Standing Up And Standing Out

Garth Beyer

I had just attended my first TOASTMASTERS CLUB (#137) on Wednesday the 16th at downtown Madison. Speaking has been a passion of mine since I had an audience; my parents. They tell me stories of how I would cry whenever I was alone and never stop with my “baby talk” when I was with people. This was not a habit that could be broken like sucking your thumb.

Diving into middle school I was the most outspoken person in the class. Now, it has gotten me in trouble quite a few times, but that was before I learned how powerful of a speaker I am. Even in my first two years of high school I was Mr. Talkative and always spoke at any events I went to, always contributed my input at conferences or meetings, and always wanted to know more than what I was told; resulting in the fact I asked a lot of questions.

I say that I was like this my first two years of high school because I passed a college admissions test and enrolled in a duel credit program in which I went to college full time for my junior and senior year of high school. That is right, no high school classes at all! I was the president and founder of The Running Start club at Rock Valley College, I gave a speech to all the students and parents of the students who were also enrolled into the duel credit program,  I participated in Model United Nations, I gave the opening speech at my high school graduation,I attended the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, and many other events. All of which I was speaking in front of groups, or on the local radio, or on the television. Everyplace I went, not only did I have something to say, but I had something worth hearing. Now that you know some background of me, you can tell how inspired I am about public speaking which results with me attending my first Toastmasters Club meeting the other day.

Back when I lived in Illinois with my dad, I remember him bringing up the Toastmasters club one day. He had joined for about a month so that he could improve his group speaking skills since he is in the Archery teaching business and will have to speak in front of hundreds of kids and parents. I said he joined for about a month because he learned quickly it was not one of his talents, nor did he have the motivation to make it one. Other than that, he may have mentioned to me once more while I still lived there that I would be great at Toastmasters, but I never listened.

I have since moved to Madison Wisconsin with my girlfriend and have taken up a writing job for an entrepreneur, Dale Suslick. Dale is one of my mentors for business and balance management.  He receives a couple speaking engagements each month and it is something that I wish to take up as well. Dale is also part of two Toastmasters clubs. Now you can bet that he has encouraged me to join Toastmasters and I decided that I would go to the next meeting nearest to where I live.  I researched where the meeting was and found that it was on the first and third Wednesday of each month. I was really disappointed that I would have to wait two weeks until the next meeting. I emailed the vice president of public relations for the club expressing my interest in learning more and possibly joining. He offered me a quick response full of information, and at the end he noted when the next meeting was.. was in two days! I must have looked at the calendar wrong. I still did not know if I could make it to the meeting since I was still working on my eBook (Parents Cost Us Money Too).

That Wednesday was an extremely busy day. I worked at my temporary job at the Higher Educational Aids Board for seven hours, and came home and continued writing my eBook for another three hours. I gave myself a deadline to have the eBook done, and I knew I would not reach it if I went to the Toastmasters meeting. But I had to go. I can write more of my eBook every day for the next month, but I would not be able to go to a Toastmasters meeting for at least two weeks, and who knows if something may come up that day. As I said, I had to go. I quickly changed my clothes, sprayed some cologne on, and raced out to wait for the bus. I continued waiting, and waiting, and waiting, until I started considering skipping the meeting and going back home. My jeans were stiffening up from the cold 25 degree winds blowing all over. I stuck it out and got on the bus after waiting nearly twenty minutes out in the brutal cold. (On a side note, for those who did not catch the small lesson in this part of the story. Always take the earlier bus, or leave 10 minutes earlier to a meeting, because you never know what may hold you up. I arrived to the meeting on time because I took the earlier bus.)

I walk into the meeting room about five minutes early and am acknowledged first by a member of the club. His name was Dave and he requests that he is called the Sasquatch because he is slightly over sized and has a long hair and even longer and more thick beard.You can only imagine. I was then introduced to the Toastmaster, Matt. In meeting with him, he asked if I would be the Time Keeper of the meeting. I went into this meeting with an extremely positive attitude and a need to prove myself worthy. I readily accepted and was fed the info I needed to know to behold the responsibilities correctly.

Once the meeting had began and introductions were made, Matt asked everyone if anyone knew a good joke. I immediately raised my hand because I had heard a great joke while listening to some of Zig Ziglers pod-casts at work. In addition to the Time Keeper, I was now the Joke Master as well. Before I continue I would like to update you on how this particular club’s agenda was laid out. Hopefully having more of an idea of what goes on at a meeting will motivate you to join. Each meeting begins with the president giving an improv introduction. Following this the Toastmaster will give a speech reaching out to the members and persuading any noobies to join. Next, table topics are discussed. One person, in my case Dave, got up and began giving a speech about a topic. His topic was “Veterans”. After he spoke about his own experience having a family member that was in the Vietnam War, he began to ask each member in the club different questions related to the topic. He asked everyone a question except me. He was not trying to exclude me, he simply knew that I was new and already had a task I was trying to carry out. Fortunately for me, the Toastmaster interrupted and said that Dave had time to ask one more question, and he suggested to ask me since I had been the only one who had not participated. I was eager to respond since speaking was exactly what I went there for. Since he was all out of questions, I was able to give an impromptu speech related to the topic. I spoke for a minute and ten seconds (I had to time myself) about how my Papa was in the Secret Service and would always tell my family and I stories of when he was in the service. I related this event to reading a sci-fi, horror, military, and historical novel all combined in one. I described that I would hear the story and it would get extremely suspenseful, but I never heard the ending. There was no conclusion in the novel. As I said, my Papa was in the Secret Service and with that he has been sworn to secrecy about a lot of subjects. (All the good stuff!) Everyone loved my speech and applauded greatly.

The time carried on and I kept track of the time it took for the next four speakers who had speeches to present. Then people are selected to evaluate each speaker and they get up and present their feedback. After all the evaluators present their information, the Time Keeper (me), has to tell everyone their times. That was easy enough, but I was also the Joke Master that was next in the agenda. I told everyone how I had been listening to Pod Casts of Zig Zigler (who I highly suggest researching and learning from). I had to say that I could not attach the joke to the motivational story that Zig told because I did not remember it completely and I did not want to butcher his work. I stuck with the joke and I asked everyone, “Why are blind people afraid to sky dive?”. After dead silence and looks of puzzlement all the way around the room, someone shouted out “Why?” I said, “Because it scares their dogs.” Laughter bounced off each wall in the small room as everyone got a kick out of the joke.

The Poem Master was up next and he gave a phenomenal voice to a poem.

Then the quiz master was up and asked us questions to see if we had paid attention to the speeches.

Then the grammarian was up to say how many times people said “uhm”, “uh”, and other various faults.

During the process we were filling out ballets for best table topic, best speech, and best evaluator. The Awards Master was next up and he began by saying that I won the Table Topic award! I was thrilled and jumped up to the podium with excitement and thanks everyone for their votes, shook the Toastmasters hand, and sat back down with such a huge grin on my face that I could eat a banana sideways.

The Toastmaster gave a final discussion and the meeting was over. I could not believe it, I won an award at my first meeting and I was not even an official member! Looking back, I cannot believe that I even considered not going. You need to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way, especially when it is something that interests you. I hope my story encourages you to give Toastmasters a chance, and your still the opportunity to be connected with other brilliant people. I greatly look forward to the next meeting and you can bet that I will post another blog about my experience.

Do you recall when I said that I often asked a lot of questions in life? Well, I do because I want to learn. So if you have any Public Speaking skills, lessons, websites, blogs, etc. that you would like to share with me, I would be the most grateful. I have a wide variety of experience with speaking and maybe we can connect! Feel free to contact me at TheGarthBox@gmail.com

Stay Positive and Stand Out Among The Others Who Stand Up

– Garth E. Beyer

1 Step For Time Maximization

Garth Beyer

Each and everyone one of us needs to make time for maintenance.  Almost everything we use that will bring us closer to success needs to be warmed up, prepared, kept up to-date, tuned up, ready to go, recharged, and so on. Take cars for example, so many of us need to change the oil in our cars, or change our brake pads. We do not do it because we are wise enough to know that we can be doing more productive things: working on a paper, spending time with our loved one, making business calls. But will the time and effort we spend on not doing maintenance work create more of a benefit than if we blocked out a time period to work on the brakes and change the oil? Some are now thinking that you will just take it in and have it done. Yet, I respond with a similar question. Is paying the extra money to have someone else do it worth it? Is showing your loved one that you are not Mr.SexyMechanic worth it? Is not bonding through teaching your kids how to do it themselves worth it? I know that changing the oil or replacing the brakes on our vehicles is not a top priority, but in asking all that you will be missing out on by not taking the time to do it, move it to the top of our priorities?

It is no different than how humans need time to recharge, to sink in information, to let the feedback loop keep spinning so we learn what we can do better next time. In all honesty, I am not writing now to tell you to make time for maintenance. I am writing to tell you a story to encourage you to TAKE your time for maintenance. As I said, maintenance is never really at the top of our priorities.

On November 15th, 2011 my girlfriend’s safety was my number 1 priority. That day we had planned to go to Dale Suslicks “Currency Is More Than Cash” Un-Workshop. It began at 6:30pm and it was already 5:55pm. Consider that it takes 20 minutes to drive there. That leaves my girlfriend and I 15 minutes to do what we needed to do to get ready. But suddenly I remembered that the car had eaten up all the oil and I had said to my girlfriend earlier that day that we would have to fill our oil up before we left to the Un-Workshop. Since there were no gas stations in the direction we would be heading for at least 15 miles, we were forced to go to the nearest one which was in the small section of town; the ghetto. I pulled as close to the station as possible, ran in, grabbed two quarts of oil, paid for it hastily with my debit card (Once you begin to know me, you will find out that I only like to spend Cash), and ran back out to the car. All the while I checked to make sure the car doors were locked and my girlfriend safe inside while I put the oil in the car. In my haste, I neglected using a funnel to insert the oil and consequently spilled a fair amount of oil. I do not want you to be under the impression that this was the absolute worst place in the world, but it was not normal for my girlfriend and I to be in such a place. So this unfamiliarity lead me to be more fearful and kick the adrenaline in. I quickly closed the hood, tapped the glass to have my girlfriend open the door and we took off. Since my girlfriend and I budget our income, she asked me as she always does after I make a purchase, how much I spent. “I have no clue, but here is the receipt. I just grabbed the first bottle I saw, paid for it and bolted.” As we slowly began leaving the area, she yelled “You spent $30 dollars on two quarts of oil? What the heck!” I did not believe it, I have never spent more than 7 dollars for a quart of oil. But in my hurry, I must have grabbed the most expensive kind. As my mom has always said, “Haste Makes Waste”. Now, my girlfriend is a real positive, go-getter, fun and loving person. With this sort of purchase not in our budget, her initial reaction was logical. We then began to joke about it saying how we loved our car so much that it deserved the best oil there was. We took what many couples would have fought all the way to the meeting about, lightheartedly.

My message to you, in order to maximize your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly time, you can take one step by not only making time for maintenance, but taking time for maintenance. As far as vehicles go, I say expect any maintenance to take an entire day as it should be for our bodies as well. If it takes more than that, than it is not worth using the time that could otherwise be spent more productively. Do not make just enough time to replace your breaks, or recharge your body, or mend a broken friendship. Take extra time to allow for unexpected occurrences, or to simply follow all the way through a task.

Stay Positive and Repaired

Garth E. Beyer