I Owe it All to Toastmasters

I owe it all to Toastmasters.

The first time I heard the word 'Toastmasters' was in debate class in the 10th grade.

The second time was 10 years later, from a woman I met at a church singles event - she invited me to her club (Titan Toastmasters, in Littleton, Colorado), which she was not only the President of, but the reigning Toastmaster of the Year. I joined - for three whole months. I gave a couple speeches, teamed her in a club debate (which we won), and then, life got in the way.

I didn't go back for 3 1/2 years - in another state, at a time when I was starting life over after a divorce (yes, from the woman who invited me to TM - at least I have one good result from that relationship), was 'on a break' from the woman I was dating, who I've now been married to for nearly 15 years, and I was looking for something to do. I didn't dance, didn't drink, and didn't play bingo. I had wanted to return to Toastmasters ever since I left it, and it seemed like a good place to go, both for adult interaction, and to get chances to express myself in a positive environment.

I didn't join TM to overcome my fear of public speaking. Or to become a leader - but they didn't really care about that in 1995, or 1999. I joined (Metro TM, Salt Lake City) to make friends, to improve my skills (I was in advertising sales at the time), and basically to feed my ego. I won the best speaker ribbon 9 out of my first 10 speeches on the way to becoming a Competent Toastmaster (CTM) - not that I was counting :)

It wasn't until I was a couple years into my career that I started to go beyond giving speeches, and go beyond myself. I was giving a speech out of the Humorous Manual, and afterward, my mentor, Past District 15 Governor Billie Jones, came up to me with words that would shape my future.

"Rich - you're a great speaker. I could see you on the World Championship Stage. If only you would learn to SAY SOMETHING."

Ouch, as that years World Champion would say (not that I had a clue who HE was at that time!). I did know what the WCPS was - if just on the surface. We had had a guest speaker come to our meeting to practice his Region Speech. To be honest, in the round robin I kind of let him have it - and the next year, when his coach became my coach, I found out said coach agreed with me wholeheartedly. Turns out, the guy went on to speak on the World Stage in 2001 - so he either Won Anyway, or he changed his speech a bit! (He didn't place in the Finals - but Top Ten in the world is still pretty good).

Billie had seen right through me. That I'd been writing speeches (or rather, outlining speeches) at the last minute, even out in my car right before the meeting. I was getting by on natural 'charm and humor', but doling out cotton candy to my audiences that dissolved as quickly as the words left my mouth and reached their ears.

I resolved to never again give a speech that didn't offer intended value - be it inspiration, educational, or even humorous (giving people laughter on purpose has value). I got involved in contests - my first District trophy coming in Fall of 2001 when I won the Evaluation contest.

That, too, would foreshadow my future. My first coaching job came directly from my club, in the Spring of 2004 - when a visitor came in asking for help with a toast for his daughter's wedding - which was just a month away. The folks he talked to walked him over to me, apparently because they figured I was the best evaluator in the club, or maybe they just thought I needed the money! I charged him $100 bucks to help him write and deliver his speech.

I spent countless hours with him, getting to know his story with his daughter, learning to write in his voice, coaching him on delivery (he was amazingly nervous at the start) - basically, my first client taught me how to become a coach. By month's end, he'd handed me 3 bonus checks, and I ended up making $1000 - and he ended up giving what he said was a laugh and tear-inducing toast which impressed the entire wedding party, and, most importantly, his daughter. Oh, and the wedding? Apparently it was being held on top of a castle in Vienna - which at least partially explains his generosity!

From that point on, I declared myself a 'Presentation Coach' - I just said that's what I did, and it was so. It was four years later that I quit my day job to do this full time - at the worst possible time, as those who've seen me in the movie SPEAK can attest to.

I continued in Toastmasters, building my speaking and coaching skills, eventually reaching the World Championship Stage as Billie envisioned (if only she'd envisioned me WINNING), finishing 3rd in 2006, and also appearing in 2008.

I've traveled to far off places like Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Toronto, Canada; and Pierre, South Dakota here in the U.S. to speak for Toastmasters, both as a contestant and a District Conference Keynoter.

I've coached clients on 4 continents, both in person and via SKYPE, on everything from contest speeches (Tall Tales, Humorous, and Int'l), business presentations, and full-blown keynote speeches.

And still, I continued in Toastmasters, in Utah, Washington, and now in Colorado - serving as an officer, an Area Governor, a club sponsor, a club coach, a Conference activities organizer, a TLI speaker - and finally earned my DTM this year. I even learned some leadership skills along the way, despite myself.

15 years is just 1/6 of the organization's existence, but it's 1/3 of mine. Toastmasters provided me with a vision of who I could be, and helped give me an avenue to become that vision. I've made friends and met clients from all around the world. I've written two books, helped my wife write a book (and deliver a keynote of her own) an ebook, and this blog has now hit the five year mark.

It's been an up and down ride, but I love what I do - both as a speaker, and as a coach.

And I owe it all to Toastmasters.

I have a lot more I could say. Luckily I have future blog posts to say it, future speeches to share it, future books to fill. For now, let me wish Toastmasters International a very happy 90th birthday - as long as you're there, and I'm above ground, I'll be a member. Here's to another 90, as you help the world do what I've come to call Speak...and Deliver!

Speaking of MLK

Every year, Martin Luther King Day rolls around, and I feel a responsibility to post SOMETHING. A responsibility I don't fulfill - I don't even do the minimum, say, posting a meme, a picture, or a YouTube video.

Even a search of my blog for MLK shows only a couple of posts mentioning him - two about misquotes, and one regarding the analysis of his speech in Nancy Duarte's Resonate.

Lets face it - what am I supposed to say? He was a great man, though, like all of us, he had his foibles, depending on which interviews and biographies you read. His impact on the world is undeniable, his vision for freedom and his method for achieving it above reproach. But you don't need me to affirm that for you.

His death was tragic, though hardly unexpected, especially by King himself. I hesitate to say he accomplished even more through his death than he could have in life - it's an easy cop-out. When one considers what Nelson Mandela was able to accomplish with all of his extra years, one can only imagine what King's results would have been.

As a speaker - after all, this is a speaking blog - again, what am I to say? He wasn't a speaker as most of us consider them today. He was an orator. A grand mix of preacher, politician and poet. A charismatic presenter with an audience who desperately needed him, both his following, and his enemies. His ability to move his listeners both emotionally and rationally, to change the thoughts of so many from what they'd been brought up to believe, to rally people of all types to a greater cause, may not only be unequaled since, but impossible to equal in the future.

He was the right man, at the right time, with the right message, and the right delivery - and he embraced it.

So many aspiring and emerging speakers stop themselves with fear of not being good enough, not being well-received. But how many of us fear DEATH or IMPRISONMENT when we speak?

But again, do you really need ME to say any of this?

How am I to truly understand who Martin Luther King was or what he did? I was a baby when he was assassinated. I'm was a white, middle class kid who at 6 and 7 years old played with other white middle class kids chasing each other around with a 'nigger stick' - though we (or at least I) didn't have a clue what that meant, at least until a parent heard us and thankfully stepped in. They didn't exactly explain it, though, just made us stop.

I grew up having one friend in my Iowa high school who was black (sadly, even as I type this, I don't know if I should actually type 'brown' or 'African-American' instead, or perhaps something else altogether), and we got along great. Of course we did - we both loved drawing and comic books and movies.

In my small Christian College in Oklahoma, diversity wasn't extraordinarily apparent, beyond the athletic department. Still, there was a young lady I asked out once after we'd been flirtatious friends awhile. She turned me down, saying I had no idea the obstacles we'd face if we started dating. I persisted, saying, of course, that I could handle whatever came our way, but she'd have none of it.

I thought for a minute as I wrote this post: "Do I have any black friends today?" My immediate answer was NO - but then, they started to pop into my brain. I have many, just as I have many friends of all races, creeds, and cultural origin. I just don't think of them in those terms, unless I force myself to. That, I would hope, would be one of the many desired results MLK had in mind 45 years ago.

There is no way for me to fully comprehend the legacy of Martin Luther King. I can never truly walk a mile in his shoes, or the shoes of those he worked to bring greater freedom and equality to - any more than I can understand what it's like to be a woman, an Asian, a Hispanic, a tall person, a bald person, a musical prodigy or a mathematical genius.

I can only wonder who I might be, who America might be (much less the world) - what prejudices and injustices we would support - if Martin Luther King had not chosen to Speak & Deliver. To stand up for what he believed in, to stand up for what was right and is right and should have always been right. There are more battles, new battles, and even some of the same battles, being fought today. He was called to speak for his values and his people - and by 'his people', I mean the people of the world - because that's what he wanted to create. A world not separated by color or class or politics or religion. But again - did you need me to tell you that?

What can I really say? What can I really do? 

I can only hope that I and my actions and the family I'm raising up will fall on the right side side of the Dream. That I continue to stand up and speak for what I believe, knowing I live in a much safer world, and have a much safer agenda, than he did. And that I can, perhaps, inspire and instruct YOU to do the same.

Fear of Public Speaking: Speak Anyway

Over the last few weeks, I've been working with a client who is simply scared to death of speaking in front of other people. Despite this acknowledged fear, he has come to the decision that he needs to put on seminars and make himself available to local groups as a speaker in order to create a clientele - hence he hired me to help him develop content, polish his presentation skills, and, ultimately, conquer his fear.

Frankly, the first two are far easier to handle than the fear itself - because fear is often built with emotional anchors from past experiences, outside forces seemingly beyond our control, the belief that we won't be good enough, and/or that an audience member will, at some point during our presentation, pull out an Uzi and blow us to bits because we weren't perfect.

Fear manifests in many forms in speakers at all levels. Even the most experienced speakers will generally admit to have some fear before going on - they've just learned to deal with it. Others break into a cold sweat just thinking about it, start to get an upset stomach right before going on, or literally have to let go of their last meal in the back room before taking the stage.

Whatever your individual fears, or the intensity level of them, they are real, tangible, and potentially crippling. I won't kid you - there aren't simple, cookie cutter answers to overcoming your fear, but there are some strategies to manage the fear, and Speak & Deliver anyway.

1. Accept Your Fear. It's OK. It's normal. It can actually be useful. Denying it will send you down a myriad of other rabbit holes as you try to determine what's wrong with your speaking, or lack thereof.

2. Pinpoint the Origin. I've had clients whose fathers repeatedly told them to shut up. Others were embarrassed at school. Some forgot their lines in a class play. Whatever the reason, pinpointing it allows you to look at it in a new light, especially with the help of a coach, and move beyond it.

3. Move Forward Anyway. That's one of the best qualities of the client I mentioned in the open. He's moving forward by hiring a coach, setting a date, and inviting attendees. He knows the day will come, and he'll have to speak. He'll be better than he thinks, and will be dramatically closer to managing his fears and accomplishing his goals than if he just sat focusing on his fear every day.

4. Practice. Wow, mind-blowing concept, isn't it? Even without an audience, forcing yourself to practice creates more confidence in your material and builds valuable mind-memory to fall back on in the moment. If you haven't given the speech from start to finish before you HAVE to give it, you are self-sabotaging your presentation, creating a situation for both failure and the excuse for why you failed, simultaneously. You deserve better. Practice in front of your lamp or into your hairbrush or a peanut gallery of stuffed animals, but practice.

5. Change Polarity. Negative energy is still powerful, and when you learn to harness it, much as a cowboy breaks a wild horse, it can generate enthusiasm, vocal power, and physical energy on the platform. See #7 & #8 to find where you might find a Speaking Cowboy.

6. Fail. Because you will. You will invariably fail to fulfill the image you've created into your brain of what you have to do to become a speaker. You will fail repeatedly, even when you've given the audience the most amazing performance, shared the most valuable information, and gotten a standing ovation. Because that's how most of us are wired - to find the one or fifty things about our presentations we didn't do well, even while our audience is leaving with a pad full of notes and minds filled with new ideas. Fail, and Speak Anyway.

7. Find a Toastmasters Club. A great way to ease yourself into speaking in front of a supportive audience, many of whom have faced similar fears, and continue to conquer them. Not a great way to get ready for a speech you have to give in the next two days, two weeks, or two months. See #8.

8. Find a Coach. A third party who will help you focus on what you've done right while helping you add new skills to your speaking - speechwriting, delivery, marketing, whatever you need work on. Find someone you respect, or is respected by those you trust. Get together with them and discover if you have rapport - if they are a good match for you. Not all coaches are perfect for all clients. Need me to help you Speak & Deliver? Email me at Rich@RichHopkins.com.

There is nothing wrong with being afraid of Public Speaking. My client is still fearful, but he's giving a seminar this weekend anyway. I can't wait to hear how it goes, and start work with him on his next one.

Unless you let the fear stop you from sharing your value with an audience who needs to hear you despite your fear. We think you're better than you do. If what you say can help me, entertain me, educate me, inspire me - I will forgive a myriad of imperfections from you as a speaker. But I'm cheated out of all the preceding if you won't find a way to Speak & Deliver, even while shaking in your boots.