Toastmasters

Stressful Work, Self-Evaluation And Hacking Your Productivity (And How To Win Monopoly)

Garth Beyer

Hacking Productivity

It’s been more than two years since I gave a Toastmasters speech. I connected with the president of the club I used to be involved in and had dinner with her yesterday. We chatted about the PR life and how stressful the work is. (Top 10 most stressful careers!)

I agreed that it’s stressful work, but it’s as stressful as you let it be; there are ways to lessen the stress.

One of my old friends gave a speech at the meeting about saving mental energy for more important decisions by limiting the options you have for what to wear. A few months ago I mentioned the benefit of wearing the same outfit each day. Jobs did it. Zuckerberg does it. So many others do it to save mental energy for work and decisions that matter.

What I do each weekend is evaluate my week in terms of stress, productivity, time, focus… all that important stuff that dictates your level of happiness or unhappiness. I stop doing what’s unproductive, I stop having meetings with people who don’t create value, I read more, I freewrite for 15 minutes every night, I meditate in the morning and recite a mantra I wrote – all the things I do and don’t do are done or not done with purpose.

The president asked me something like, “Isn’t that exhausting or stressful to have to be so on top of everything?” She was obviously thinking about the benefit of going with the flow, letting things be, simplifying life (which certainly has its value at times). My response…

It’s fun to hack your productivity, your energy, your focus. It’s like the moment you learn how to win Monopoly: just make sure you buy St. James. Place then begin to build on the orange. Works every time. The excitement of learning, knowing and then implementing the practice which nearly guarantees success is what drives me to reevaluate, review, and renew my objectives of the week each weekend.

Stress is not an external force we have no control over. We design our stress, and by evaluating ourselves on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, we begin to notice what’s working and what isn’t in our lives. We respond rather than react. It’s an art, and there is so much beauty in art.

 

Stay Positive & There Is No Better Game To Hack Than The Work Game

Photo credit

My Ice Breaker #TM

Garth Beyer

Hello fellow Toastmasters,

I know this is supposed to be about me, and it will be, but for a moment I want it to be about each one of you. What I want you to do is to take 20 seconds and ask yourself who are the five most influential people to you. Who do you look up to, admire, respect. Is it bill gates and his generosity, or is it Jillian Michaels or Tony Horton and their healthy fitness attitudes, or maybe just your grandma. Go ahead and take a moment to write the names down on the backside of the ballet sheet or just memorize them.

I was asked just the other week to name the five people who influence me most. I came up with

Brian Tracy

Zig Ziglar

Seth Godin

Oscar Wilde

And Tim Ferriss

Maybe you have heard of these people and maybe not. I won’t say you should know them because we are all focused in a different direction in our lives. The reason I wanted you to do this activity was because I believe that everyone should be living their passion. The biggest reason why few are living their passion is not because they “cant”. The universe would never hold you back from doing what you love. The reason is that few know what their passion is.

No one can answer “what is the point of life” for themselves. I had you participate so that if you don’t know what your passion is, I may have lead you one step closer because what I want you to do later  is to sit down and find a common factor between all of top 5 influencers to you. While it may not lead you directly to the point of life, it may make finding your passion much easier.

What my top 5 influencers have in common is that they are all authors and public speakers. But they all bring their unique qualities to the table. Zig Ziglar is motivating and full of wisdom, Brian Tracy is light and gives you the baby steps to life success, Seth Godin forces you to view all angles the and specializes in marketing, Oscar Wilde gives you a flash of history and a bit of romance, and Tim Ferriss is all about making yourself the experiment and breaking status quo.

Unlike these influencers, I have a “problem”. I have too many interests and specialties and goals in life. Last time I counted the number of life goals I had written down, it was over 250. I love to learn new languages like German and French, I love to travel, Parkour, write poetry, try new experiences, live a healthy lifestyle and countless more. All of which I look forward to sharing with you in future speeches.

I hope it’s clear that all of the characters I mentioned, and hopefully I am included with them, live by the quote “Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.” By Napoleon hill

Can you begin to tell what my passions are yet? I hope it’s clear that I love to motivate, inspire, and encourage people to live the lives that best suit them and their goals in life. Just as well, I love to write and be a financial advisor and a goal consultant. And I do so, right now, by blogging on my website at GarthBox.com where my focus is to get you out of your box one life lesson at a time. And I am a firm believer in walking your talk, practicing what you preach and all the other clichés about following the advice you give to others.

But I wasn’t always like this. I had a rough childhood. I don’t remember ever seeing my parents kiss and they were divorcing before I could make the connection. I had an older brother that could have been the perfect role model, but became addicted to drugs and alcohol. My two closest friends that filled the positions of my brother went into the military and the other moved to Texas.

All of this left school to be the only place I could enjoy since it was away from what I was supposed to call “home”, I still had friends there, and of course there were plenty of ladies to chase after. It was not until my sophomore year that I was ready to really educate myself and focus at school instead of using it to cope.

It was my sophomore year that I was able to participate in the Running Start Program where I spent my junior and senior year attending Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois. In the end of the program, I, along with 43 other students, ended up getting our associates degrees two days before our high school diplomas. It was during my two years at college that I began to take responsibility for my life. I began to learn and understand many of life’s lessons and knew where I wanted to go in life.

And here I am. I just moved to Madison from Illinois nearly six months ago. On a side note, I said earlier that I practice what I preach and the reason why I make a great financial advisor is that I am already reaping the benefits of money management. VERY few 18 year olds have the finances or maturity to accomplish the goal of living on their own and supporting themselves without the help of a family or loan.

Now, I am going to be attending UW-Madison in the fall. I am going to major in mass communications and journalism and minor in marketing.  As much of a believer I am in a formal education I joked on facebook the other day that people should like my status if they learned more from Google than from school. There are great benefits to having a formal education, but even greater benefits from self-education and gathering informal credentials.

This is where my self-improvement self-educating attitude comes from and the reason I provide out-of-the-box life lessons to everyone. It is also the reason why I joined Toastmasters. I took a speech class in college and, not only loved it, but rocked it. I think giving speeches is one of the coolest things a person can do and something that is great about it is that not too many do it. Sure there are plenty of variables to it, but the main reason few like public speaking is simply, fear. I told myself once before that one of my missions in life is to overcome fear without hesitation. As uncomfortable as it is to put yourself out there, I do it. Because I live my life by the quote I have tattooed on my back, “If you don’t try, you fail”.

Thank you.

Reactions, Responses, Tips and Testimonials

After giving my first speech at Toastmasters and receiving very positive feedback, I thought I would share it with you. I am putting this up for other Toastmasters and public speakers to view and consider as a proficient piece of work to use as a bit of a guide. I also wanted to share it along with the feedback I received from the club and my evaluators feedback as a Testimonial. At the end I will share some tips about Public Speaking and why my speech was as great as everyone said it was.

“All the greatest lessons in life, are simple.”

My speech ended after 8 minutes and 30 seconds. What I posted above was the hardcore draft I wrote and practiced from. For the most part I stuck to my plan but deviated a few times to make it more casual and not ‘stuck to script’. I wrote up my speech on Monday and practiced it Monday – Wednesday. I suggest taking at least three days to practice your speech, especially if your time is limited with a full-time job. The following is the feedback provided on the ballots.

“I enjoyed your speech. I thought you had a very engaging intro. I liked the organization. You make good eye contact.”

“Excellent job. I like how you introduced the topic by asking the crowd to list their influencers. you are already a proficient speaker. thank you for gracing us with your energy and your knowledge”

“I like your courage of overcoming fears. Thanks for sharing your passion of life. I believe you will be a great public speaker”

“So open and energetic! Love that! Enthusiasm is what we love and want for ourselves. Just a tough long, maybe, a little meandering at the end. But so enjoyable!”

“Got us engaged with a great questions activity. Very well dressed as a presenter. Very comfortable. notes seemed to be well laid out. You have a great voice and great diction and I think this is something you will benefit from”

“Very nice speech. we got to know what you are looking for in your life”

“Good organization of speech, good eye contact, good use of humor, i liked the personal sharing, maybe more of it”

Now I have to laugh. On the backside of the last evaluation ballot there was written “Steve Jobs Barack Obama”. (Remember, I asked everyone to write names of the people who influence them on the backside of the ballot sheet since I was the only one giving a speech that day). Next is the evaluation required in the workbook.

“Very confident. Good eye contact, comfortable, easy presence. Mentioned a # of life goals, talked about your childhood and how that influenced you – good taste of what you are about. Well prepared. Very clear and appropriate volume. Very good opening with audience participation and pauses. Nice conclusion with body gestures – moving forward with body  when you were talking about ‘putting yourself out there’. Glanced at notes once. Possibly incorporate more gestures. Liked Everything! Good intro, bring in audience participation and also your interest in motivation – by asking us to live our life passion.”

To say the least, I signed up for my next speech for the next meeting and hope to share it with you as well. Now for the best part of the post, public speaking tips for you!

  • The greatest action you can take to make it seem that you are not reading from a script is hand gestures. You have to take the audience’s focus away from what you are saying, and have them focus on how you are saying it and presenting it. The impact you are making is far more important than the words you are sharing – show it.
  • Have you made a past speech that you knew you rocked AND have a picture of yourself from it? Frame it and put a sticky note next to it with the reasons you know why your speech was excellent. Look back on it to remind you what you did perfectly and should focus on for your next speech. (You can see mine in the picture above. I have written “Graduation Speech” – Not Nervous – Prepared – Large audience – Motivational – So many more to come – *signed*)
  • Exploit nervousness. The day of my presentation, I can get really nervous. Unlike others, I use it to my advantage. You can too! I do not try to repress the feelings of nervousness – I pull as much of it out. I let myself get sweaty or shaky and lose my appetite. By the time I am finally up to give my speech, I wore my nervous system out. I tell myself before I begin speaking that I have been nervous all day for this, so now its time to be confident.
  • Practice makes perfect. WRONG. It is perfect practice that makes perfect. When you are practicing your speech, go all out. Set up the area you are practicing to look as much like the area you will be presenting in later. Imagine the audience you will be speaking to. Exaggerate all hand motions and gestures as well as raising and lowering the volume of your voice. Do not memorize the words in your speech, memorize your speech – everything about it.
  • Lastly (Have to save more lessons to share next time), people forget the biggest principle about speeches. The intro and conclusion better be the hardest hitting and MEMORIZED. I guarantee that if you memorize an incredible intro and conclusion, no one will care how you presented the fluff of your speech. For that matter, the intro and conclusion cover the simplified version of what is in your body. What does every person in the audience want, whether they show it or not? Quick Compact Convenience.

Stay Positive and Slice The Bread (A lot smoother than breaking ice)

Garth E. Beyer

Improv-e Leadership: A Toastmasters Collaboration

Garth Beyer

Making leaders is a lot easier than most believe — and it’s FUN. It is not so much about teaching others how to become leaders. I could write hundreds of posts about leadership that you will shake your head in agreement with. Although, even after reading all the leadership lessons, I know that you still wont be a leader. Why not?

Improv Leadership was the theme I created at last nights Toastmasters meeting, as I was the designated Table Topics Master. I, just as you are doing now, have been studying all the leadership lessons and qualities I can get my eyes on. We all know the most successful people in the world were great leaders.

Leaders create legacies.

Note: You will need to understand the art of Improv before reading further. Click here to get the definition or visit my post on Improv Writing. You can skip your exploration of the art of Improv if you feel you are capable of getting your creative juices flowing.

All leaders were creative, without the skill they could not have created a legacy.

As a member of Improv Anonymous in Illinois, I learned to play a game called “Story Story Die”. The leader of the group would ask the audience to come up with a situation and an object and then create a quirky title out of it. Then the game begins as “Once Upon A Time..” and the leader would begin to point at each member of the Improv group. The Improv member who the the leader points to would have to start telling the story, focusing on the audience suggestions. In the middle of telling the story, the leader would then point to another member and they would have to take up where the last member left in the story. When one member takes too long to respond, has no clue where they are in the story, says something ridiculous, or flat-out chokes — everyone laughs and yells out “DIE”. The leader then asks the audience how they want them to die: poisonous snake bite, death by dandelions, thinking too hard about why the sky is blue, etc. The member acts out their death and the game continues until only one person remains. Then they have to successfully end the story. There you have it, the theatrical game of “Story Story Die”.

The Humorous Way To Open Up And Find Your Personal Leadership Qualities

Normally this activity is outrageously funny because the topics are ridiculously crazy and the members of the team are experts at humor. However, for the Table Topics, I wanted to turn a fun activity into a fun semi-professional learning experience. Thus, I joined Improv with Leadership. I opened the floor with the game and made sure everyone would try their best to revolve the story around leadership. Here is a short synopsis of it, written by our Toastmaster of the evening.

“Garth performed his first table topics, “Impromptu leadership.”  As a group we told a fun Piece-by-piece story (with the pieces being very short from each member) about a group of hikers (Kevin) on the Appalachian trail (Matt) who find themselves confronted by a hunter (Xiao Lei), stumble upon an heretofore unknown desert (Shirley), become confused and start hallucinating (Chris and others).  Joan plucks out the map and realizes they are just a half mile from shelter and storms off (Margaret), but they don’t have enough water to get there (Jill), and they all perish (Garth), because they don’t have good leadership.”

During the story told by all the Toastmasters members, I did not have anyone “Die” so I had to make all the characters in the end die. It’s Improv; make it up as you go.

Leadership Cannot Be Taught, Leadership Comes From…

As I said, you can teach someone all the qualities of a leader but that will not make them a successful leader. Leaders become leaders because they recognize their best qualities and exploit them. It is not about teaching leadership, it’s about bringing out the leader within. So after the story, I began asking questions to have members of the meeting acknowledge their own independent leadership qualities. I asked questions like the following:

1. Who is a leader to you and why?

2. What would you do if the club, job, or organization that you are part of, made you the leader for a day?

3. Tell me a story of a time when you had to take the lead.

4. Define leadership.

5. Who wants to be a leader? What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader?

6. What three qualities do you think a leader must have?

7. What advice would you give to someone going into a leadership position for the first time?

Now I think you should answer the questions yourself. Realize that becoming a leader is not something you can become by reading books, listening to cd’s and attending seminars. Becoming a leader comes from within. When you realize your greatest potential, your best qualities, what YOU define as leadership, only then can you become the greatest leader of all — The Leader of Your Self

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