Her name is Bridget Wright and she is a woman of many talents. Among my fave is that she’s a fellow Toastmaster. Need someone to speak to your group on a topic of importance? Get in touch with her.
You’ll get a feel for her skills as she begins to kick in content here on the site in March. I can’t wait an you should definitely stay tuned. I can assure you you’ll be glad you did.
With all of my corporate grooming from high school through college how did I manage to miss this straightforward formula for success all of these years? I don’t remember anyone teaching this or any mentors recommending a book or website on the subject. The P.I.E. Theory posits that career success is based on Performance – %10, Image – %30 and Exposure – %60. This appeals to my analytical way of thinking about everything. The mathematical ratios make it naturally intuitive so I definitely get this.
It confirms a lot of general things I’ve hear through out the years. I suppose it’s possible that I didn’t really believe some of it early on. Or maybe it’s no more that the fact that I didn’t understand the proportions of each of the three factors. As you can see it’s not just who you know. It’s not only what you know. It’s a combination or ratio of both plus a good dose of perception thrown in the middle.
You’re expected to be excellent but that alone is not all there is to it. The rest pertains to knowing how to “play the game”. We’ve all heard that phrase before. But it’s never been illustrated – at least not for me – as well as with this PIE concept. Like it or not you have to master the total game in order to succeed. The second part, Image, begins to address this. Looking the part and dressing the part along with earning the respect of your peers are key.
Exposure wraps up the entire process. Making yourself and your excellent work known to key power brokers is the most significant part. It is necessary high end office politicking. Image and Exposure are the networking part. Become good at it now and these two will begin to feel more natural to you. You’ll definitely begin to notice how well they serve your purposes as you become more proficient with each.
Your golf and speaking skills will also help you immensely in these areas as will volunteering for high profile projects that will be seen by important people. If you are a college student take a golf glass for P.E. Also take a debate and or a public speaking class. Join a Toastmasters International club. I’m a member and I recommend it everyone. Walking in the door as a master presenter and a confident speaker in front of a crowd instantly puts you miles ahead of most people. I guarantee it will do wonders for your career.
If only I had known about this model early on. Oh well, I know it now and you my friends would also do well to learn it and apply it. Take a look at some of these links on the subject and watch your fortunes rise in due time.
O.K. Everybody drop what you’re doing and check out what Chris Davis has going in Columbus, Ohio. He is a fellow Toastmaster who specializes in technology and communication. We’re obviously cut from the same cloth so I can’t think of a better type of person to have helped me reach this milestone in building my virtual professional network. Read more about Chris through the LinkedIn link above and send him an invite request.
So now you see why you should join Toastmasters International and create a LinkedIn profile right? Just look at how Chris has leveraged his communication and leadership skills to become a successful business owner. No reason you can’t do the same or similar, with your particular life objectives.
Chris and I belong to the Public Speaking Network and the Black Data Processing Associates groups on LinkedIn. There are literally hundreds of common interest groups you can join to network with like minded people. LinkedIn is by far the premier forum for the entire world to beat a path to your door and pay you to help improve their lives. It’s all about helping the other guy and this is the perfect way to begin doing that.
No excuses people. Let’s make it happen. And now, on to 500+ connections!
From the files of the March 2009 edition of Toastmaster magazine…here’s a story about Toastmasters’ Humorous Speech Contest. In the “Filled With Funny” article written by Paul Sterman on page 14 there’s this story.
Sid Davis, a member of the Lake Morman Toastmasters in Mooresville, North Carolina, playfully dissed the Starbucks crowd – or at least those patrons who order the “mocha, frappe, latte, venti, pony expresso, whipped cream sissy drink. If you want a milkshake go to Dairy Queen!” he growled.
His coffee themed comedy routine took first place in the 2005 division round.
I just found out today myself. Didn’t know it was an option. Necessity is what drove me to do some homework on it. I’ve been working on my Toastmaster’s Club website updating the current information using the default Apple Safari browser as I always do on my iMac desktop. For some reason I wasn’t able to to do any editing. The editing pallet had no text, just a blank slate.
Fortunately the tech support guys at FreeToastHost.org who provide free web sites and site management tools to Toastmasters International clubs around the world had an answer. This change must have been very recent because the first question in the forum today was from a guy who suddenly couldn’t edit content on the iMac Safari browser. Some days the Good Lord just drops one in my lap like that.
Here’s how you do the install. I Googled “firefox for Mac” and got this site from Mozilla with a Mac download button. This is the download instructional graphic showing the entire process. It was quick and easy. Didn’t take more than five minutes on my cable internet line.
I imported all my links over from Safari and was back in business in no time able to edit the Talk of the Town Club’s site. Go ahead and make it a project today to add Firefox to your Mac before you need it.
We made it! Yeah baby, it became official on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008. The Talk of the Town Toastmasters Club attained Presidents Distinguished Club status when we got one more Competent Communicator qualified with her 10th speech. I am extremely proud of all the hard work the club put in to reach the finish line once they saw that it really was in sight. No mediocrity hounds, this crew. This is the pinnacle of club achievement in Toastmasters International and we reached it with a strong kick at the end. Yep, I am proud of my club and more importantly they are proud of themselves.
I’m really proud of myself too. I can’t think of anything I’ve done as satisfying when it comes to leadership. If someone had introduced me to Toastmasters early in my first career I probably would have been more effective much sooner as a young professional. Those are what we call lessons learned though. But, I am so glad that I got this opportunity later in life because I definitely know how to apply my newfound leardership skills once I re-enter the workforce in a couple of years.
As far as the club is concerned we have made massive progress over the last three years. We have moved steadily up the chain from Distinguished in 2005-06, to Select Distinguished in 2006-07 and on to Presidents Distinguished for 2007-08. We’ll add that top notch banner to our club flag and fly it with pride. I have our two previous presidents to thank for setting the precedent and giving the inspiration for success. Brenda Curtis drove us to earn our first banner. That was when I was a new member and had no interest in being an officer. Last year Jeanette Peters pushed us to improve and not remain static. That’s when I started to get excited. So to continue the trend, once I saw that the next level was possible I pushed my fellow Toastmasters even further just as my predecessors had done. So thank you ladies for being great examples for us.
Last week we had an officer transition meeting and we handed over the reigns to the new leadership team. I’d recommend this to all Toastmasters International clubs as well as to any other organizations. Over the last year I documented a club success plan, outlining in particular, what got us to the next level. The purpose was to create a repeatable system that would keep us at the highest level of club recognition annualy. Among other things we started doing every business function online. This made us much more effective in every way. We could do everything in a much more timely fashion than in previous years purely by eliminating paper and the snail mail process. I handed that “how to do it” document over to the new president and there’s no stopping now.
For the benefit of those of you in other clubs and organizations, here’s how we did the handover. We took our normal meeting time and gave the new officers a full orientation of their duties. We handed over files, binders, and notes. I reviewed some basic business functions on a couple of key web sites for the new officers. We huddled up in three subgroups and then swapped chairs to include and talk to other officers with related duties. It was a great way for the new folks to get on the same wavelength. At the end of the meeting our new president and her officers gave us the plan for the new club year.
There was even a usefull activity for regular non officer club members. Our area governor came by and gave a speech writing tips meeting in another room down the hall from us. And now that they know the 2008-09 master plan they can hit the ground running in full stride helping us to hit those new goals.
The transition meeting was a good change of pace all in all and last night the new officers took on their first meeting by themselves. Here’s to another great year for the Talk of the Town Club. Hey have you found a club near you yet? Sign up now and elevate your communication and leadership skills today.
Last week I wrote a couple of posts on upgrading your golf game and improving your public speaking skills and perhaps you thought they were interesting yet unrelated subjects. Not so, friends. I just wanted to give you time to digest both topics and allow them to sink in really well. Now I am about to give you an “actionist plan” – way better than your typical action plan – that will make you more competitive than you’ve ever been. Do what I’m doing. Fine tune your golf game and your communications game at the same time.
These two subjects of interest are powerful tools individually. But collectively I call them the Quantum Combo. One reinforces the other. They feed off each other by their complimentary natures and the two together will catapult you forward in ways you haven’t imagined up to this point.
Read Andy Dlugan’s link on how better communication and presentation skills will push you ahead of the pack for leadership opportunities on the job. The golf gatherings for fun with the office mates are gold mines of opportunity. They are also another chance to show off your outstanding communication talents.
Couple this with being able to hob-knob with your boss and his boss and her boss and all of their bosses along with every lateral peer and every subordinate below you in the organization at the next company golf scramble. You can’t help but elevate your career to another level. It’s a can’t miss proposition.
What’s that? Your company doesn’t have a golf scramble? Perfect! Start one and show yourself to be a leader once again. All the other duffers at work are just waiting on someone to do it. So why not be everyone’s hero and start a new company tradition?
June is halfway thru and July is upon us. Make it your business to make the second half of the year more profitable. Be an actionist and join your nearest Toastmasters International club and then sign up for a golf class at your nearest public course. Put the Quantum Combo into play and change your destiny today.
I figured out a new trick! I feel like such a smart guy. Guess what? Did you know you could embed YouTube clips into your e-mails the same way you do on a blog? It’s just a code copy-and-paste. When you send the e-mail, your recipients will see the middle of the bracketed “object” embed link hi-lited.
When they click on that hi-lited part of the embed link, it will open a browser window. The recipient just clicks on the play button in the center of the video just like they would on your site. And voila!!! Instant movie. In case you’ve never played around with YouTube and you don’t have a blog or website to embed video clips into, just test it out in an email to yourself. I sent this one and another in an e-mail to my Toastmasters club yesterday. Look at the grey section next to the video clip. The computer code under the “Embed” title is the part you copy and paste.
Send yourself a link and click on it to verify it works correctly. Then share your favorite stuff with all your e-mail buddies. You should still sign up for a YouTube account so you can create your own personal library of music and movie shorts of all sorts. Then you can become true YouTube junkies like the rest of us.
I have learned a lot about my ability to lead during the past year as president of my Toastmasters International club. It’s the first time I’ve really been comfortable moving a group of people from one point to another. Well this is a truly significant year for us. We are the Talk of the Town Toastmasters Club and this year we are poised to become a President’s Distinguished Club for the first time ever in our four year history.
If you’re not familiar with the program there are three levels of club achievement based on club members doing their part to earn points towards the Distinguished Club Program along with the accompanying recognition. There are ten possible points related to members learning basic and advanced speaking and leadership skills. By documenting where we intended to be at the begining of the club year we actually are getting there.
Five points makes a club Distinguished, seven earns Select Distinguished and nine points is the highest club honor of all. President’s Distinguished. It takes a lot of forward planning to make sure you achieve either of the goals.
In addition to working the master plan we have significantly improved our membership building. We haven’t always been consistent with it over the years but as those of you who run other groups know, new blood is the life blood that sustains any organization. We have definitely elevated our efforts on that front and it’s showing the benefits in all other operations of the club. It takes twenty members on a roster to qualify for the club recognitions and the fruits of our labors are finally beginning to show.
It has helped increase the number of individual speaking certifications. More people are intentionally focused on being Competent and Advanced Communicators because they have put it on the plan. They are working on becoming better Competent and Advanced Leaders because they have put it on the plan.
Our two pronged attack of membership building and speaking & leadership improvement has us on the cusp of a historic day. There’s no stopping us now and I have to admit I’m feeling pretty proud of myself and the club. Listen. Do yourself a favor where ever you live on the planet. Join your nearest Toastmasters International club and change your life forever.
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