meeting and we had a business meeting after the meet.

Our next meet is on Oct-4. We meet at Anna Nagar towers club Chennai. If you are inclined to check it out drop me a mail @ peerlessdeepaks@gmail.com.

Now, maybe some of you have never heard about such a thing and are wondering what it means- I know I had no idea when I first heard about it...so let me give you some background information first:

From a humble beginning in 1924 at the YMCA in Santa Ana, California, Toastmasters International has grown to become a world leader in helping people become more competent and comfortable in front of an audience. The nonprofit organization now has nearly 235,000 members in 11,700 clubs in 92 countries!!, offering a proven – and enjoyable! – way to practice and hone communication and leadership skills.

Now, what is truly great about ToastMaster is that anybody can join- and in some clubs most of the members are actually Managers, Executives, Business People, Lawyers- who wants to learn and improve their public speaking skills.

The environment is a friendly and fun one...you receive feedback after each presentation so that you can improve...and each member has a manual with different assignments in the form of different speeches: sales speech, toast speech, informative speech, news speech, etc. Quite complex.

Before going there I had a good image of my public speaking skills...NOW I know that I have so MUCH MORE to learn and practice!

And the FUNNIEST moment during each meeting is when the Table Topics contest takes place...meaning all the participants in the contest go and pull a topic (last night the topics were related to the F1), and then has to speak about it ON THE SPOT!!

I guarantee you that is not an easy thing to do...having 20 pair of eyes stare at you while you look at the note and sometimes hardly understand what you are supposed to talk about! :)

Last night, for example, I pulled out: "What would you do if you met Lewis driving on the East Coast Speedway?"...firstly, I had no idea who was Lewis?!?

Somebody helped me: "He is the driver from McLaren!"...aha, now I had no other excuse...I HAD to start speaking!...so, with an hesitant "ahhhh" (by the way, there is somebody who counts how many "ah-s" you say- so one extra thing to have in mind!!)...I started speaking...and in the end it turned out that I spoke quite well because they gave me the award for the best Table Topic... hoooorey!!!

So, to draw a conclusion...ToastMaster is a great platform for anybody who wants to practice his public speaking skills...and certainly a good idea to have in Romania as well. I am sure that in the next year it will develop as well, because business people especially need it LIKE AIR!

PS Should you want to start a club in Romania: http://www.toastmasters.org/FindaClub/StartAClub.aspx ;)

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Have you ever had such moment? You felt you were completely numbed and dumped ... you were out of your wit.... your sweat dripping on your back, your throat was dry...so dry that you wanted to swallow something - the final bit of your slaver, but there was nothing left in your mouth to swallow, you wanted to listen, but you can’t hear, … you felt dizzy in your head, but more to the point, you were angry in your heart, there were hundreds and thousands of thoughts in your mind, but you could barely pronounce a phrase, you could not even utter a word…

My fellow Toastmasters, that was how I felt on one particular night 15 years ago, a day before New Year’s Eve at 12th Floor of American Express Board Room – There were seven of us, I stood in the middle of podium. I was mentally and physically tired, my head was down, my eyes was looking at the ground, my jaw was really tight, I was not sure if I had tears swells in my eyes, but I fought back my tears so hard that I bite my lips into blood. It was supposed to be an one hour uplifting feedback session, but it dragged for two hours and the reason for that extra hour was my another 6 fellow managers were not so satisfied with my solutions and resolutions to the things that I needed to improve as I was the youngest supervisor in the team, the feedback session was run by the big boss – a lady who later changed my life forever, she made the rule that no meeting she run could end without an outcome. In this case, I had to produce an "action plan" that was convincing enough for my fellow managers that I can and will improve for the list of things you now have seen below:

- think far too slow
- do not know how to ask better questions
- can not say no to requests that are not important
- do not know how to prioritize
- not reading enough
- good language skill - he thinks
- too many phone calls
- don't know how to think logically
- (sorry the list was long, I cut short from 2 pages of note here to spare my readers)

For those of you who experienced 360 degree feedback or called multi-rater assessment, can relate to this. You read such a report? You think that was tough to read, welcome to my first multi-griller experience, the list you have seen in my were the words they said about me, [not anonymously and typed neatly in a printed report but said into mine face loudly and directly] , and the reason that session went into two hours because I could not give any convincing answers to the questions my team managers demanded, and for the last 30 minutes of that 2 hours, I was simply beaten down, speechless, dying, and hoping the big boss would called it a day.

My manager, Rebecca, finally spoke for me: “Joanna, maybe we should stop here…”. Instead of responding to my manager, Joanna, the big boss, looking at my direction and said “This meeting can not end without a result” “If Andrew is as good as he thought he is and if he knows what ‘respect for others’ is, it is up to him to close this meeting, he has already wasted an hour of our time, I don’t mind losing another one, we will stay until Andrew can persuade us that our precious time with him is not wasted” I was peeking at Rebecca, I could feel she was trying to save me from this ‘brutal slaughtering of a human soul’, but there was nothing she could do for me - I was alone, completely alone.

I almost paralyzed with a stiffen neck and a pair of weaken feet & I thought I was about to pass out but I did not, another 10 minutes of silence passed, absolutely silent. Finally the big boss handed her mercy upon me by asking me to copy down all the lists from the flipcharts (seen below) and submit her with my resolutions in next 12 hours. Meeting adjourned at last. I was in the room alone, and I stayed in that board room for another 10 minutes, nobody came to me to say anything. I went back to my cubicle and found an e-mail sent from my big boss.

“Dear Andrew,

You are now probably very confused, even very upset for what has happened in our feedback session just now, you are probably wondering why we treated you like this, and I can imagine you are still thinking – we don't know you well enough to say these things to you, we do not deserve the right to judge you. No, we don’t know you well enough, that was why we needed your self-insights to help us to help you and I was very disappointed by the way you responded. Instead of thinking we were giving you a hard time, I am hoping that you would appreciate why on earth we stayed there two hours just for you even when you have nothing in return, we stayed there for two hours, because we cared enough, because we cared enough and wanting you to change so much that you can be successful, not us. We have stayed with you even you seems have already given yourself up. Please be honest to yourself as we are being honest to you and again, and one thing that I do wish - you would have the capacity to feel why we have done this for you, instead of thinking what we have done to you - Joanna"

I stared at the last line of my IBM screen and I could not hold my tears anymore, I decided to let it go, and after a few minutes of tears sucking and drying exercise, I regained enough energy to complete my ‘resolution for improvement’ before the New Year's Eve. It was 6 am when I walked out of office.

Was this big boss ruthless with no heart? Quite a contrary, she is the most generous leaders I have met in my life, this was the same lady who later made me study overseas, who let me stay in her HK big mansion while she was away, who later certified me of all kinds of NLP and assessment tools. During these 15 years of time, she has been my first manager, first instructor, first thinker who taught me how to think, and now I’m good enough to respond to any of her questions and inquiries in 5 seconds, after attending hundred rounds of table topic sessions at the Toastmasters meetings. So, 15 years ago, in that feedback session board room, I was not alone. And the reason I felt I was alone at the meeting was that I was too stupid and egotistical to see it. I was not alone after all. Believe in yourself is good, sometimes we need to believe in others who believe in us!

Toastmasters of the Evening.

post note:

1) people who know me less than 10 years probably will have hard time to image me as very introverted person that each time my boss asked me a question, I seldom can respond in 5 minutes. My head was either too much stuff or completely 'blank', it took me a long time for me to learn how to think, how to think how I think. Now my problem is think too fast and act to slow...

2) this big boss has just moved to Shanghai last month, we mentioned this story I wrote here every other 3 years, she actually quite amazed how much I have changed & she though I should do a serious reflection how these transformation actually occur so that I can help other people.

3) last night in one particular moment my body seems to remember what it was felt 15 years ago when I delivered the part of reading last line of e-mail... that was very emotional response & I think some audience pick up my subtle strong emotion

I'm tagging some Toastmasters friends who were and were not there for some feedback

5 comments

Updated on Thursday

Julia Zhang wrote at 11:18pm on September 18th, 2008 I am eager to know how you could transfer yourself from previous version to present version? Bascially they are two different kinds of people. what are the specific things changed you? Delete

Phil Dorman wrote at 11:24pm on September 18th, 2008 It was a great speech Andrew. The vulnerability you talk about is such a big part of being a leader, and as you point out, it's often ignored. The word I relate to most strongly is "surrender." We have to surrender ourselves to life, as individuals and as leaders, in order to learn and grow. Often that leaves us vulnerable. It takes a very special strength to do that. A great speech, and a great learning. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability with us. Delete

Twinsen Wu wrote at 11:03am on September 19th, 2008 Andrew, The speech is very beneficial to those who have interest in helping others, what I learned is that "have faith" in everyone we encountered is very hard, but very important as a leader/coach. Myself has been through a situation when I feel helpless and even hopeless, unfortunately I did not have a good boos/mentor as you did, I recovered by looking inside myself and asking "who I am and who do I want to be". Success is getting up one more time than we fall down! Delete

Jodie Zhu wrote at 12:49am on September 20th, 2008 This is a great speach! The unexpected ending leaves people a lot to think and digest. Though we might not be as lucky as you are to have such a good leader, we are lucky to have you here to share with us this precious, thought-provoking and touching story. Delete

Rebecca Hong wrote at 3:43pm Andrew, What a great personal story and valuable message! Being a Toasmaster and once a speech contestant, I cannot help persuade you to evolve the speech to a contest speech. It will impact more people's life positively. (I know you cannot enter for contest being an Area Governor, but keep the story and wait until you are off your duty). Andrew, you write very well and very discriptively. After reading this, I wonder if spoken words definitely more powerful than written words. I just felt the story was very powerful and memorable without physically listening to it. But maybe I would have been more touched if I had been in the meeting listening to it. I look forward to hearing more stories from you. Delete

Joseph Hu wrote at 2:13pm A man must cry, at a time. Andrew, reading your story is really like I was in that room with you too.You proved once again‘男人哭吧哭吧不是罪". I haven't transformed yet simply because I cried too much in the childhood but never try it when grow up. Sometime, somewhere, I should do it, in the office, in the bedroom, or in the public! PS: Pls add me(joseph1115@hotmail.com) in ur agenda distribution list, I appealed for help from two friends of mine in ur club but I still hvn't get it, I think the president can fix it, thank U! Delete

The sing-along version of Mamma Mia was really fun. My friend and I sang through the whole thing, and we weren't the only ones in the theater raising our voices. It made an already joyful movie into an even more joyful experience, and as I was dressed for brunch in a 1940s hat I felt equal to the occasion. I love to have a chance to dress up now and then. I highly recommend the experience, and my friend plans to buy the DVD when it comes out and have a costume party to honor Abba's unique and wayward sense of fashion. It should be frightening.

The brunch I attended was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of my chapter of Toastmasters International. Each chapter of the group has a different feel to it, and I particularly like the one I attend because I find the people to be charming, supportive and interesting. Some groups are more business-like than ours, too. We have an informality about us that suits me. It was fun to get together and celebrate the chemistry we share as we improve our speaking skills. I'd recommend Toastmasters highly, and suggest that if you went to a meeting and did not like it that you might wish to try a meeting in a different place. The atmosphere may be totally different.

See you tomorrow, when I may or may not be more focused. You'll have to come back to find out.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

181.  Next time you're feeling a little bit random, just go with it. Serendipity may lead you to some amazing discoveries, or you may simply learn that it's okay when things aren't perfect and organized. Once you've spent a random day, figure out if you learned anything from the experience.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a position where we need to give a speech. Since most of us are not experienced speakers we find the prospect of having to speak before a group frightening. How does one go about becoming a better speaker? There have been many books written on public speaking and there are college classes available but neither of these will help you with developing your speaking skills as much as Toastmasters can.

Toastmasters International has been around for more than 80 years and has over 200,000 members in 11,700+ clubs in 92 countries around the world. The organization’s primary purpose is to help people become better communicators. They do this through a variety of activities by showing members how to improve their speaking abilities. More importantly they teach people how to get over their stage fright.

Local Toastmasters clubs hold meetings several times a month. The meetings provide members a forum to practice public speaking. At the meetings you’ll find fellow Toastmasters who will guide you through a process to help you improve your speaking skills.

There are four main activities at each Toastmasters meeting. They are Table Topics, Speeches, Evaluations and Awards.

Table Topics: A Table Topics Master creates questions and fires them randomly at members. The members respond to the questions by giving one to two minute long impromptu speeches. This activity forces the members to think on their feet and to respond to questions quickly.

Speeches: Typically there are at least two speeches given at each meeting. Most speeches run from five to seven minutes long. Usually the speeches are projects taken from the Toastmaster manuals. Each speech project from the manual centers on different aspects of giving speeches. For example projects may focus on vocal projection, body language, speech organization, or other elements of speech giving.

Evaluations: Each speech is evaluated by an Evaluator. The Evaluator’s job is to pay very close attention to the speaker and to give positive and negative feedback about the speaker’s speech. This is one of the most helpful activities for speakers because the evaluation helps the speaker focus on improving the things that need to be worked on.

Awards: At the end of the meeting awards are given out to the best table topics speaker, the best speaker and the best evaluator.

The meetings provide an excellent opportunity to develop your speaking abilities. I’ve attended many of them and I can say that not only did I enjoy them but I always learned something new at each meeting which helped me refine my speaking skills.

My membership with the organization began at the end of 2007 and since that time I have delivered over 10 speeches in my local club, along with participating a few dozen times in Table Topics and I have also given several speech evaluations. I highly recommend Toastmasters to anyone who wants to become a better communicator. The fees to join are very reasonable because they breakdown to less than $100 a year and I can promise you that you will get more than your money’s worth if you regularly attend meetings and participate in club activities.

Like every other activity in life you get out of it what you put into it. So the key is to attend as many Toastmaster meetings as possible to get through as many speeches as you can so that you’ll be able to advance through the communication levels. Toastmasters can do a lot for you, but you have to take the first step by attending a local club meeting.

For more information please visit www.toastmasters.org.

I placed 2nd in the evaluation contest (there were only 2 contestants).  However, I am going to continue to practice and try again next year.  That was fun.  I will be better prepared and better trained.

I had to evaluate one of our members on her speech during our Toastmasters Evaluation competition today.  I got nervous and messed up.  I don't know why I got so nervous.  I am disappointed in myself because I KNOW I can do better.  I don't know what happened.

So, I'm going to stop harking on how my evaluation went today, and work on preparing to go to the next level in the competition which is next Saturday, September 13, 2008 at West Pullman Library on 119th & Halsted.  Stop by and check me out.  I'm going to do great next week. 

If you are interested in gaining speaking and leadership skills, visit MJM Speakers' Circle  from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. every 1st and 3rd Saturday at Thurgood Marshall Library on 7506 S. Racine in Chicago.  Check us out online at Check us out online at http://mjmspeakers.freetoasthost.info/.