This post is my first speech from the Toastmasters International Humorously Speaking manual. It’s the second of my ten to reach the Advance Bronze designation. I switched manuals – from Speaking on Television – because I needed a change of pace. The humor manual requires short 5-7 minute speaches. The TV manual requires 15-20 minute efforts. I’ll get back to that one at the end so I can blow through this book. Anyway, I started out parental on this first speech. Read and enjoy.

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Daddy, guess what?

What babe?

I’m not going to tell you what we bought you at Wal-Mart.

Shh! You’re not supposed to tell him girl!

I said I’m not going to say what I’m not supposed to tell him.

Now he knows.

No he doesn’t

Yes he does!

No he doesn’t!

Does too!

Does not!

Remind you of your kids when they were four and seven?

Such is the method of learning to keep a secret. And it’s not an easily attained skill. Knowing this universal truth got me to thinking about an idea. I have always wanted to try out my own version of what I will call secrecy branding. Who can you trust with a secret and who can you not? Having been a lone wolf by nature most of my life I have rarely had anything become widely known before I wanted it to be revealed.

Madame Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters and guests, when your business hits the streets before you intend it to, that’s a bad thing. There are times when you’re ready to exclaim it to the world and you can’t get anybody to repeat it for you. Suddenly the grapevine withers and dries up. But for those times when you want it to simply stay where it is I have what I believe to be a fool proof method of distinguishing between your friends who can keep a secret and the “loose lips sink ships” crowd.

So, how do you make the distinction between the two? By testing your friends on purpose. Think of something personal and harmless, tell it to five people in private and see if it gets back to you. Eventually you will be able to tie it back to the person or people who blabbed. You can still be friends because your news was harmless by design. Just remember not to tell anything that is actually important down the road. You don’t want any personally damaging information to start spreading. You also don’t want to mess up the timing of future events if something is revealed too soon. Many a promotion has been lost and many early and unplanned retirements have been initiated because of this.

On the other hand, when you find out who the blabbermouths are keep them in mind for the things that need to be advertised quick, fast and in a hurry. Are you starting a new business? Tell them. They can create business traffic for you. Ask any business owner. Word of mouth is the lifeblood of any business. You need people constantly referring to you as the go–to person for whatever goods and services you sell.

Do you have a new project at work that needs some internal PR around the office? Definitely tell them. It will help your name to be heard more consistently by your bosses. In case you didn’t know, no one gets promoted just because of his or her efforts. Your work doesn’t get noticed just because you do it well. And trust me it does not advertise itself. So you have to schmooze and do it well. So be sure to groom your own personal schmooze crew.

Running for public office? Absolutely tell them. They will get the word going on the grass roots grapevine better than any print or broadcast advertising. Every candidate needs believers to blow the trumpet for their political bandwagon. Yes, strike up the band indeed. You can’t possibly form relationships with all potential voters but your supporters can certainly expand that range.

And what is the point of each of these examples? That your tight-lipped friends can’t help you here because they don’t talk enough (LOL!).

Seriously though, in the end it’s all about using good judgment. Our friends mean well but we can’t tell them everything. Sometimes their good intentions can lead to total disaster. So be wise about what you reveal, when you release it and whom you tell. Not only will this help you avoid asking the inevitable “How did you find out?” of “Who told you?” but you will also be better able to protect your interests and make sure your boat stays afloat.

Old Cindy is back in the news again. Now she thinks she can run for public office, like anybody cares. This is a good sugue though for me to begin sharing my Toastmasters speaches with you guys again. My first of ten on the road to the Advanced Communicator Bronze designation is from the Speaking On Television manual.

The objective was to give a T.V. editorial. I taped it with my camcorder and everything. My question back on Tuesday, March 26, 2007 was, “What is the deal with Cindy Sheehan?”. Here are my thoughts. What do you think?

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Who is this lady getting all the undue media attention over something that doesn’t even concern her? You know, the one who has been camping out near the president’s ranch and pulling other publicity stunts because her son got killed in Iraq? She claims the president is responsible for her son’s death and she is mad at Bush. Of course the media is all over it and people are nodding their heads in agreement. Are you kidding me? Excuse me but don’t people get it, that she’s actually upset with her dead son and not the president? I don’t think she even realizes it.

Just stop and think about it. Sheehan is your typical peace at all costs pacifists. No war is a good war and World War II may be the only one in recent memory that had any merit. Sheehan’s problem isn’t with the president. Her real problem is that her son didn’t share her pacifist views. Instead he was a duty bound, nation loving young man who signed up to kill and die for his country, just like thousands of young men and women have done through out the history of the nation. He wasn’t drafted; no one put a gun to his head and made him sign up. He did so simply for love of country and he went the total self-sacrificing distance.

No, Cindy isn’t mad at George. Cindy is mad at her son Casey, a decorated war hero mind you, and she’s taking it out on George. Why? Because she knows people will follow any crazy old thing without thinking about it. And as much as I sympathize with her loss she isn’t using a lot of common sense herself.
Hey, instead of encouraging this woman to constantly make herself look ridiculous in public, why don’t the people closest to her help her to realize that her son was a grown man who made a grown man’s decision like responsible adults do every day. The fact that her son’s choice didn’t reflect her political views is her problem to deal with, not everybody else’s, least of all the President’s.

O.K. Look, I’d like to give her my own little history lesson to help her get over it. Cindy, listen to Martin. Nations are built on war, nations are preserved by war. It has never happened any other way and it never will happen any other way. Do not be naïve. Diplomacy is not always the answer to all the world’s ills. In fact history gives us many examples where too much talking and maneuvering has actually lead to the outbreak of war. Too much deliberation and too little action has often allowed the wrong side get the jump. Hello Pearl Harbor.

Through out history, from time to time, nations simply have to duke it out old fashioned style and the winner has their way. It’s not nice, it’s not neat but that is the way of the world. And like it or not your son has followed the heroic ideal to the end. He has done his part to ensure that we continue to live in the same free and sovereign republic that the founding fathers fought and died for to create in the first place. So stop embarrassing your son’s memory. Instead honor his duty and his service by getting on with your life and doing something more constructive with it.

That could be the case if Nielsen’s web site rating system catches on. John Chow’s recent post discusses how they are beginning to meaure time spent on a web site as a guage of interest. It may be a new metric in the making. Check the link as see what the hub-bub is all about.

Interesting contrast in the Tuesday, June 26th USA Today sports section between American style football and soccer – known as futball to the rest of the world – and how one carries oneself. This one is about perspective. I’ll compare and contrast alternate groups in both sports – the fans and players.

NFL Commissioner Roger Godell briefed the 255 newest draftess on the league’s stricter conduct rules. At the mandatory rookie symposium he talked to the new young professionals about how to be just that, professional on and off the field. It covered handling finances and relationships and how to prepare for life after football. With all the craziness we here about from some of these guys with no apparent home training (Michael Vick and half the Cincinatti Bengals), it’s good to see the league taking initiative that will impact these young guys the rest of their lives. From this day forward they will have no excuses because they can’t say nobody told them what was expected of them.

American style football is probably the most physically demanding game in the world except maybe rugby and soccer. Our fans can also be callous, verbally and physically. Players thru the decades have talked about racial and sexual comments from the stands and beer, popcorn and other stuff being thrown at them between the field and the tunnel at certain stadiums. But I have never heard of football fans fighting each other in the stands enmasse or in the stadium parking lot riot style. The occasional individual drunks jaw jacking and going at it are to be expected from time to time. But that’s usually it. Pretty small scale when it happens.

On the other hand, futball fans around the world apparently go psychotic on a regular basis. In the same USA Today column was an article detailing how rival fans of Argentine soccer clubs in Buenos Aires were swinging metal pipes and throwing rocks at each other. The melee spilled out onto a freeway during rush our. C’mon now, the fans stopped traffic with a fight from the stadium to the highway! One man killed, fourteen people injured. I’m sure their counterparts in Great Brittain – the hooligans, yep that’s what they call them in the British isles – or the European mainland won’t want to be outdone by their South American brethren so I don’t doubt that we’ll be hearing about the next fisticuff on the other side of the Atlantic very soon.

It just warms my heart to see stories like this after hearing how we backwards Americans won’t embrace the world’s most popular sport. Hey, if it drives the people to madness like that then to heck with it. And I played for a year and do appreciate the game but the fanatics have to get a grip. Americans fans almost never do that and when we do it’s for a national championship of some kind, not a daily game occassion. Besides those points is our variety of althletic choice. Fact is it’s an outward expression of our freedoms. We participate in what we like because we have options not because we’re obligated to the only thing around. That’s not about being better than everybody else in the world. It’s simply called freedom. And like a lot of the syndicated sports talk hosts will tell you, our home grown sports are more fun anyway. Just look at how every one of them have taken off in popularity all over the world.

Well, anyway, be a fan of your sport(s) because you like the game not because you’re having a “We Are the World” moment. If you think socker sucks or you believe it’s human chess to the greatest degree go with your heart, not with obligation. And be you athlete or fan don’t be a hooligan.

Loyal readers, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. My desktop finally took a dive late last week. I’m only now getting the time to put up a post at the library. Thank you tax dollars at work!

We’re going to replace the nearly ten year old unit – yeah I’m frugal – with an Apple of some sort. Then I’ll be back on pace in the comfort of my own home again!

Until then hit me up with some comments and tell me how you’ve been.

Everybody say congratulations. Got my new Competent Leader award from Toastmasters International in the mail today. It will look very nice next to my Competent Communicator award from February.

You may already know that TI helps you improve your public speaking skills but you may not be aware that we also have a leadership track to help improve that part of your skill set. I gave a couple of presentations on improving our club, the Talk of the Town club, to earn this latest designation.

The first was “Motivating People” which I gave on May 15th and the next was “Going Beyond Our Club” on May 29th. That was the perfect segue into being elected our club’s new Vice President of Education this month. My main job will be keeping the momentum going by making sure that club members continue advancing thru a series of certifications – the first being the CC and CL that I mentioned above – by scheduling speeches consistently. The more Competent Communicators and Advanced Communicators a club has the more the club and district are recognized and rewarded. Likewise for increasing the number of Competent and Advanced Leaders. We get cool ribbons for our club banner and everything.

Want to become a better blogger in a hurry? Find your nearest Toastmasters club and sign up now. You’ll work on your writing in preparation for giving your speeches so it’s the perfect literary cross training for creating traffic drawing blog posts. And don’t forget about the cool certificates made for framing.

I love having little kids. I just know memories of these first few years are going to crack me up for decades to come. My kids just can’t keep anything to themselves without going to the verge of bursting like a tic.

I don’t know what my gift or surprise is today but I know it’s in my son’s room. Yesterday my wife told me to go to the T.V. room and she told my daughter to guard me. She’s the one who tells everything that she’s supposed to keep to herself.  You know like “I’m not going to tell Daddy about thus-and-such that we got him at here-and-there place.” It just makes her big brother mad and he almost tells it himself while he’s trying to shush her. He doesn’t remember that he use to do the same thing when he was her age. They are hillarious.

Yeah, makes being a parent worth it. Especially after the constant duties of chastizing, correcting and speech making. Yes, you start the speechifying with the toddler and grade school set and yes they do understand. 

I wonder if I’m going to get my goodies before or after church? We’ll see how the day unfolds.

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