Toastmasters Friday: Taking a Break doesn't mean Breaking Up

Yes, I took a break. Even though I didn't want to.

It's actually a bit of a pattern - I win the International Contest in the Spring, then either lose at the Semi-Finals or the Finals, and come home exhausted, a bit dispirited, and ready to just sit home and lick my wounds. Usually lasts two months or so.

This year, I was determined for that not to happen, and I gave a speech at my club the very next week after returning from Malaysia. Then...Life Happened. Back surgery. Pain. Life in a walker, which, frankly, was less than a confidence building endeavor for me. Combine that with starting a new church which had youth group activities on Thursday nights, and I actually resigned from my club, with the intention of finding another.

What have I been doing in the interim? Lots of PT, for one. Blogging, podcasting, as usual. Thankfully, I have acquired a few clients during the break, which is great, but I haven't been up and speaking at all. And as much as I love (and I mean REALLY LOVE) coaching, I love speaking even that much more.

It only took a few weeks to find out that youth group wasn't going to be an issue anymore - the new church had listed their activities in a very confusing manner, and youth group is actually on Tuesday for Middle Schoolers, and Wednesday for High School, while they have just a regular 'Sunday Service' on Thursday. And this week, my physical therapist told me to put the walker aside and just start walking again, and we'd deal with any muscle pain that went along with that plan. I'll be honest and admit that returning to any club using my walker was not something I wanted to do.

So...with no more excuses, after a two and half month break, I returned to my club last night.

Going back last night to a club that had embraced its new leadership, created new systems, added many new members, was refreshing. And getting up to do a relatively impromptu Educational Minute and later Table Topics, was invigorating after being dormant for so long. I felt hopeful and positive about Toastmasters again, and was ready to embrace the changes in style and personality. And ready to help again - their VP of Ed dropped out last week, so I'm coming back into the role - and learning all the new ways they have of doing it.

While I didn't want to take a break this time around - it was forced upon me to some degree - I believe it was a good break to take. After months of going to 5-10 clubs a week practicing, after years of being an officer, and being the 'goto' guy as Club VP of Ed, Club President, and Area Governor, I was more tired than I thought. I had grown a bit negative, and was dangerously close to becoming a 'Crusty Old Toastmaster' - stuck in the old ways, unwilling to accept change, and sitting in the back corner of the room slowly shaking his head at the future.

Taking a break, however, doesn't mean breaking up. Heck, I'm still officially a member, thanks to the grace period.

I'm going to make sure this 'refreshing, open-minded feeling' extends beyond the club - to District activities, to adapting to the upcoming changes in the education program, to how I balance my Toastmaster life with my professional life. Toastmasters is just too valuable, and too important for me to ever stay away from it for long, but a 'sabbatical', planned or otherwise, can be perspective changing. Even if only to shake off the 'crustiness'!

If you've been in TM more than a couple of years, if you've immersed yourself in the program, and are starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, or even starting to feel the crustiness set in, consider taking a sabbatical on your own terms vs. the being forced into one via the 'I'm exhausted' or the 'Major Surgery' scenario. Plan your time away, and the date of your return (this is important - respectful for your club, and helps prevent you from permanently filling that time slot with something else).

When you return, you might just find yourself a better person and ready to become a better Toastmaster. Ready, as I like to say, to Speak...and Deliver!

If you've had similar experiences, please tell me about them by commenting below, or replying via whatever Social Media brought you here!

Toastmasters Friday: Speak the Movie - A Review

Imagine having open heart surgery, without any draping, on the 50 yard line of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, in front of a packed house, with you on the big, BIG screen. That's what it was like for me watching the movie "Speak" last night. My innermost thoughts, my most personal life events, naked and open to the public. That's what happens when you let a camera crew follow you everywhere.

"Speak" is a documentary about public speaking from Paul Galicia and Brian Weidling and their company Tumbleweed Entertainment. As they researched their movie, they investigated Toastmasters, and then the World Championship of Public Speaking - and it was this event that they found to be the perfect setting to center their movie around. In 2008, they spent the summer interviewing the eight regional winners from around the country, and followed their journey to the Toastmasters International Convention, where they added the two inter-district winners to the mix.

I, of course, was one of those Finalists, representing District 15 and Region I (at that time, Utah, Idaho, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California) in the contest. The others were LaShunda Rundles, Colin William, Robert MacKenzie, Henry Flowers IV, Katherine Morrison, Loghandran Krishnasamy, Martin Presse, Charles Wilson, and Jock Elliott, who (spoiler alert) won the World Championship in 2011. For those of you looking for additional behind the scenes information, check out the free ebook we wrote together, "The Finalists", by signing up for my newsletter at RichHopkins.com.

After three and a half years of waiting, of hearing rumors and reviews of 'rough cut screenings', it was a tremendous weight off of me to have the actual movie (at least a 'screening copy', as the watermark said every so often on the video) on my TV for me to watch.

How do you 'review' a movie after you discover that you are one of the two primary storylines? What objectivity can exist as you watch a past version of yourself go through the experiences I did that summer? I honestly don't think I can. Below are some of my thoughts after a night to sleep on it:

1. The movie starts out focusing on the fear of public speaking, but quickly moves into the championship plot, and adds the 'find your voice' component. The two weave together well, and by the end of the film, their point is made.

2. It is clear that some hard cuts were made. How do you have a movie with 10 characters and give them all equal time? Everyone in the competition got screen time, but it was a 2-6-2 ratio - 2 had a bunch, 6 had enough to be satisfied, 2 were more cameos, but their time was still meaningful. I'll let you watch it for yourself to figure most of those out, but I bet you can figure out the two with the most screen time.

3. Great contributions from various Toastmasters, World Champions, and outside speaking professionals. Their spots worked well to transition from point to point.

Robert MacKenzie, photo by Joshua Pickering

4. The backstories on so many of the other contestants, from Robert MacKenzie to Charlie Wilson (and his wife!) to Martin Presse really showed the diversity of Toastmasters, and the different paths we can all take chasing after a similar, though hardly identical, destination.

5. Watching LaShunda Rundles journey both before and after the competition was fascinating and emotional. She lives the role of a heroine, and it comes through in this film.

LaShunda Rundles, photo by Joshua Pickering

As for me? My public open heart surgery? Well, to be honest, there were times I could hardly recognize myself. The movie truly shows where my mindset was at that time - a man desperate to turn things around financially, hoping to use the championship as a means to market a message that mattered. It shows my wife, and her unwavering support of my journey to chase my dream. It shows my honest emotions in the midst of my failure. It shows, in the end, the beginning of a mindset shift, from 'have to' to 'want to', from 'competition' to 'fun'.

It shows some strong qualities - passion, persistence, a dose of rebelliousness - that still reside within me, but are channeled in very different ways today. "Speak" happened before the medical issues with my family came up. While four members of family had Neurofibromatosis, the consequences of this genetic disorder had not been visible until the Spring of 2009. The potential blindness with Rachel. Later on, Braden's Scoliosis. Bailey's brain tumor. Now Kristi's leg tumor.

In 2008, I 'needed' to win. Today, my needs are quite different, my focus much clearer, and the paths to 'winning' quite different. Not that winning the World Championship wouldn't be fun, of course. The man in "Speak", I hope, has grown up - without losing his Passion and Persistence, but having built and expanded on those qualities with another than only sharpens with age - Perspective.

Braden, Rachel, Bailey, Riley, Brooklyn, & Riker. My perspective builders.
photo by David Hassler.

Hopefully, "Speak" will find its way to a theatre near you soon. Contact Tumbleweed if you want to arrange a screening. Most of you reading will know many of the cast. All of you, I believe, you'll find the movie eye-opening, entertaining, and uplifting. I did, and I didn't even bring home a trophy. But I did Win...Anyway.