Speaking and Listening: Toastmasters Experience

 This week at my Rail Talkers Toastmasters club I will present a speech called "POWER Speaking."  The speech covers a collection of tips for giving powerful presentations with the tip categories forming the acronym "POWER": P - Pick a topic O - Organize your speech W - Word choice E - Emotion R - Rehearsal and review What makes me especially excited about this speech is its versatility.  The speech consists of the tips, then a demo presentation, then discussion with the audience.  Within this format, I can adjust the speech for the given audience by giving different examples or a completely different "demo" presentation. For example, a fellow Toastmaster and I first gave this presentation at a conference for the National Association of Railroad Business Women.  When it came to "Pick a topic," I talked about being asked to speak at the conference and how that led to the topic of "POWER Speaking."  When I give the speech at my Rail Talker...

This weekend, my Toastmasters District is hosting our "Region Advisor" for a visit. What is a region advisor?  A region advisor is someone who "support[s] District leaders in fulfilling the District mission to build new clubs and support all clubs in achieving excellence." One of the ways the region advisor does this is by "Establish[ing] trusting relationships with District leaders through frequent and consistent communication." (https://www.toastmasters.org/leadership-central/region-advisor-tools). Our region advisor is certainly supporting us and helping to develop trusting relationships through her visit!  She is contributing her precious time and knowledge as she visits Toastmasters meetings, meets with prospective clubs, and shares meals with District leaders.  Even apart from this in-person experience, she holds monthly Zoom calls with leaders, hosts online training, and makes herself readily available by phone and Zoom for anyone desiring addit...

At last weekend's District 24 Toastmasters Conference, one of the guest speakers, Dr. Dilip Abayasekara, talked about the importance of the "two legs" of excellent Toastmasters club meetings: 1. Emotional Experience 2. Educational Progress This was an "ah-ha" moment for me because it perfectly captured what I love about Toastmasters:  I get to form real connections with my fellow club members as we support one another ("emotional experience") while also learning new things and improving my speaking and leadership skills ("educational progress").  These two "legs" reflect that we have both emotional  and educational  needs that Toastmasters can help fulfill. For those who are Toastmasters members, Dr. Dilip gave us two questions to ask after each meeting to make sure we are fulfilling both of those needs: 1. Do I feel emotionally enriched? 2. Am I learning and improving? If you find you cannot answer "yes" to both question...

 I wrote the title of this post a full week ago and was amused to see that between writing the title and finally writing the post, the exact same phrase was used in the exact same context in which I intended it. What is that context?  Planning a Toastmasters Division-level speech contest for two different Divisions as part of a single event.  A speech contest is quite an affair in and of itself, but double the contest means double the fun and potentially double the work.  Fortunately, I was far from alone in planning this event.  Double the contests also means double the pool of potential helpers, and the helpers were amazing! The biggest challenge for me in planning this event was giving up control and letting others do what they were meant to do.  If I had tried to do it all, it would have been far too much.  (Plus the guidelines of the contest make it so that I wasn't even allowed to "do it all.")  By dividing up tasks between a contest chair, ...

 Is there a "right" way or a "wrong" way to be a mentor?  I would say there are some pretty obvious "wrong" ways: Never talking to your protege == WRONG Not listening to your protege == WRONG Not showing any interest in your protege == WRONG Not answering questions while also not trying to find answers == WRONG Mentoring just to "check a box" == WRONG These "wrongs" are pretty obvious, by after reviewing the "Advanced Mentoring" project from Toastmasters, I realized there was a key thing I'm not  doing as a mentor that I really should, and that's getting feedback on how I'm doing . As with most things, I can't really know if I'm doing well or not unless I have some way to assess how I'm doing.  With being a mentor, that means checking with my protege from time to time on how our relationship is going.  Toastmasters provides some questions both for regular (suggested monthly) check-ins on the relationshi...

Yesterday I attended a Toastmasters workshop on "corporate clubs," meaning Toastmasters clubs that are fully supported and managed by a corporation.  The workshop, led by Pat Johnson, DTM, PIP, emphasized the importance of the corporation  partnering with Toastmasters in this effort.  Rather than simply "allowing" the club to exist, the decision-makers in the corporation actively work with the Toastmasters leaders to ensure the educational program provided by Toastmasters is effective at their corporation. This got me thinking about the difference between "allowing" something and actively partnering with others to make it successful.  If I think something is a good idea but I'm not really invested in it or I have higher priorities, I might "allow" someone else to work on it - I won't get in their way and I might even offer advice - but I won't be active in making it happen.  There is no "partnership" and no "ownership...