Speaking Life

Getting back into Toastmasters

2010-07-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

I've come back to toastmasters after a two year break due to the birth of my daughter. One of my goals in life is to be a trainer and consultant in the areas of my expertise in public speaking as well as internal audit and realise that going for regular toastmasters meetings is the way to continue to invest in my journey to be an excellent speaker.

I was doing project evaluation at an established club and made 13 pause fillers during my presentation. Although I am an experienced toastmaster with 5 years plus of active toastmastering experience, I still have my share of pause fillers e.g. arh, erm, ok, you knows because I've taken a two year break. This reminds me that I need to continue on this journey towards excellence in public speaking and never stop improving myself.

My next intermediate goals are to get the club contests organised with the help of my Vice-President (Education) and Contest Chair as well as to prepare a humorous speech to compete in the same contest :-)

What steps are you taking to improve your own public speaking skills?

Squid

2009-06-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

Dear friends

This blog has been relatively inactive due to the first year or so spending time with my beautiful baby daughter grow up. She's now all of 15 months old and is the light of my life.

I'm getting back into toastmastering bit by bit and will try to rejoin my club again every 3rd Thursday of the month. Once I'm back into toastmastering, I'll spend more time updating this blog and to also create some interesting ventures arising from my passion and interest in public speaking.

In the meantime, I've created my Squidoo Page related to impromptu speaking.

Take care and remember that speaking well is a passport to better living. :-)

Learning Never Stops

2008-11-13T22:15:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I've learnt as a toastmaster is that learning never stops. Once we stop learning, our brain atrophies and old connections between our brain cells either stop working or become less active.

Besides joining a toastmasters club and learning from your fellow members' life experiences, you can also enrol in education institutions for formal courses. You can find some of these on the internet (i.e. online learning) or you can also find some of these in the real physical brick and mortars world where you get to interact with physical facilities and faculty members in person or you can do it the distance learning style where click and mouse replace having to be physically there in person to learn about a subject or topic.

One such school you can find is the Sheffield School. It is a private school situated in Manhattan, New York City, USA and has different types of courses for different types of learners. It focusses on distance learning courses. For those of you who are interested in learning more about interior design, you can visit its website to see for yourself what the course curriculum offers. There is also a course on interior decorating, as how you express your inner personality manifests itself in the way you decorate your home to reflect your own life values, beliefs and personality.

Related to interior design and interior decorating is the art of feng shui. For those who live in Asia, you would know that feng shui is the art of living in harmony with the qi in the environment. Increasingly, the good vibes and bad vibes that a place gives the occupants can sometimes be explained through feng shui principles. Read wikipedia's definition of feng shui for more explanations.

Sheffield School provides distance learning through delivering its courseware through multimedia comprising visuals, audio, one-to-one assistance and personal evaluations of your work.

Take a look at Sheffield School if your are considering distance learning for interior design, interior decorating or feng shui fields.

I share your fear: public speaking for the first time

2008-10-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

Public speaking comes easy to some but not so for others.

I realised that I had some ability in public speaking only after making mistakes such as having up to 40+ pause fillers in my speech and also forgetting bits of my speech even as it was being coughed out in front of a live audience. My ability came after doing 10+5+5 speeches along with at least 30-40 table-topics over an interrupted span of 5 years in toastmastering.

Some evaluators have been gentle with me. Some have been harsh but fair, others have been harsh and unfair [but these were the minority].

What I learnt from my toastmastering experience was the fear of speaking is very real. There is something about fearing ridicule, laughter or embarrassment that triggers the flight or fight instinct in us. That is why I try my best to smile at first time public speakers doing their first few speeches from the Basic Leadership and Communication Manual because it can be so hard for them to overcome their inate fear of embarrassment or "malu-ing" [embarassing in malay] themselves in front of an audience. By smiling, I show support and I also empathise with how difficult it is when one gets a negative reaction from a frowing listener.

Looking back at my toastmastering, I realise that the benefits come now as I am more confident in dealing with interviews and speaking situations at the workplace compared to what I was 5 years ago.

If you are a new toastmaster and continue to struggle with the fear. Brother or sister in public speaking, I share your fear. The fear IS REAL. The fear CAN be PALPABLE. But the good news is that the fear can be overcome with practice, practice and practice as well as mentorship and genuine coaching. I saw the benefits of my toastmastering experience and my ability in speaking off-the-cuff after training my mind to be able to handle table-topics. This ability is one of the greatest tangible benefits I have received from my investments in my time with toastmasters.

If you are discouraged over your toastmasters performance, my suggestion is to HANG IN THERE. It will get better but in the short-term it may get worse before it gets better. In each of us, there will be this "ah-ha" or eureka moment where it finally clicks for you how all the components of a excellent speech come into play. The combination of content, genuine conviction in what you have to say and being able to use voice, gestures, tone, pace and all the toastmasters skills to deliver an effective speech will materalise.

And when it does, you will be so glad that you stuck with it and managed to reap the rewards for doing so.

Public speaking can be hard for some. But it can be so rewarding when you are able to do it.

Back to you toastmaster of the day!

Sabbatical from Public Speaking

2008-10-08T01:33:00.000-07:00

I continue to be on a sabbatical from toastmastering due to my daughter being born in March 2008. Her presence has enriched my life and made me realise that as much as I enjoy toastmastering, I need to take time off to see her grow up for the first few years before getting back onto the public speaking circuit again.

Teaching her to speak well would be one of the critical lifeskills that I would want to impart to her.

Here's why I have been away from toastmastering.

Communicate More Through Learning a New Language

2008-07-08T17:28:00.001-07:00

Image via WikipediaAs part of my toastmasters experience, I realise the importance of learning and mastering languages. In Singapore, many of us here are conversant in at least two languages. The first is English which is the medium of instruction. The second is our mother-tongue. For Singaporean Chinese, it is mandarin (or putonghua or hua yu) while for Singaporean-Malays it is Malay language and for Singaporean-Indians it is Tamil (although my Indian friends tell me that India has many many languages e.g. Hindi and Tamil is the official language taught because many of the original migrants from India to Singapore were from South India where Tamil is widely used.)

For myself, there has been some cultural dissonance as my standard of English far surpasses my mandarin even as both my parents were mandarin or chinese educated.

Learning languages stem from interest. Recently, I have become interested in the Japanese language because I find the otaku culture fascinating. Many websites now provide language courses and instruction and I came across one of them Transparent Language.

They offer language software solutions where you can learn a new language from the comfort of your home personal computer. If you want to visit the European continent, you may want to learn to speak Spanish to visit Rafael Nadal or the victorious Spainish team in winning Euro 2008. If you are more partial to pizzas, pastas, Milan fashion, you may want to learn to speak Italian. France is literally next to Italy and you way want to learn to speak French as you find your way to Paris and up to the Eiffel Tower.

The Transparent Language website provides various products offering computer or audio/video based instruction in many languages. These cover their "Before You Know It" (BYKI) series to help master words and phrases of the language in your memory. Their "Learn Language Now" series looks at conversation skills with video and audio. "Everywhere Audio" provides audio CD based instruction. The "Complete Learning Suites" combine all these products together in one package.

Various languages are covered in Transparent Language. From Afrikaans to Zulu! Literally, A to Z! :-)

Their online store has many of the various products and offers in store that you can buy online as well. Learning a new language has gotten simpler with the internet.

Consider learning a new language today.

Collecting your thoughts before you speak

2008-06-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

Public speaking - thinking before speaking
Being involved in public speaking and toastmastering has made me more self-aware about the processes that go on before I utter a single syllable in a group setting. You become more aware of how your mind reacts to the words and utterances of people around you as you participate in table-topics or when you are delivering a formal speech to a toastmasters audience.

Before I joined toastmasters, I thought public speaking was about dressing up nicely, rehearsing your presentation well and having slick powerpoint slides. These are important. Dressing has a visual impact on your audience and you should dress appropriately to the setting in which you speak. Rehearsing or practicising your speech is definitely a good thing to do and having effective powerpoint slides is also useful.

The real battle for mastery in public speaking is your thoughts or to structure WHAT you want to say into the HOW. This is the part where your brain has to work in over-drive because unless you are reading to an audience that is sleeping, you need to interact with them as a speech a means of communication, a way for your message to reach the audience and for them to receive that message and either be informed, be persuaded to do something or to change their views on something.

Thinking before speaking - your mental template
To think before you speak is easy. Our minds are filled with many random thoughts flickering around. The challenging bit is to structure your thoughts condusive to your speech.

In a formal speech scenario, that means a lot of preparation of writing out your speech, what are your main points, and how you intend to get those points across using the content, the words, the examples, illustrations and stories. It also involves your gestures and body language to communicate the message effectively to your audience.

In a table-topics or unstructured speaking scenario, that means to work with some mental templates on how you can respond to a topic or question. For instance, if the topic was about your views on something, you can respond by saying you feel positive, negative or are neutral about it and why. If it was about a development, you could comment on what had happened before, what was the current situation and what would be the future steps.

Adding on to what other people are saying is also a way to make use of the content already generated by the speakers and to develop interesting ways to look at things, to give additional information or even to ask questions to clarify or reframe the issue.

Being conscious of it all
My experience in toastmasters has been that being in speaking situations where all these skills are being put to the test makes you more aware of what goes on in your mind. It can go blank, it can wander of, it can be stressed in reacting to the situation. But through the delivering of 30 over speeches and countless table-topics, it has enabled me to be more aware of how my mind reacts to these situations and I could make the mistakes in the relative safety of familiar club members as I develop ways to respond with poise and control.

If you wish to be a better speaker and a more effective communicator, the ability to collect your thoughts before you speak is critical for you to succeed.

Speak well, live well.

The storm before the calm - before you speak

2008-05-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

The bit just before you speak
Public speaking can be one of the most unnerving experiences you encounter in life. As a toastmaster for 5 over years, I realised that the interesting thing about public speaking is that once you get started, you're generally all right.

The nervousness, stress and worry comes from the five minutes BEFORE you deliver your speech. Assuming you have prepared your speech, have a good idea what you wish to convey in terms of your OPENING, BODY and CONCLUSION of your speech, your nervousness comes from waiting. It is the minutes and seconds before a big race, before an examination or a major interview for a job or for a position. The ANTICIPATION is what scares you are your mind moves at break-neck speeds to think of the 1001 scenarios how you will fumble your speech or forget huge chunks of it. This is normal. Even top athletes or performers get the jitters but they develop mechanisms to cope with it.

How to overcome the storm (in your stomach) before the calm
These are some techniques I use before my own speeches especially during contests or other more high profile events.

1) Adequate preparation
This is fundamental because if you have prepared sufficiently, you should be able to deliver your speech successfully. Of course, what is adequate can be subjective and some speakers can talk off-the-cuff on substantive topics without sitting down to write their speech. Others need to draft their speech entirely before they can deliver. Do what is necessary given your own skills, abilities and experience.

2) Positive Mindset
Think positive, even if you think negative, you cannot change the situation and still have to go through your speech. So might as well be positive and engage your favourite positive affirmation, "I can do it", "I know I can"... etc.

3) Have adequate rest
Sufficient rest the night before is important in allowing us to be as fresh as we can for our speech. If you are listless, tired and anxious, the audience will also sense it and be affected by it. A speech is a performance and you are the performer. Give your best shot by having sufficient rest the night before.

4) Break the ice with the audience
Before speech contests, I try to talk to one or two members of the audience especially if they are people I know from other clubs or areas. This is one way to see the audience as part of people you already know. If the audience is totally new to you, at least you get to break the ice before hand and get a sense of who and how the audience will be to lessen your anxiety before your speech.

5) Enjoy yourself
Public speaking should be fun and not a pressuring activity. I enjoy public speaking because when the audience gives you their full attention, you realise you have the power to get people to listen to you. That is both a privilege and a responsibility and shows how powerful public speaking skills are in connecting with people.

The feeling of nervousness before a speech is normal. It shows you care. It shows you bother about the speech to worry about it. Let the nervous energy turn itself into a better performance during the speech and you will overcome it and become a better speaker.

Speak well. Live well.

How do I become a better speaker?

2008-04-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

Flickr photo by Panzergrenadier.

Presentation and speaking skills are becoming critical in today's world
Presentation skills are becoming one of the most important softs-kills in addition to your basic core competence in your work, business or personal lives. US politicians have to be effective communicators and public speakers to have any decent chance at becoming an elected official.

Even if you are NOT in marketing or sales, presentation skills are now a must in your school, work and even volunteer activities.

So how does one build up these skills for today's world?

But first taking ACTION!

5 Step process in becoming a better speaker

1) Identify your REASON
Why do you want to be a better speaker? To make more money? To win friends and influence people (as Dale Carnegie puts in so well in his book?) or to be more successful in dating and to find a spouse?

Whatever your reason, it has to be REAL to you and something that MOTIVATES you internally. This is because to be a better speaker requires hardwork, dedication and lots of practice!!!

2) Evaluate your STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES
To improve, you need to know where are the areas you are weak at in public speaking. Is it the fear factor of not being able to stand in front of the audience? Then you may need to work on you being confident enough to overcome your fear and to deliver your speech or presentation smoothly and confidently. Some of you may realise that you already have some inate talents and abilities suited for public speaking. You may be blessed with a deep resounding voice. You may be tall and have attractive facial features. You may be naturally humorous. All these can help you become an even better speaker!

3) Get COACHING
Multi-million dollar earning tennis players have coaches. Even professional public speakers like Craig Valentine gets coaching from Patricia Fripp. You can be coached at any of the hundreds of toastmasters clubs in Singapore! If you are not sure which one to join, you can consider the Open Alumni Toastmasters Club that I am a member of and if you live in the Northeast, Rivervale Toastmasters Club. Just drop me an email at rod.loh at gmail.com and I will forward the contacts of the respective people from those clubs to get in touch with you!

The value in coaching and mentoring comes from having more experienced toastmasters guide you along this journey towards being a better speaker and presenter. I personally have benefitted from 5 plus years of being coached by various mentors, evaluators and other better speakers I have met from my own toastmastering experience.

4) Practice, practice and practice!
There is no substitute from putting theory into action through practice. Even Craig Valentine mentioned when he was at the Hong Kong Convention in 2007 that he still practices and practices even though he is a world champion of public speaking! When you are in a club, you will practice monthly your speeches if you adhere to the basic communication and leadership manual that brings you through the basic foundations of being an effective public speaker!

5) DO IT for real!
Once you have attained some measure of confidence from the hardwork you have put in, you can put your skills to the test in real speaking situations. The confidence you get from being able to effectively deliver your speech and presentation is something that boosts your own value as an employee, business-person, student or volunteer.

Being a public speaker is possible for most of you. The question is, do you WANT it so BAD that you would be willing to invest the time, effort and energy to grow your own skills and abilities?

Speak well and live well!

Get to the point

2008-04-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

Photo by Zam'n.

Excuse me, what was your speech about?

Have you ever delivered a speech and have a member of the audience come up to you and ask discreetly, "excuse me, but what was your speech about?"

Public speaking involves more than just standing up at a podium and talking about a topic for the next five to seven minutes. It is about COMMUNICATION. It is about passing messages from you to your audience. It is about your audience UNDERSTANDING what you have just told them!

So how you make sure that your message is received by your audience? Let's examine how you can deliver your speech and get to the point of your performance.

What is your purpose?

Too many times I have listened to speeches that were well spoken, had considerable content but was not organised in a way that helped the speaker achieve his or her purpose. I talked about this in an earlier post, but I'll reiterate the point as it is an important one. Before you write a speech, you need to think about and come up with the purpose of your speech? As Stephen Covey exhorted us in the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", begin with the end in mind. What do you want to achieve with your audience. To persuade them to do something? To inform and educate them about issues that they were unaware? To encourage them to become better or more effective in their jobs, roles or hobbies?

What is your purpose? Establish that clearly and your OPENING, BODY and CONCLUSION of your message will be structured, with practice and some coaching, into a speech that will drive home the message to your audience.

Who is your audience?

Knowing your audience is important to know if they will be receptive to your message. It will help you write the speech in a way that helps send your message across. Is it a group full of intellectuals? Then your examples and arguments can be pitched at a more conceptual level. Is it a group of people who prefer to do things with their hands than to hear conceptual frameworks, then you may want to use analogies and examples that relate to their background and understanding. The point here is to pitch your message to the level of your audience. In the case where your audience is a mixture, you may have to aim for the lowest common denominator or something rather universal that appeals across all groups. It is easier said that done but I realised that topical issues in the main stream media tend to connect with the audience e.g. electronic road pricing, inflation, economy etc.

Why you need to be direct?

Most speeches in the toastmasters movement take five to seven minutes. In this short time, you will be hard pressed to meander with an overly long opening or tell stories that have little relevance to your main topic. I prefer the direct approach of having an impactful opening, for example, if I were talking about mind-mapping, I might start with,

Do you know that 99% of all human beings only use 1% of their brains? My speech today will touch on how you can turn into that 1% that uses more than 1% of your brain!

Your audience's time is precious. They give you their attention only if what you say adds value and gives them something. They crave food for thought and manna for their souls. You are in a position to give it to them or to deny them in the very same speech, so prepare your speech well so that you are deserving of their time.

Speak well and live well.

Connecting People with Public Speaking

2008-03-26T06:17:00.000-07:00

Throughout my 5 years in toastmasters, I've learnt a thing or two about connecting people. No, I'm not talking about match-making or getting people to hold hands, but rather I'm talking about getting people warmed up enough to start talking to one another although they may not know much about each other.

How do you connect with people through public speaking?
One of the useful skills I picked up as a toastmaster was in making small talk. A typical toastmasters meeting comprises of introductions by the sergeant-at-arms, the word of the day/evening if there is a language evaluator and then onto the prepared speeches segment followed by the table-topics and speech evaluations. Before the meeting starts, the members of the club and especially the Executive Committee (Exco) will need to arrive earlier to welcome new guests to the club or even to network with members.

Why toastmasters is so powerful in helping people connect is in the shared purpose. Those who are interested in improving their public speaking skills are drawn to the warm and supportive environment that is the hallmark of properly run clubs. Whilst all clubs strive to achieve this goal, not all do succeed in it. The clubs that I continue to be involved in are those where I know the members well and have formed a connection with them.

Forming connections
You pick up networking skills and learn how to make small talk by doing it. Toastmasters encourage members to welcome non-members or guests who are there for the first time. Virtually any toastmaster who has been around for a few months should be able to orientate any newcomer to the protocols and the objectives of what being a toastmaster is all about.

Besides welcoming guests, the monthly meeting allows for toastmasters who are members of the same club to renew connections and find out how each has been doing in terms of progressing in their speech manuals or how they are doing overall in life. Did you know that some toastmasters even managed to find their first job through the movement?

Fellow toastmasters also network with one another extensively because there is always a demand for available evaluators, speech contest judges and appointment holders for other club meetings. I have done my share of evaluating speeches of members in other clubs, holding appointments for club contests and taking up Exco role in more than 1 club. All these opportunities allowed me to sharpen my skills in interacting with strangers and getting myself to be thick-skinned enough to introduce myself to people I hardly know beyond the fact that we are in the toastmasters movement. The beauty of it all is that the starting point, i.e. the toastmasters movement is already a conversational piece in establishing rapport through asking about club affiliations, knowing of people in this or that club and inquiring about each other's progress in the various speech manuals.

If you have ever had problems networking and getting to make small talk with strangers, you may want to consider joining a toastmasters club as there will be ample opportunities for you to gain such skills through practice, practice and more practice.

Speak well, live well.

Death by Powerpoint: A Singaporean toastmaster's experience

2008-03-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

Many of you do presentations for work, community activities or volunteer activities using power point slides. But did you know that using power point slides in your presentation could be one of the biggest mistakes in your presentation?

To present or not to present, that is NOT the question
Presentations or public speaking opportunities are increasing all around you. In work, your boss may ask you to present a work-related topic to share with members of the team, department or even organisation. In school, you may have to do project presentations on assignments or class projects. Communication on a one-to-many scenario becomes more common when you start to acquire skills and knowledge that others would like to learn from.

To power point or not to powerpoint, that IS the question
When called upon to do a presentation, your first reaction is to reach out and fire up your powerpoint slides. Then you craft your presentation bullet-point by bullet-point, slide by slide.

Stop! Before you reach out for the powerpoint, may I suggest that you brainstorm on a piece of blank paper on what is your TOPIC or SUBJECT MATTER that you are dealing with and more fundamentally ask yourself WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR PRESENTATION?

Your purpose is NOT to string together slide after slide after slide of points or sentences that are so wordy that no-one can follow. In a typical presentation, you are making a presentation to:

inform or educate
persuade
inspire or motivate
call for action

Your purpose will determine how your speech should be crafted to deliver its message and purpose to the audience. If you are not clear of your purpose, you can be fairly confident that the audience will not be clear too. ;-)

Powerpoint should be one of the tools that you use to deliver your presentation. Other tools include using flip charts, transparencies, handouts etc. The trick is not to blindly push through using power point.

If you HAVE to use powerpoint
When you absolutely have to use powerpoint, do take note of some of the considerations:

Keep written points in the slides brief - Powerpoint presentations are not handouts for reading, this can be separately given to the audience as a full side of written notes in word
Use main headers and sub-points that are succinct (concise and precise)
Use relevant graphics to jazz up the presentation
Powerpoints are meant to support your presentation so do not READ OFF THE SLIDES
Make use of transition slides between one topic and another to give natural breaks to your presentation
For every main point to be addressed, use the PREP approach which is commonly used in table-topics to present i.e. make the Point, give Reasons for your point, give Examples or illustrations to support your point, and reiterate the Point by para-phrasing it.

Your presentation, their time!
It is important for you to make effective presentations not just for your own sake but for the sake of your audience. They have invested their time willingly (or unwillingly!) to listen to you for that period of time. You should be considerate and make it worth their while by adding something of value to their lives when you open your mouth to utter your presentation.

Speak well, live well.

How to overcome stage fright when making a speech

2008-03-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

How should you overcome stage fright
Delivering a speech in front of an audience requires preparation, poise and purpose. In order for you to overcome your fear of speaking in front of an audience on top of a platform or stage, you have to practise, practise and practise!

How should you practice in order to do so? Find out in the following paragraphs...

1) Preparation
Public speaking occurs in a more formalised and organised setting. Typically, if you are called upon to speak in public, there must have been a reason for it. There must have been a theme or topic that you are called upon to speak and there should be a reason why you are up there on the stage. Prepare yourself by finding out what topic are you requested to speak about. Find out who makes up the audience. What are their preferences and likes or dislikes. How big is the room? What are its acoustics like etc.

Prepare by knowing all there is to know about the topic, audience and venue. You also need to draft and prepare your speech weeks if not days before the event and know what and how you are going to deliver your speech well.

2) Poise
When you go up to a stage to deliver a speech, you are giving a performance. In an audience larger than 2 or 3, it is a public performance that demands the very best from you. If you want to ensure that your message is received by the audience clearly and confidently, you have to build up your poise on the stage. Adequate preparation helps reduce some of the fear of making mistakes up on the stage. But more importantly, it is to stick with your prepared speech gameplan, i.e. to have an impactful OPENING, followed by the 2-3 main points for your speech BODY (if it is a typical 5 to 7 minute toastmaster speech) and end with a sharp CONCLUSION that is appropriate to your topic and purpose of your speech.

Poise also comes from practice and from dressing appropriately and well for the occasion. If it is a formal event, a suit or tie for gentlemen and pant/skirt-suit may be what is called for. Dress sharp so that you look sharp and appear confident.

3) Purpose
Why are you up there on the stage delivering a speech? Is it to INFORM the audience? Is it to PERSUADE them to a way of thinking or making a decision? Is it to INSPIRE them to lofty ideals and vision?

Your speech must support its purpose. To persuade you need logic plus emotional appeal. To inform, you need facts, figures and authoritative references that are blended to meet the needs of the audience. To inspire the audience you must build up emotional connection and pull the audience into WHY they should GO BEYOND where they are at now.

Since you are up on the stage and are taking up others time and attention, you should give back something of value in your speech to them. One of the greatest gifts that you can give someone is the gift of your time by paying attention to what they are saying. If you want your audience to pay attention, then your speech needs to have some value to them that they will learn something new, have a different or enlarged perspective on an issue or be moved to act to make their lives even better.

Stage fright is something every public speaker faces. The tension in the stomach, the nervous energy and cold sweat... It's normal! But once you have taken hold of the 3Ps in preparation, poise and purpose, you can chase the stage fright away and replace it with confidence, clarity and conviction that will not only move you, it will move the audience.

You can do it, if you put the techniques into practice.

Speak well, live well.

Public Speaking: Thinking before Speaking

2008-03-12T08:03:00.001-07:00

There are many people who can speak without thinking. That means they have the ability to speak continuously about something without really saying anything meaningful. These are people I do not really respect nor admire for they blabber on for the world to see how superficial and shallow they really are.

Thinking before speaking

However, the people whom I really respect, admire and look up to are those people who actually think before they speak, i.e. they have the ability to quickly analyse and absorb the information given to them, assess it fast and to make a decision and communicate that decision to the team.

Being able to organise your thoughts on the fly and getting ready to communicate in the meeting room, board room or conference room is one of the critical career skills that can see you move from being a zero to a hero in less than 10 minutes.

How do we train ourselves to think before speaking?

1) Be an active listener

The key ingredient towards making yourself a person who can think on the spot and respond intelligently is to be an active listener. This means listening carefully and giving your full attention when someone is speaking to listen to the words, tone, emotion and logic behind what the other party is saying. By first understanding where the other side is coming from, you are then able to gauge the ideas, thoughts and emotions emanating from the other party.

Being an active listener also entails, nodding, responding with body gestures or affirmations to let the other party know that you have heard and understand them.

2) Be a quick organiser of thoughts

All of us have the ability to think fast. The trick is to adopt some frameworks or models to structure new information into something coherent that we can respond with. My toastmasters training in table-topics trains me to think quickly and to organise new ideas into something I can work with in terms of responding with a speech.

You can break down issues or ideas into past, present and future. Or you could take the devil's advocate approach and think of ideas to counter the proposed position. You can also take the on the one hand, and on the other hand approach, weighing the pros and cons of any situation. Free association by letting our brain respond with the first few things we associate with the original idea or thoughts can also help you think quickly and respond swiftly!

3) Structure your speech in your mind

These are useful frameworks to organise ideas and thoughts quickly.

The basic structure of any speech involves:

Opening
Body
Conclusion

I find this structure very useful in doing presentations, delivering speeches and especially for impromptu speaking situations such as table-topics during toastmasters meetings or other times when called upon to "say some words".

It is a versatile approach that applies for speeches from 2 minutes to 2 hours, especially if you have something worthwhile to communicate.

Thinking before speaking is important for us to add value in terms of communicating our thoughts, ideas and feelings. We can touch lives through deeds and we can touch lives through speech.

Speak well and live well.

Public listening: The other side of public speaking

2008-03-10T06:19:00.001-07:00

If you want to be an effective public speaker, you must also learn to be an effective public listener!

What is a public listener?

Officially, this term "public listener" doesn't exist. It's something I coined to be the opposite of public speaker. Too often in your quest towards public speaking, you forget that part of effective communication is to listen using your ears and you eyes for feedback from your audience.

In a one-to-one conversation, it is relatively easy to maintain eye contact with audience of one. You can see her body language, facial expression and listen to her tone, pitch and volume.

However when you are a public speaker delivering a speech, you are having a one-to-many dialogue where one party speaks i.e. YOU, while the other party i.e. THE AUDIENCE, listens. The trick of powerful speech making is to make the speech a dialogue where you are not TALKING to but are INTERACTING with your audience.

How can you do this?

Firstly, make eye contact with selected members of the audience from different parts of the room to establish rapport and don't forget to smile. Look out for their facial expressions to see if they are happy, interested or bored with your speech.

Establish a connection with the audience by using YOU and US to be inclusive. Rapport with your audience can also be established if you understand the composition of your audience. Are they linked by geographical location, i.e. Singaporeans or Singapore residents. Are they affiliated through the toastmasters movement? Are they young, old or middle-aged? Are they members of the same company, club or charity?

React to the audience! If they laugh, pause to let the laughter permeate and then subside. If they are looking look puzzled or confused, you may want to slow down and articulate your next point carefully and take your time to speaker clearly. If they are frowning, then you may have to make some changes or lose your audience.

Listening to the mood of the audience

Your audience is a group of individuals who have different motivations, moods and mannerisms. However, when they are in the room to listen to you speak, there must be a purpose that draws them together with you in that room, hall or auditorium. Find out how they are feeling by mingling with some of the audience and picking up on the vibes by speaking with a few persons there. You'd be surprised how you can release some of the tension within yourself as you've made one or two acquaintances or even friends before you address the audience.

To really improve in your public speaking, follow-up by speaking with one or two members of the audience to get some feedback on your speech. They make give you the audience's perspective on how your speech went.

Speak well, listen well and live well.

How to prepare for your very first speech: "The Ice-Breaker"

2008-03-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

How many of you toastmasters can remember how you fared for your very first speech, "The Ice-Breaker"?

Were you feeling nervous, excited and panicky all at the same time?

If you are not a toastmaster but will be doing a public presentation or a speech in front of an audience, are you feeling the same way? :-)

How to break ice without breaking your fingers
The toastmasters program starts off all budding public speakers with project 1, aptly named "the Ice-Breaker"! Some of you may be wondering, are you expected to do a demonstration of karate technique to break down a big chunk of ice right in front of an audience? No! It's nothing like that... Breaking the ice refers to breaking the barrier between letting people know more about you so as to develop a connection with them. When you go to a party and you don't know that many people there, how do you break the ice or get to know new people? You have to start by talking to them and sharing with them WHO YOU ARE.

That is the crux of the ice-breaker project. You need to share with the audience who you are to them in 4 to 6 minutes plus 30 seconds before you run out of time!

4 minutes!!! That seems like an eternity, what am I going to say, what if the audience finds it boring, what if I freeze like an ice-block?

Those are all valid questions and as a new speaker taking on your first project, let me break it down for you in a simple 3 step approach to preparing your very first speech.

1) Find a topic or theme
The objective of the ice-breaker is to introduce new toastmasters to members of their club and also to find that speaking ability that we may already have. It allows us to take the first concrete step in making speeches and lays the foundation for public speaking going forward.

You first need to identify your topic or theme. The basic communication and leadership manual helpfully suggests that since project 1 is about you, you can talk about your hobbies, your job, your studies, your family, your favourite stuff, your hated stuff etc. What this means is that you already have a wealth of material to choose for your topic.

The trick is to be SELECTIVE and just pick 3-4 main points or areas you want to speak about. The common strategy taken by many novice speakers is to try to cover as much ground as possible in that 4 to 6 minutes. That tends to leave the audience lost as too many details covering too many areas are given.

How do you squeeze your 20 or 60 years of life into 6 minutes. Impossible! What is possible is to CHOOSE those 3-4 main areas e.g. (i) childhood (ii) adulthood (iii) present time. If you want to talk about your job or career, perhaps you can break it down into (i) how you got your job, (ii) what do you do in your job (iii) why you like/hate your job.

2) Write out your speech BUT don't MEMORISE it!
Using the standard speech structure, start with an OPENING, BODY (3 to 5 main points) and CONCLUSION. As this is your first speech, don't worry if your OPENING is not as impactful or attention grabbing. You will learn more techniques as you go along. You can start by telling the audience what you are going to tell them, i.e. give them an outline of your speech. This is a simple but effective way of organising your speech.

Write out your speech as this will give you some confidence that you have sufficient words and materials to last the 4 to 6 minutes! This is also a good way for you to rehearse the speech IN YOUR MIND because when you write it down you basically articulate your thoughts clearly.

My suggestion to speakers is NOT TO MEMORISE THEIR SPEECH. Why?

Memorising makes your speech less natural and also puts yourself under a great deal of pressure. If you forget words, sentences or entire paragraphs, your speech tends to fall apart because you will feel very panicky and fearful. You are allowed to have your speech in front of you for your first project. I would recommend have an outline in point form as a guide rather than the complete speech in hand as an outline also serves to jog your memory about what you want to say.

Another reason why I tend to discourage people from memorising their speech is that when you just deliver your speech using an outline (but having written it out in full as part of your preparations), your mind will take over and you will find your natural style in delivering the content that is unstilted, refreshing and naturally YOU. This style is all yours and unique to yourself. By having an outline to guide you, you will train yourself to express the content in your own words. That is very powerful because being a effective public speaker doesn't mean that you must have flawless grammar and pronunication. All these are important, but I have heard speakers who spoke from their heart and even through their language skills were passable at best, their message mersmerised me and touched my heart.

3) Practice your speech
If you are shy to practice in front of a live audience. Use a mirror or better still, tape yourself using your MP3 recorder. Practising reduces the anxiety and makes you more confident about your content and what you want to say. It also allows you to iron out kinks in pronuniciation and delivery. You determine how many times you would like to practice. There is no hard and fast rule about this.

Above all, remember that the ice-breaker is for your club members to know you. So do add in some fun facts about you to allow your club members to bond better with you.

I wish you all the best in your very first speech.

Speak well, live well.

No Action Talk Only: Overcoming NATO with toastmasters

2008-03-02T21:47:00.001-08:00

Toastmasters occasionally get a bad rap. Some people believe that because we are into public speaking, we only know how to speak and cannot execute our plans.

That is totally UNTRUE! Having participated in toastmasters activities for 5 years, I've realised that No-action, talk only (NATO) is the very antithesis of what it means to be a toastmaster.

Toastmasters emphasises ACTION
When you join toastmasters, you don't only join a club that teaches you public speaking. You have to LEARN and GROW by actively participating in doing your speech projects from the very first ICE BREAKER all the way to your final speech INSPIRE YOUR AUDIENCE in project 10 of your basic leadership and communication manual.

I personally improved my public speaking not because I sat around and listened to my seniors practice their speeches. I improved because I prepared, wrote and delivered at least 30 speeches so far. I have done 10 speeches from the basic communication and leadership manual to attain my Competent Communicator title. I followed up with my Advanced Communicator Bronze by doing another 10 speeches: 5 from each of the 2 advanced project manuals of inter-personal communication and story telling. I have also completed my 2 advanced project manuals covering speak to inform and the entertaining speaker and need 1 more educational presentation before clinching my advanced communicator silver title.

Taking up appointments in an executive capacity in the club also helps develop one's organising ability. Toastmasters action oriented portfolios include being the Vice-President Education where you have to plan out programs for all the toastmasters meetings plus other events. Helping out in the other roles such as sergeant-at-arms, Vice-President (VP) Membership, VP Publicity, secretary or treasury also helps one develop skills in recruitment, logistics, public relations and writing minutes.

Toastmasters Lead by Example
I have encountered many entrepreneurial toastmasters who have written books, set up their own education and training businesses and who are their own bosses. I have also seen many other toastmasters volunteering their time, effort and energy in organising various toastmasters programs, conferences and contests all without any form of tangible remuneration.

The end result is that I am inspired by many of the men and women I met during my toastmastering and believe that it is through interactions with these self-motivated individuals that will help me maintain my DESIRE to learn new things and to become better every day.

If you share the same DESIRE to improve yourself, to focus on being a better public speaker, in challenging yourself to become a better speaker, leader and manager, consider a stint in toastmasters, you'd be simply amazed by the results!

Speak well, live well.

The Art of the Caveat: But, on the other hand, this is just off-the-cuff, off-the-top of my head

2008-02-26T16:44:00.000-08:00

Have you ever encountered someone who is the king or queen of the caveats? Someone who never dares to commit to a decision, a definitive answer or a determined course of action? Someone who can talk around in circles but doesn't say anything really meaningful because they never take a stand?

Welcome to the Art of the Caveat
There are some people in life who can talk around in circles. They basically will not say Yes or No. Their talk is always maybe couched in terms of many caveats.

I first encountered such individuals when I was some years in my career. This individual was articulate and expressive. He was good with words and spoke fluently. The thing that infuriated me was that he was a King of the Caveat. He also liked to throw out many ideas but you couldn't pin him down to specifics. As a result, you had to do many things but was not sure if some of these things were necessary. He was also good at avoiding being out-talked. If you put up a stronger argument or reasoning on an issue, he would then shift the conversation to another issue, thereby never "losing" a discussion. He is the consumate political animal in the organisation and has risen through the ranks through his hard work, political machination and ultimately, through the art of the caveat...

Another individual I encountered is a lady who also is good at this skill. She does not dare to make major decisions. Minor decisions will also elicit a lot of thinking and analysis before it is done and major decisions are bumped up to the next level of decision makers. She frequently caveats her words with "I don't know" or "this is off-the-top of my head" when she makes suggestions on possible courses of action because sometimes those suggestions are not very effective or relevant to the issue on hand. The thing that makes this individual stick in my mind is the haughty and superior attitude she takes. She thinks that she is better than the rest and treats her direct reports as literally subordinates in every sense of the word. Whilst we know she cannot make decisions and vacillates between throwing assignments at your to manage and occasionally micro-managing, she thinks she is your upper and better.

These individuals are not unique. I am sure you have encountered people like that in your lives.

Have an opinion and say it
In toastmasters, we learn during table topics to take a side, have an opinion and try to give reasons both logical and emotional to suppor them. We can weigh both sides of an issue but at the end of your 2 minutes and 30 seconds given for your table topic, you should be decisive and give an opinion. Singaporeans live in a climate of fear. Having spent my life being indocrinated by the State and the military (which totally alienated me to what the real Singapore is like), I realised most people do not dare to question authority figures and generally do not dare to state an opinion in public.

I was at a seminar of professionals and when the question and answer session started, only about3 persons asked questions. 3 out of a sea of 200+ professionals. Why is that? Why are we so afraid of stating our considered opinions in front of others? One thing I learnt from toastmasters is to speak up. To speak up and ask considered questions. To speak up and elicit additional comments from the speakers. To speak up because my views count.

Toastmasters didn't just teach me to speak out for the sake of speaking, but to think through what to ask, how to ask it and when to ask it. This ability comes not from 1 day, 1 month or even 1 year in toastmasters but 5 years of living, breathing and practicising at every meeting, competition and convention, the various tips and techniques shared by many, many toastmasters.

Why are we so in love with the art of the caveat, not to be pinned down and to be nameless, blameless and opinion-less? We need to form opinions, informed opinions based on fact and information and to take a stand. We may revisit our stand later when new information is provided but we should take a stand and move on.

Are you also performing the art of the caveat. Saying many things but really saying nothing?

Speak well and live well.

I write and I speak. I speak and I write.

2008-02-24T04:08:00.001-08:00

I had a conversation with my sibling who happens to be a teacher in a primary school. She remarked that while children nowadays are more intelligent and speak better than previous cohorts, however, speaking prowess does not always translate into academic success. While some of the children in her class speak well, they may not do well in school work because speaking well does not always translate to writing well.

Why speaking and writing well are important

I always write out my speeches for contests because when you write out your speech, you are able to structure sentences and paragraphs using language tools and other rhetorical devices which take more time and effort to craft. Doing it off-the-cuff from a speech outline doesn't make the cut.

Your speech is only as good as your writing abilities because both are related to your language skills. A good public speaker needs to have a firm foundation of English in order to express himself well to others. Poor, ungrammatical and wrong use of english mangles your speech content and makes it difficult for the audience to understand what you are trying to say.

You can be a good speaker with a very basic standard of english but it takes a lot of effort to overcome issues or grammar, proununication and expression.

Does that mean only those who are good in English can improve?

No, everyone can improve their public speaking skills from your original level. But it would be unrealistic to expect to speak as well as Barack Obama if you started from a low base.

Writing well and speaking well in today's world are critical lifeskills especially if you are a knowledge worker. Increasingly, many of us work in an office capacity pushing paper. In order to push paper effectively, we need to communicate, interact and connect with our customers and colleagues.

How can toastmasters help you

Toastmasters provides a supportive and encouraging environment for those interested to improve their public speaking. The program is a tried and tested approach learning by doing. It works only if you put in effort and energy into doing your projects and investing face-time with your fellow club mates.

Speaking well is only one aspect of the public speaking. The ability to think, organise your thoughts in a coherent manner that is easy to understand and compelling comprises the other aspects.

I encourage those who are in the toastmasters movement to pursue your advanced projects even as you complete your basic communication and leadership manual. The advanced projects teach you higher-order communication skills in different types of scenarios.

I encourage those who are not yet in the toastmasters movement to give it a try IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT IMPROVING YOUR PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS. Anything worth doing requires time, effort and energy.

Speak well. Live well.

To speak we dare: overcoming your fear of speaking in a meeting

2008-02-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

Your work in an office environment or in school involves meetings. Meetings to discuss work projects, school projects and other discussions. More often than not, your assessment at work or in school is based, to some extent, on how well you are involved in the meeting.

What does it mean to be "involved" in a meeting? It means to engage participants by opening up your mouth and making valuable contributions to the discussion. It means to speak and to speak well WHEN CALLED UPON and WHEN NEEDED TO!

In order to do that, you have to overcome your natural fear of speaking up in front of people, especially people you may not know well. I had this fear for many years and I really only started to speak out when I worked in an organisation which was quite flat in terms of hierarchy and where I had to be the pre-sales, the sales, the consultant delivering the project to the project manager and even billing the customer! That taught me to have to speak out or else I would be at the mercy of everyone in the value chain.

How to overcome your fear of speaking at meetings

1. Be prepared
There is no excuse to be unprepared for meetings that have been scheduled. Always find out the agenda, the duration and most importantly, the expected outcomes of the meeting. Then think about the points you can raise or issues you can talk about during such meetings.

2. Know who is coming
Meetings are not about things or work per se, but about the meeting of human beings who have different motivations, moods and mannerisms. All may agree on the agenda but not all will agree on the outcome of the agenda. So know who will be pushing for issues or points that goes against your or your organisation's interest.

In real life, there would be many meetings where we would not know the people who are attending well, then you would need to rely on your emotional quotient to "read" people. :-) That is a topic for another post.

3. There are sometimes no "right" or "wrong" answers
Unlike mathematical equations or scientific facts or evidence, most real world problems are not always solvable with a one-size fits all solution. Be prepared for ambiguity in meetings and to be able to suss out what direction the issue turns. You can alway value-add with the skills you learn as a table-topics speaker if you are a toastmaster. If you are not a toastmaster, you may consider some of these techniques.

a) Add on to what another speaker has said
You can support what one person has spoken and use what he says but elaborate.

b) Clarify and summarise
In some meetings, people are saying all sorts of things but no-one is able to clarify and summarise what are the main issues and decision points for consideration and how to move on. Try to para-phrase and summarise what the key decision makers have talked about to bring clarity to the meeting.

c) Play devil's advocate
This is a trickier technique because if you pull if off wrongly, you may be tagged as a trouble maker or resistor. You need to state up front that you are playing devil's advocate to generate more ideas and points to defend a particular point.

4. Speak slowly, clearly and confidently
You would notice if you attend enough meetings that as a general rule of thumb, senior people speak slower while more junior people speak faster. This could be because senior people are less likely to be interrupted and they take their time to speak. If you speak slowly, i.e. not rush your speech, you will appear more confident and your spoken words will be clearer to the people around you. So take a breath, speak normally while maintaining eye contact with the key people as you deliver your message.

As with most endeavours, the ability to speak up in meetings confidently and purposeful comes from practice, practice and more practice. In the words of DTM John Sih, "Practice makes BETTER!"

Speak well, live well!

Pause Fillers: The Enemy of an Effective Public Speaker

2008-02-17T04:43:00.001-08:00

Unless you are a robot or a very well-trained speaker, you will realise that as you are speaking during conversations, there will be "ers, erm, ah, ok, all-rights, lahs" in our speech.

This is normal. This is common. This is what toastmasters refer to as "Pause Fillers".

What are Pause Fillers?

Nature abhors vacuums and when you are speaking naturally, there will be times when there are pauses in your speech as you take a breath or as you think about something you are going to say before you say it. In this short few seconds or even mili-seconds, your voice utters a sound or sounds to fill in the emptiness that lies between our previous utterance and the next.

An example:

"I had always been an avid toastmaster for the last five years, because...er...yah, I enjoy speaking in front of audiences and..and.. therefore going to a toastmaster meeting thrills me..."

The "er..yah" (erms and ahs) in red and the "and...and" (repetition) are pause fillers. They add nothing to your speech except to make it less fluent and seem cluttered with unnecessary sounds.

Why do we utter pause fillers?

Pause fillers come in because we tend to be uncomfortable with silence, even as it is for a very short 1 or 2 seconds or less. Thus, the tendency for speakers is to fill that with sounds that do not value-add anything to the content nor form of your speech.

My personal experience with my own pause fillers when I started out even before I became a toastmaster. I remember doing a presentation of my social committee's proposal to organise the annual dinner and dance as I was the Chairman of this committee. There I was, bringing the senior management meeting through the proposal when the CEO cut me off saying, "Stop the lors and the lahs!"

I was both nervous in front of this senior group of people in my organisation as a junior staff just starting out my career in the organisation plus I was not an trained toastmaster then. Hence, I was having a lah or ler in my presentation which sounded Singlish and also was jarring to the CEO's ears.

That experience lingered in my mind until today and I can say confidently now that I speak better now than I did then because I am more aware of what my pause fillers do to my public communciation.

Negative impact of pause fillers

If you are serious about being a better public speaker either on a one-to-many or one-to-one situation, you have to be very conscious of pause-fillers because they can cause the following impact on your audience's perception of you:

1) Lacks confidence and appears unconvincing

If you are confident, your audience expects you to say what you want to say in a steady and coherent manner. The steadiness comes from choosing your words carefully and communicating them confidently to the audience without hesitation, unnecessary pauses and unnecessary pause fillers.

2) Appears unpolished and poorly prepared

Well prepared public speakers shouldn't be thinking of what they want to say. It should be at their fingertips (metaphorically) as pause fillers signify you are still thinking of what to say.

4) Jarring on the audience's ears

I don't know about you but pause fillers really makes my skin crawl... Especially when THEY ARE MINE! :-(

5) Appears untrustworthy

Some people associate pause fillers as those who are shifty and their views and opinions bend with the wind even as their words are not sure nor steady.

How to overcome pause fillers

1) Recognise that you have them

In order for you to overcome pause fillers, you need to first recognise that you do use them in your daily speech. In a typical toastmasters meeting, there will be a person taking up the role of an "ah-counter". The "ah-counter" is someone who will count your pause fillers so that you are made aware of how many you make in the course of the meeting. I recall during my very first few toastmasters meeting, I made easily 20-30 pause fillers during the course of doing a 4 to 6 or 5 to 7 minute speech.

It was only later when I became aware of the number of pause fillers in my speech.

2) Getting comfortable with pauses

The way to reduce your pause fillers is to be comfortable with short pauses in your speech. If you listen to speeches of important men and women, you will realise that many of them speak with gravity and with deliberate pace, pausing before major utterances to lend credibility to their spoken words. If you want to be like them, get comfortable with the natural pauses in your own speech.

3) Be well prepared

One of the other ways to overcome pause fillers is to be well prepared. When you are well prepared you will be confident enough with your material to field questions, deliver your speech and convince the audience of your message.

Let's overcome pause fillers by recognising it, getting comfortable with pauses and to be always well prepared for speaking opportunities.

Speak well and to live well.

How to Develop Social Networking Skills for Life!

2008-02-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

You are reading my blog using a computer either at home, at work or in school. You use email for work, for leisure and for the time in between. But, you also need to make use of the human computer to network with other human beings in addition to the computer networks that link you from the comfort of your home, work or school to this blog here!

Human networking - talking to one another
No matter how prevalent computers are in our lives, we cannot escape the requirement to develop social networks face-to-face with one another. Yes there is facebook and other social networking websites out there, but nothing beats human-to-human interactions with a real voice instead of using words, emoticons and websites.

Developing social networking skills in the real world requires you to be able to communicate effectively. It also requires you to develop some emotional quotient skills so that the next person you meet doesn't desire to kill you after speaking with you for five minutes.

How do we develop such social networking skills to allow us to be able to warm up to virtually any social occasion both inside and outside the office? Hahah.. Those of you who have followed my blog for some time will know, the answer is.... TOASTMASTERS.

Toastmasters IS about public speaking, but there's more!
Toastmasters is first and foremost, a public speaking club. It is a public speaking club that helps members (with an "s") and not member (without the "s") improve their confidence and public communication. One of the ways in which toastmasters achieves this is through fellowship that happens before, during the break and after a toastmasters meeting. During these breaks, you learn to make small talk BY making small talk. Believe it or not, once you have completed the basic Communications and Leadership Manual, you can take on the Advanced Project manual on "Inter-personal Communications" where one of the speech projects involves role-play and for you to actually learn how to make small talk! Simply amazing. :-)

The other aspect of developing social networking skills is the presentation of name cards and of course asking people for help. Toastmasters are all volunteers who make an effort to improve their personal communication skills. Some take up leadership positions in the Executive Committee and help to prepare the club program, organise meetings and get people involved. As an office-bearer, you will have many opportunities to ask people to attend club meetings and to help out with appointments during a meeting. This trains up your skills of persuasion as you learn to ask people to help you without any real tangible reward. That's a truly challenging skill to acquire but most valuable once you master it. :-)

When you are a toastmaster of one club. You automatically obtain a passport to travel to many other clubs as a visitor or as an appointment holder. If you enjoy helping out as a project evaluator or language evaluator, rest assured, many opportunities abound for you to visit the hundreds of other clubs that can be found in Singapore and the region.

So if you want to develop social networking skills for life, JOIN a toastmasters club!

It's simply amazing. :-)

Saying It Loud and Clear: Volume and Enunciation in Public Speaking

2008-02-13T05:12:00.001-08:00

Before I joined toastmasters, I thought good speakers were those who could shout and get their voices hear above the crowd. I thought good speakers were those who could pronounce their words well.

speaking loudly

Volume is an integral part of a public speaker's arsenal. However, to be loud is only useful and effective if you are trying to drown your opponent in a shouting match. In reality, effective public speaking requires you to increase your volume to add emphasis, drama or to make a point. Effective public speaking also may need you to lower your volume to whisper, to caution and to pull your audience into your world by speaking softly, thereby deliberately making the audience listen carefully to what you have to say.

Your speaking voice is one of the facets that toastmasters trains you by making you aware through the Project on Vocal Variety on how your voice is part of your tool to communicate your message to the audience. Other elements such as pitch (high feminine vs low masculine), rhythm, pace also allow you to vary how you wish to deliver your message across. The point is that it has to be appropriate. When you are angry you may raise your voice. But if you are pretending to be a mouse, you wouldn't roar but would squeak! :-)

speaking Clearly

Clear enunication and the ability to pronounce words correctly and accurately is a hall-mark of an effective speaker. However, if you enunciate very well but lack emotional quality to your voice, your speech can come across as technically very good but lacking in emotional appeal. Speaking clearly without mumbling or swallowing your words helps your speech become clearer to the audience. Communication is helped by clear enunciation. However, by itself, clear enunciation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for an excellent speech. For you to really touch lives through public speaking, what you say as well as how you say it are both important.

Speaking Often

If you are interested to improve your public speaking, it does not matter too much if you are speaking softly or loudly now. The trick is to speak regularly at toastmasters meetings where a more experienced toastmaster will be able to give you some valuable feedback on how you can improve is the key to success in public speaking.

Practice is the way for us to improve.

Your voice is a beautiful tool. It can be used to support, praise and encourage. It can also be used to condemn, curse and to discourage. Discover what you can do with your voice, discover it with toastmasters.

Speak well, live well.

Toastmasters Table Topics

2008-02-12T19:58:00.000-08:00

One of the most challenging and exciting activities that happens at toastmasters meetings are table-topics. Some of you who are not toastmasters may be asking what are table topics?

Table-topics are an item in a typical toastmaster meeting that seeks to train toastmasters to be better impromptu speakers. A table-topics master will prepare topics that cover virtually anything with the exception of topics that touch on sex, religion or politics. A speaker will come up either voluntarily or be picked by the table-topic master to come up and select a topic. Some table-topic masters allow the speaker to select his preferred topic while others make it a lucky dip style.

Some examples of table-topics themes can be:

Advertising slogans of companies
Famous quotations
Recent topical events in the news
What you would be doing during a major festive holiday e.g. Lunar New Year or Christmas or Deepavali or Hari Raya Puasa
Titles of books
Titles of songs
"The pen is mightier than the sword"
"You are what you think you are"
"A Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"
"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"

Table-topics are fun ways to build you your confidence in speaking to an audience on any topic. I also realise that when I become more used to table-topics, my creativity grows as my mind is trained to function quickly and to come with with points to address the topic.

One common fallacy we have about table-topics is that we need to have some knowledge about the topic. Knowledge helps, but sometimes it is the opinion that you express about the topic, i.e. to take a stand that differentiates you from the crowd.

My own experience at the District 80 contest last year in 2007 was that I didn't establish a strong enough view. In addition, I fumbled a bit in the beginning as my pause was too long and I was a bit thrown off by that. It was still a good experience and I realise that we sometimes learn more from failure than from success.

If you fear table-topics, I encourage you to face the fear and try it out in the safety of your home toastmasters club. Your members will support you as you take the first steps to become a more confidence, composed and cool impromptu speaker.

Speak well, live well.

How to improve your confidence in 5 minutes!

2008-02-11T03:45:00.001-08:00

Confidence has to do with your state of mind and it comes from having experienced success in the things you set out to do. But did you know that the state of mind can be altered through some specific behaviours you can develop within yourself?

I heard this material from Toastmaster Quek Geok Cheng who referenced her speech from a book "Boosting Confidence" by Amy Flowers from Georgia USA. She outlined the steps to boosting your confidence in the following ways:

1) Start a victory collection

You can basically put up a scrap book or photo album of pictures and events that remind you of your triumphs. These can be graduation photos, toastmasters ribbons and other memorable events that help you celebrate your successes!

2) Brainwash yourself

Control your mind and control your destiny. Much personal development literature focusses on pyscho-ing yourself into a certain state. I subscribe to this theory because attitudes can change with some help of your conscious mind. For me, I try to constantly think "I can do it" to overcome inertia over certain tasks that I need to but do not feel like doing.

3) Set challenging but doable goals

Taking a leaf out of personal effectiveness literature, do-able goals sets you up for quick wins and boosts up your confidence to tackle bigger tasks in your life.

4) Spend time with nuturing people

We are who we associate with. Why do you think police forces routinely track known associates for convicted criminals? Birds of a feather flock together. It is important to reflect how your friends and close associates can affect your own confidence about yourself. The powerful aspect of toastmasters is that we promote a nuturing and supportive environment to let our members grow in their speaking ability and confidence to tackle speech projects. Encouragement and a kind word works wonders for your confidence levels when it is given sincerely and appropriately. Read Norman Vincent Peale if you do not believe in it.

5) Fake it till you make it

There have been many times where I have seen people in leadership positions speak on topics they know little of. But they were able to speak with such conviction that those who did not know the inside story were convinced. This works especially during public speaking contests. Which contestant among us is not worried about performing poorly and embarassing ourselves. How many times did we wing it for a speech and find that it was well received?

We would all like to be genuine and sincere and not have to fake anything but sometimes if you do not feel confident you can act as if you are confidence and slowly feel it permeating into you for REAL!

6) Take responsibility for your actions

In my financial freedom blog, I talk a lot about taking action and responsibility for determining when we are going to retire instead of relying on our CPF balances or the gahmen to determine it. Taking responsibility means taking calculated risks but what is life without some element of calculated risk taking? Being responsible allows us to feel accountable and to have ownership of the task and because you HAVE to front the issue, you would need to be decisive and confidence to make decisions.

C is for Confidence: The Toastmaster's Greatest Asset and Liability

2008-02-10T05:46:00.001-08:00

Confidence is one of the most powerful tools that you can have in order to be an effective public speaker. The very nature of public speaking is that it tends to be on a one-to-many situation although you can also apply public speaking skills to a one-to-one situation. The only difference is the size of your audience.

How does toastmasters build up your confidence?

The Toastmasters programme works to build up your confidence through repetition and positive feedback. When you embark on the toastmasters journey, your very first speech project is called "The Icebreaker". Here you are to stand in front of an audience comprising your fellow club members and give a 4 to 6 minute speech about yourself. The whole idea of project 1 is for you to share about yourself with your club, hence break the ice with fellow members. More importantly, it allows you to slowly build up confidence by first starting from the familiar to the unfamiliar and allows you to slowly build up your confidence to speak in front of the audience through getting you used to it through repetition of a good habit.

Think about your first experience riding a bike or learning to drive a car. The skills of cycling and driving do not come naturally to you. It took you time, effort and continued practice for repetition to sink in so that you slowly developed the confidence and it became more and more familiar to you to do it. Public speaking is also a skill that takes time, effort and repetition to hone. Continued repetition without improvement is futile. The power of toastmasters comes from the targeted specific feedback that you get after you have delivered your speech. This aims to reinforce the effective habits you are applying when speaking but also seeks to highlight areas where you should improve or mitigate the weaknesses in your speech.

Confidence is a two-edged sword

Confidence comes both ways. Adequate confidence build up from practice, practice and more practice gives you the solid foundation upon which to tackle most speaking situations. However, I have met toastmasters in my journey who were over-confident and achieved Advanced Communicator titles while being terribly poor speakers. One of the problems of over-confidence is to associate toastmasters titles with being a good speaker. Toastmasters titles are a form of recognition for members who pursue and complete their educational projects. However, those of us who have spent some time in toastmasters know that while toastmasters help many of us improve in public speaking relative to our initial ability level, it cannot work miracles for those whose grasp of English language is poor to start with and never really learn and take corrective action on the evaluations given to them by more experienced toastmasters.

Some toastmasters plough through their projects quickly without truly improving or correcting their mistakes and end up being an Advanced Communicator Bronze, Silver or even Gold. When they speak, it becomes apparent that they may have rushed through their educational track. Although I am an Advanced Communicator Bronze, this title is something I only use within toastmasters circles. In my own work, I do not use this openly but instead let my speaking performance do the talking, e.g. by taking on the role of an emcee during the organisation's dinner and dance in December last year. This allowed me to gain some visibility within the organisation and at least keeps me on the radar for such assignments.

Practice makes better

Distinguished Toastmaster John Sih likes to say, "Practice makes better," as his tagline and I find it useful to quote him in this regard. Confidence in public speaking comes with making speeches many many times. Before I emerged the Champion for Division B Table-Topics Contest in 2007, I participated in table topics at least once if not twice or sometimes thrice a week in the few months leading up to the club, area and division contests. Really, practice did make better in my case and I was also fortunate to have encountered topics that I could address well in the run-up to the district contest.

I will consider pushing myself further to see if I can reach the District contest again perhaps in 2-3 years' time after my daughter is older as she will be coming into the world sometime in March 2008.

In the meantime, if you are a toastmaster, I urge you to practice, practice and practice. If you are not a toastmaster and wish to build up your confidence in speaking in front of people, why not consider joining a toastmasters club? You have all to gain and very little to lose in trying it out.

Speak well and live well.

How studying literature at "A" Levels helped me become a better Language Evaluator

2008-02-09T06:35:00.001-08:00

As a toastmaster, I have tried out various appointments ranging from prepared speech speaker, speech evaluator, timer, ah-counter, toastmaster-of-the-day, sergeant-at-arms and eventually, the language evaluator or grammarian as it is known outside of Singapore.

"a" level literature HELPS with practical criticism

I studied literature during my 'A' levels. It was a very different experience from doing literature during the 'O' levels as the standard required was much higher and you had to express some opinions on the themes, structure and language used in various prose, poetry and plays. The papers I did during my "A" level literature included a paper of Shakespeare ("Julius Caesar" and "Measure for Measure"), a paper on Victorian literature ("Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens and prose on a writer/poet I cannot recall). I also did a paper on Practical Criticism.

These helped me many years down the road when I started my first language evaluator. Some toastmasters feel that they have to be language teachers or English teachers before they can try out being a language evaluator. I beg to differ. Being a language evaluator firstly requires competence in spoken and written English Language. That means being able to get 95-99% of your diction and grammar correct so that when you share the common mistakes and errors, it doesn't sound too galling to the audience if you made as many mistakes yourself.

The other aspect that a toastmaster should look out for before taking up the role as a language evaluator is the ability to listen and write quickly. Listening is critical if you are to pick up areas where the members of the meeting can improve and writing quickly allows you to capture what is wrong with what was said. The real value-add of a language evaluator is then to share what the correct use of English is and to educate fellow toastmasters on how they can improve.

Critique without criticising

I'd offer that the most challenging aspect of being a language evaluator is the ability to walk the line between coaching people to improve without coming across as a self-absorbed pompous ass. No-one likes to be told of their mistakes, and an effective language evaluator never makes anyone (or at least knowingly) feel inferior or small. I learnt from more experienced toastmasters such as Richard Sng and John Sih on evaluation techniques and I realised most of them would credit speakers who spoke well or used effective language tools but would generally downplay who were the ones that made the mistakes to reduce the impact. This is a powerful technqiue of highlighting bouquets and downplaying boo-boos.

If you are still studying literature and am wondering what on earth is the use of it, I'd like to encourage you to do so as you broaden your understanding of life and one day, you could become a language evaluator yourself!

Speak well, live well!

Speaking Life : Look back at 2007

2008-02-06T19:52:00.001-08:00

2007 has been a whirlwind year for me as a toastmaster. I was a member of 4 clubs (3 English and 1 Mandarin) and managed to achieve my Advanced Communicator Bronze. In addition, I managed to win the Division B Table Topics Contest and represented the Division at the District 80 Table Topics Contest held in Hong Kong in May 2008.

Going forward, 2008 will be a year for me to take a sabbatical from toastmastering. My daughter will be due sometime in March 2008 and I want to spend more time being a father to my daughter and to help out more in the home.

Reflections for Speaking Life

Even though I will be taking a break in my toastmastering activities, there will still be opportunities to speak publicly in my workplace as well as to observe day-to-day oral communication that takes place at work, at home and at play. Communication between human beings is the common thread that binds us to our careers, our families and our relationships within the wider community.

I realise that my blogging has benefitted directly from my toastmastering. Being an effective public speaker requires you to first organise the thoughts in your mind and to articulate them in terms of words, sentences and phrases before a single syllable is uttered. This has been one of the most useful skills I learnt in my 5 years of toastmastering. I will continue on this toastmastering journey (albeit at a slower pace) even as I continue on my journeys in my other blogs on financial freedom; on my past experiences as a reservist; on my daily discoveries of how to get-things-done; on investing in safe investments; and on saving money.

I would like to wish all readers of Speaking Life a Happy Lunar New Year 2008 filled with happiness, prosperity and effective communication!

Why do I keep coming back to toastmasters?

2007-12-16T21:20:00.000-08:00

Toastmastering is addictive!
I am a serial toastmaster!

No matter how much I try to cut down on my toastmasters activities, I continue to help out as a project evaluator, language evaluator or even the toastmasters of the evening on occasions where I can spare the time. Going forward, I will have to drastically cut down my toastmastering activities especially from March 2008 onwards as my daughter will be announcing her presence to the world!

In the meantime, I am still having a blast participating in toastmasters activities. Being involved in toastmasters is not purely ultristic, I gain a lot from participating as an project evaluator and as a language evaluator.

How project evaluation can benefit you
Those of you who are toastmasters who have completed the Competent Communicator (CC) or Competent Toastmaster (CTM) titles know that when you evaluate, you are practising coaching skills. An effective evaluation is not one that glosses over the weaknesses or the speaker nor is it one that tears the speaker down. Effective evaluations require experienced toastmasters to walk the fine line between encouraging and condemning. It requires you as an evaluator to listen carefully to what, how and sometimes even guess at why the speaker says the things that he says.

Speech evaluations have trained me to be a better listener. It has also allowed me to think quickly on my feet to find out how the speaker has either met, exceeded or missed his or her speech project objectives.

My approach to speech evaluations has been to be fair and encouraging in tone. So I do not say all is fine when there were clear examples of the speaker not being able to meet one or more of the project objectives. I try to build people up by focussing on what they could do better and to be specific in the feedback. These techniques help me in being a better coach and mentor as I move on to a different phase to be a father to my daughter and a mentor to her development.

How language evaluation can benefit you
Those of you who are experienced toastmasters and are fluent in English should consider taking up the role of language evaluator or grammarian in your clubs. If you have tried to arrange of language evaluators in your clubs, you will realise that there are only that many names being shared who are regular language evaluators.

I too was afraid to be a language evaluator because I thought I didn't have sufficient vocabulary to comment on the technical references of language. However, as I performed more and more language evaluators, I began to realise that as the language evaluator, my role was not to be an English teacher. Instead, it was to share where I had heard good use of English and to share where I had heard obvious errors in grammar, pronunciation, singlish or poor expressions e.g. cliches.

As I delivered more language evaluations, I learnt to listen more carefully and intently on not just what people say but how they said it. It allowed me to critically examine how language was used in a formal setting. I also liked to share with fellow toastmasters during my language evaluation that speaking correct English was important but being able to convey your message to the other party was critical. This means that substance was more important than form, but we could all improve on our forms as we developed our substances! ;-)

Toastmasters is a powerful programme
In my five years of toastmastering, I have achieved Competent Toastmaster (CTM), Competent Leader (CL), Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB). I am one speech away from my Advanced Communicator Silver (ACS) in my English toastmasters and 4 speeches away from Competent Communicator (CC) in my Mandarin toastmasters.

These achievements mean nothing if I have not learnt anything from my toastmasters journey. It is through the journey, the process and the preparation that went into achieving these titles that I grew the most in my toastmastering journey. Many toastmasters drop out of the programme after achieving their Competent Communicator title. People join and leave clubs and associations all the time. But it is through exposing myself to the different facets of being a toastmaster that I have truly benefitted from the program. It has also allowed me to do something that I had always wanted to do, to touch other people's lives.

Toastmasters allows you to do so, if you so chose.

Try toastmasters, it's simply amazing. :-)

Mandarin Toastmasters Project 6

2007-12-11T19:10:00.001-08:00

I just delivered my mandarin project 6 speech at the Braddell Heights Mandarin Toastmasters Club yesterday evening. The Braddell Heights Mandarin Toastmasters club meets every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at 7.30pm at Braddell Heights Community Centre, 50 Serangoon Ave 2, #03-03, Singapore 556129.

Below is the draft of my speech in mandarin. As I am still trying to improve my mandarin, please bear with the grammatical or errors of expression in mandarin.

Mandarin Speech

Date: 十二月十一日二〇〇七年 (11 December 2007)

Project 6:

Title: 体能测验(Individual Physical Proficiency Test)

Time: 五到七分钟

开顶Opening

我们当中，有谁是喜欢运动的呢？我以前也像你们一样很喜欢运动,可是有一段时期,我很讨厌运动因为我每年得考体能测验!

一般上的新加波男生, 到了十八岁那时就要加陆武装部队当国民服役. 服役两年半后,就会改成战备军人地身份. 身为战备军人, 为了保家卫国, 我们每年都需要考体能测验. 如果兵士们体能弱,怎么能够打败敌人?

考试就得及格.如果你体能测验不及格的话,就要重考,又在不及格,就要上体能补习班!

正文Body

我们的女会友们,你对武装部队的体能测验有所认识吗?

一年一度的体能测验,总共有五个项目:

这五个项目是什么呢?

1) Chin-up

第一个项目是”chin up”. 这个项目是考你的手臂力量.兵士门要是不能够做一个”chin up” 的话,那有力量太起来富士枪?

2) Sit-Up

第二个项目是”sit up”. 这个项目是考你在腰力.在一分钟内能够完成多少个.

3) Shuttle Run

第三个项目是短跑. 这个项目是考你四十米能够跑多快.你要逃避敌人的时候很有用!

4) Broad jump

第四个项目是”宽跳”. 这个项目是考你能跳的多远!

5) 2.4km run

最后一个项目是两点四公里长跑. 这是体能测验中最难的项目! 这是因为你一定要时常练习才能够得到好成绩. 一般上班族都没时间训练,而且工作又得应酬,喝酒又吃宵夜,肚皮大了怎么能跑到好成绩呢?

虽然体能测验不简单,可是武装部队有奖励.如果你体能测验的成绩好,可以领$400 元!靠到银牌,可以领$200. 基本地及格可获$100.

结尾Conclusion

我已经当完了十年的服役.已经向镇府拿回几百元的奖励! 现在我不必考体能测验,而自动的又喜欢回运动了. 人就是这么矛盾的!

Excuse me, are you an emcee?

2007-12-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

One of the benefits of my 5 years of toastmastering is the ability to become the master of ceremonies or emcee for an event. An emcee's job is like being a host to a party. You make the party-goers feel welcome, help run the program or agenda and manage the time alloted for the activity and get everyone involved. Such skills are not innate but they can be learned. Where did I learn my skills? Read on!

Practising hosting skills as an emcee in annual office dinner
I was having a working lunch with my colleagues discussion a project when one of my colleagues asked me, "Panzer, could you be our emcee for the annual dinner?" I was pleasantly surprised and asked her (who was the chair of the organising team) how she came upon me as a candidate? It appears that the big boss had learnt that I was a toastmaster and felt I had the ability to do the job. At first, I wanted to let the younger colleagues have a chance to be exposed but since the big boss had suggested my name to them, I said, "Sure, I'll do it!" with a smile.

Why was I not hesitant about taking this role? Why did I agree so quickly but more importantly, WHY did the boss pick me?

How does toastmasters help you become an emcee?
For those of you who may not have heard or attended a toastmasters meeting, there is a role known as the Toastmaster of the Evening/Day (TME/TMD) who does the role of an emcee. His or her job is to introduce the speakers, announce changes to the program, move the program along and keep the meeting flowing according to the schedule. He/she also helps to make announcements and also sets the tone and mood of proceedings. It is an important role but it is also a role in which I have done many times where I learnt from mistakes and also picked up tips from more experienced toastmasters.

A toastmasters meeting allows members to take up this appointment as toastmaster of the evening and to practice emceeing skills. Emceeing is not just about reading the program to the audience. The audience can read the program for themselves. The important job that the emcee has is to make sure the transition from speaker to speaker or item to item on the agenda is achieved effectively, efficiency and excellently. He/she prompts the next person or item so that audience knows what is happening and are guided to the proceedings.

These skills all came in handy during the annual office dinner because there were about 8 items to be squeezed within a 2.5 hour time alloted.

My emceeing adventure
My recent emceeing adventure was interesting because it is because of my toastmasters training that I was able to manage the dynamic nature of the event. Let me put you in my shoes that Friday evening when I arrived 2 hours early for the event. You had not practiced your emcee script. You only have the program and tentative timings. Your co-emcee was late, i.e. you couldn't practice with her and the event started late because the Big Boss was late due to a late meeting prior to the event.

What do you do?

Firstly, when the organising team arrived, I quickly ran through the program with the chairperson. We also started doing a dry run of all the videos/music to be played and the sequence of events. At least this helped the audio visual people to synchronise with my emcee script. Next we also rehearsed the introduction of the organising team's entrance as this was something only done virtually at the last minute. Fortunately, we had a good member who was able to do the introduction all by himself with some sound effects. :-)

After the preparations were ready, we changed into our outfits and waiting for the Big Boss to arrive while the before dinner activities started. All this while the chairperson was running around frantically updating us last minute announcements and when the Big Boss was to arrive.

7.50pm, finally the Big Boss came in and we could start the program proper! T+20 minutes! We were supposed to start at 7.30 pm but now we were 20 minutes late and had to end by 10pm. My toastmaster-of-the-evening experience came in useful because I was accustomed to the program being delayed by unexpected factors. I basically kept a mental note to hasten the program and not allow for any breaks between performances by the different departments. So each department's performance was announced and I handed over control of the stage to the respective staff to do their "thing". :-)

One of the most challenging parts of being an emcee was to get the crowd enthusiastic. I was lucky that my co-chair is a very bubbly person and she helped me to whip up the crowd's interest in the beer-drinking contest by also helping to "nominate" participants to become team captains and for them to grab their own members. The cosy venue was also conducive and soon we had our teams and the contest went without a hitch.

Skills are learnt from practice and not merely theory
Learning new skills requires us to not only understand the theory but to also practice it. I credit toastmasters for helping me acquire many different facets of public speaking skills ranging from making prepared speeches, making impromptu speeches (table-topics), being an emcee and doing story telling (Advanced Project - Story telling manual).

If you are serious and want to aquire new skills in the realm of public speaking. Drop by a toastmasters club near you and prepare to be... Simply Amazed.

Public Speaking: Mastering Your Mind, Mastering Your Destiny

2007-11-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

Mastering the art of public speaking by first mastering the art of thinking
Many of you think that the art of public speaking is about, well, "public" and "speaking". In some ways, public speaking is about speaking in public. But one of the key skills that toastmasters taught me was to master the art of thinking well. Before we say anything, it has to exist in our mind, for that brief nano-second before the sounds of words and phrases are uttered by our vocal cords, travel through the air to reach our intended recipients.

For you to be a better public speaker, you need to learn to structure your thoughts and words before you speak them out. One of the powerful yet simple techniques that toastmasters teaches you us is to use the structure of opening, body and conclusion to structure your speech. A prepared speech, a table-topic, a evaluation and virtually any presentation uses this simple structure. What we need to do then is to determine for the time we are given, how much to spend on the opening, how much to spend on the body and how much to spend on the conclusion.

Listen, think and speak
In order for you to think better, you need to cultivate the ability to listen well to what others are saying. A good speech is a two-way communication although most of the oral delivery is one way. The audience responds to good speeches and good public speaking through inaudible cues. For instance, if you say something that resonates with the audience, those who agree with you will consciously or unconscious nod, smile or maintain eye contact to show that they are interested and agree with what you say. If they are not interested or reject what you say, you may find people not willing to make eye contact, or in the extreme case, glare at you or shake their heads at what you have just uttered.

In my five years of toastmastering, I continue to help out by doing speech evaluations and language evaluations for external clubs where I am not a member. What gets my juices flowing is the ability to connect with the audience and to have them listen intently to what I am saying. When you have your audience listening carefully with rapt attention, there is power being wielded that cannot be described. That is what thrills and scares me at the same time. Knowing that your words and delivery can touch lives and knowing that your gestures and pauses can make or break your speech keeps you on your toes and makes you strive to deliver the best speech you can given the time constraint.

Mastering your destiny
My journey in toastmasters has been both fulfilling and rewarding. Like all journeys, it was not always smooth. I remember the busy times preparing for club meetings as the Vice-President (Education). I remember doing my speeches and performing poorly for some of them due to lack of preparation or lack of understanding of the project objectives. I also remember doing speeches that were well received by the audience and also doing well enough in my table-topics contest to make it as Division B Table-Topics Champion for 2007. I recall attending meetings where guests outnumbered visitors and doing my project evaluations almost every evening during one particularly busy week. All these experiences have shaped me into the toastmaster that I am and hope to become.

Bringing up a future toastmaster
Time has brought me to the other stage in my life. There will be a new addition to my family next year and it's time for me to take on the role of fatherhood and to endeavour to bring up a future toastmaster in our family. Although there are still many years to go, I believe that the skills, experiences and friendships I have forged in my toastmasters journey will stand good stead as I start on a new phase of journey in my own life.

Have you started on your toastmasters journey?

What wonders will you encounter in your own travels?

Speak well and live well!

My first Mandarin "Best Speaker" Ribbon!

2007-10-09T19:01:00.000-07:00

Pleasant surprise!
I delivered my project 5, 抑扬顿挫 (yi1 yang2 dun4 cuo4) Vocal Variety yesterday at the Braddell Heights Mandarin Toastmasters club and was pleasantly surprised to be awarded the "best speaker" ribbon out of 3 speakers. I was fortunate because my speech while meeting the objectives of P5 in terms of vocal variety, still lacked a clear opening and conclusion that is the basic building blocks of a speech.

The language evaluator (语言评论）later also pointed out my mistakes in mandarin vocabulary as I was using english grammatical structures in my mandarin speech.

The reason why I managed to clinch the best speaker award despite my atrocious mandarin grammar was that I was able to leverage on my english toastmastering skills in vocal variety to address the project objectives. However, due to my relative weakness in mandarin plus my laziness in searching for a shorter story for this project, I settled on using a story that was somewhat too long and I had to conclude the speech rather abruptly leaving the conclusion unsatisfactory.

Just do it
My mandarin speech endeavours has allowed me to learn to persevere despite my lack of confidence in my spoken mandarin. I credit the club for allowing me a rather safe environment to make mistakes in my mandarin grammar, as the corrections by both the language evaluator and project evaluators help me to understand my mistakes faster and leaves an indelible reminder for me to use the correct grammatical structures.

Furthermore, I realise that the efficient method for me to draft out speeches is still to start off with the content in english but to translate it into mandarin so that I can work on the expressions and grammar.

Inspirational members
All my doubts and hesitancy about doing my mandarin speeches were mitigated somewhat yesterday when I witnessed one of our new member, at the ripe young age of 60+, delivering his first mandarin speech. What made it more inspirational was the fact that he didn't study chinese during his school days as during his time students had to study english and one other subject but his school didn't offer mandarin or bahasa so he learned mainly english. So here was this distinguished gentlemen, at the age where many were retired, doing his maiden mandarin speech without having written out a word in mandarin!

Simply amazing.

Members like this gentlemen give me the inspiration, the motivation and the courage to overcome my own limitations in mandarin and to leverage on the mandarin toastmasters club to do something concrete to improve myself in my spoken mandarin. Next up, I should start taking an interest in mandarin-pop in both Singaporean and Taiwanese singers so that I can enjoy learning mandarin more by watching more mandarin popular music videos!

When learning is fun and has a purpose, it doesn't seem to be a chore. I find that I am enjoying my mandarin toastmasters so much more than I ever enjoyed my chinese lessons back during my school days. Interest and fun make the learning process that more enjoyable and satisfying!

Consider visiting a toastmasters club today!

It doesn't matter how good/bad is your english.
It doesn't matter if can speak well/poorly.
What matters is an interest in learning and an openness to coaching.

The rest is up to you!

My Secret Confession

2007-10-09T01:57:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make...

Toastmasters has made me lazy!!! :-O

The Avid Toastmaster!
If you have been following this blog, you will realise that I am an avid toastmaster. My involvement in toastmastering has spanned about 5 years and I have achieved Advanced Toastmasters Bronze and Competent Leader in the time I have spent in toastmasters. Now that my life priorities has changed somewhat, toastmastering will start to take a backseat to my other priorities that I am driving towards, i.e. to spend more time with my family.

One of the things that toastmastering has taught me is to be a good improviser. As I deliver more and more speeches, speech evaluations, language evaluations and table-topics, I realise that it takes less time for my mind to organise thoughts that are verbalised through my public speaking. This is what has made me "lazy", in that I will take the shortest time possible to prepare for my speeches!

Who among us have never cut corners in preparing for a speech?
Who among us have never felt we should have put in more work preparing for our speech?
Who among us have never drafted his speech in less than 1 hour over lunch?

Life is short, think fast!
The reality in our busy lives is that we are cramming and more activities within the 24 hours and 365 days that we are all given. Toastmastering competes with family time, career, hobbies, leisure and rest. I am currently still doing my basic projects for my mandarin toastmasters speech and I realise that writing it all out in mandarin using hanyupinyin 汉语拼音 is starting to get tedious and time consuming. Hence, I am drafting out my speeches in English but using mandarin to deliver the speech. This involves more brain power and off-the-cuff table-topics skills because I have become lazy to sit down and take about 2 hours typing out an entire speech in mandarin!

I guess it is the human side of me that wants to take the path of least resistance. Participating in a mandarin toastmasters club has been challenging and exciting at the same time. The challenge comes from rebuilding up my vocabulary to be able to converse fluently in mandarin. The excitement comes from learning to use mandarin phrases and words for common english terms that I take for granted in day to day communication.

Communication skills in different languages allows you to touch more lives
The more I gradually improve in my spoken mandarin, the more I realise that the gift of languages and the ability to use it to touch lives is indeed a powerful skill. Looking back, I do not know why when I was studying I developed this hesitancy on embracing the full glory of mandarin? Was it because of peer pressure? Was it because of my educational environment?

Life is too short for regrets. I am just thankful that I now have another opportunity to improve my mandarin skills again and I am in fact looking to see if I have the time and capacity to learn a third language in order to gain access to that language's entertainment and culture.

How has toastmasters changed you?

Come join a toastmasters club to find out!

My regular dose of motivation!

2007-09-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

One of the attractions of being in the toastmasters movement is being able to receive a regular dose of motivational messages during chapter meetings!

Toastmasters is more than public speaking
Some of you may have the impression that toastmasters is about public speaking. You are right! Toastmasters IS about public speaking, but it is also about building up your self-confidence, your abilities to think on your feet and more importantly for you to receive that regular infusion of positive energy into your life!

Living in stressful Singapore is tough enough. Juggling work pressures, family pressures and pressures of daily living in the Lion City can sometimes get to you. I found that toastmasters helps us to refocus on the positive aspects of our lives instead of wallowing in our own self-inflicted feelings of inferiority, helplessness or hopelessness.

Yesterday evening's additional meeting at the Punggol Rivervale Toastmasters Club held at Hougang Community Club (35 Hougang Avenue 3, #02-12, Singapore 538840 - we meet every 2nd Wednesday of the month, next meeting is on 12 September 2007) was one example. Our club member Handi delivered his Project 10: Inspire your audience with a timely speech which reminded us to "Finish Well" in this marathon of "life". He exhorted, encouraged and was enthused about how we should not only begin well in terms of life's challenges but seek to finish well. The key takeaway phrase from his speech was,

"push through the pains, and get the gains!"

How many times have we failed to complete a task, activity or challenge put in front of us. This is part and parcel of being human. However, we can endeavour to grow by slowly developing the discipline, dedication and devotion to complete projects that we start.

Handi also shared on the 4 "F"s that cause us not to finish what we started:

fatigue
frustration
failure
fear

The toastmasters experience is something similar. Many of you who are toastmasters will remember the initial fear and trepidation when we delivered our first speech project, the icebreaker. You read your basic Communication and Leadership manual and realised you had to prepare and deliver ten speeches in order to achieve the Competent Communicator award! Ten speeches!!! Months and for some of us even years later, we completed it and the feeling is indescribable! To have faced an audience ten times and been given feedback both oral and written to slowly improve our public speaking skills is not something easy to do. It is through this process of doing, being coached, improving and doing it again that many of us hone our public speaking skills to what they are now.

Toastmasters motivates
I learnt a couple of important lessons during yesterday night's meeting. To firstly, stop making excuses! Secondly, to start immediately and to focus on the gain and not on the pain. My mandarin speech journey has seen me going through this process. While it is still somewhat painful, I find that my spoken mandarin has been improved that wee bit with each time that I deliver my mandarin speeches at the Braddell Heights Mandarin Toastmasters Club (Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday at Braddell Heights Community Club, 7.15 pm).

I have also started to read more of the chinese free newspaper 我报 (my paper) that is distributed at MRT stations on weekdays. The process is long and I have seven more mandarin speech projects to go but I am doing one every fortnight.

Push through the pains, focus on the gains
Wouldn't you want to learn to push through the pains and focus on the gains?

If you want to take specific steps to improve your self-confidence in speaking in front of an audience...

If you want to be able to think on your feet and respond to unexpected questions...

If you want to be a better communicator in work, family and social circles...

Consider visiting a toastmasters club.

It's simply amazing.

Visit to Results Foundation Toastmasters

2007-09-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

I visited the Results Foundation Toastmasters Club on Monday, 3 September 2007 at 7.30 pm. Their club meets every first Monday of the month at 179 River Valley Road (the building next to Liang Court).

It was an interesting session as the club has members from different nationalities and backgrounds and the standard of toastmastering there is reasonably high. I was invited as the language evaluator by Cheu Fong the Vice-President Education and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

I recorded some excellent use of metaphors and other imaginative use of English. Here are some examples:

- inane nonsense (exaggeration)
- rub each other up like sandpaper (simile)
- my wife is a fish (metaphor)
- crystal clear (imagery/metaphor)
- butterflies in the stomach (metaphor)
- overflowing enthusiasm and energy (alliteration)
- finest cloth yet to be weaved (metaphor)
- sterling performance (expressive vocabulary)
- walking photoshop (interest metaphor)
- he would just flash (humour)
- perfectly blended with our theme (metaphor)

There were other examples but I could not list all of them as language evaluators are typically given only ten minutes to do their evaluation. I also met two Bruneian toastmasters Mohamed and Rosalynne who gamely took on the table-topics organised by Zubi which involved famous often profound quotations by great thinkers and men/women of the present and the past.

If you happen to work around River Valley/Clarke Quay area, you may want to drop by to Results Foundation Toastmasters Club to experience for yourself their club climate! ;-)

Mandarin Speech: Preparing for Retirement

2007-08-28T00:19:00.000-07:00

This mandarin speech was drafted by me but heavily edited by my friend Elaine. Thanks Elaine for helping me edit my mandarin speech as I am still not fluent in my mandarin expression.

Will be delivering it later in the evening at my mandarin toastmasters club.

==========================================

Mandarin Speech

Date: 八月二十八日二〇〇七年 (28 August 2007)

Project 3: 修理分明

Title: 未雨绸缪 (Retirement Age)

Time: 五到七分钟

开顶Opening

How many of you want to work until 65 before you retire?

我想问大家一个问题: 谁想在六十五岁后继续工作？

哪举手的人，请注意了！你很可能是很可怕的工作狂！

Many of us want to retire earlier than the CPF withdrawal age!

正常人都想在六十五岁之前退休,可是公积金局新的条规却使到大多数的国人得延迟退休.除非我们学会未雨绸缪，为将来做好准备，不然我们就无法在六十五岁之前退休了.

My speech will give some pointers on how we can achieve this if we are disciplined and focused in managing our finances.

如果我们要提早退休,我们就得学习怎么管理好我们的财源和收入，例如怎样储蓄我们辛辛苦苦赚来的钱.这样我们才能过个幸福美满的退休时光.

正文Body

Most of us are on the CPF system and hence our retirement age is based on how much money we have in our accounts.

一般上大家都是靠公积金来维持退休生活。如果我们不想延迟退休，那么我们必需在五十五岁之前储蓄到至少十二万的公积金

才足够我们养老。换句话说，没钱就不能退休。

The trick to retirement is to build up our retirement monies in CPF and also outside of CPF!

我们若想要早点退休，就得另外储蓄及投资来填补我们的公积金.

How do we build up our retirement monies?

怎么另外储蓄及投资呢?

Let me share 3 simple techiques:

让我来跟大家讨论三个简单地方法:

1) Live within your means

第一个方法是:我们要定期储蓄，从我们每个月的比薪水中固定地储蓄一笔钱。这样我们才不会超支我们的薪水，确保我们会在能力范围之内花费。

How do we do it

不管你从事什么行业,只要你能定期储蓄，把新水花在需要的东西而不是浪费在喜欢的东西，你就能很好地管理自己的钱。

你们知道什么是需要的东西,什么是喜欢第东西吗?

需要的东西可以是很基本的生活必需品像柴米油盐酱醋茶，也可以是高档的必需品像一辆车。但是所谓的需要的东西可以因人而异。

对我来说,我不需要一辆车,可是别人可能因为工作上的需要而得买一辆车.

对我来说,我因为从事繁忙的工作需要掌上笔记簿，但对一些人例如家庭主妇他们就不需要掌上笔记簿，而比较需要菜篮了。

2) Pay off debt first

第二个方法是:把我们的贷款还清.

How do we do it

一般上大家都会向银行代款买房子。很少人会一次付清买房子的钱的，除非那个人非常有钱。有钱的人从来不会而不需要向别人贷款借钱，所以有钱的人会变得更有钱。

你们知道向银行代款买房子，你们每个月得付多少代款呢？我们有时会忘记，因为我们的房屋贷款是用公积金来支付的，所以我们没有留意房屋贷款的利息是多少。

那也是我们的钱。我们为什么要让银行这么轻松地赚我们的钱呢？

目前向银行房屋贷款的利息是二点六巴显，而向公积金贷款的利息是是二点五巴显。你向公积金所支付的房屋贷款的利息会比向银行的少了零点一巴显，因此聪明的人会向公积金局贷款。

3) Save and invest

储蓄及投资

How do we do it

如果你可以做到第一和第二个方式的话,那你就可以开始用储蓄的钱投资在定期户口，政府储蓄或蓝股(blue chips).这样你就能在得到回报中，累积自己的退休金。

结尾Conclusion

听完了我的建议,谁还想做到六十岁才能退休呢?

如果你:

a) 能定期储蓄，不超支薪金

b) 能尽快把自己的贷款还清

c) 又能通过储蓄来投资

提早退休又有什么困难呢!

理宾师.

Humourous Speech and Evaluation Contests

2007-08-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

I have good news and I have bad news.

The bad news is that I didn't even place in my club Humourous Speech Contest. There are five participants and I did not place in the top three with my speech.

The good news is that I emerged champion out of seven participants in the evaluation contest. :)

Post-Speech Analysis
I spoke to one of my toastmaster friend who gave me feedback that my topic on stock market investments may not have been timed well as the recent market upheaval made it difficult for some to see the humour as some have been hit hard by the recent sharp market correction. That was a good point and I felt that I should have made more use of self-deprecating humour in pointing more of my own mistakes in investments rather than in using generic points. Also the topic may be lost on those who do not dabble in stock market investing like I do.

While I am slightly disappointed at not placing, it was still a good experience in learning what doesn't work in humourous speeches and to file that in my long-term experience for future contests.

Post-Evaluation Analysis
I was the sixth out of seven speakers and hence could only hear the evaluation of the last contestant so I had no idea how the others performed. Most likely I clinched this partly because I was able to focus on the key areas for improvement for the speaker and that was how he had structured his content. The speaker chose the topic of "Thin Obsession" and his well-researched speech was peppered with many statistics e.g. 9 out of 10 women worry about their weight. However, his opening was not impactful in my view and could be enhanced by taking one of these statistics and connecting it to the audience e.g. Did you know that 9/10 women surveyed worry about their weight?

My evaluation speech structure was simple:

- Greet Contest chair, honourable judges, fellow toastmasters and the speaker
- Tell them I will evaluate the speaker in how well he has delivered the opening, body and conclusion
- Comment on Opening
- Comment on Body
- Comment on Conclusion
- Conclude

In my toastmasters journey, I have taken up numerous appointments as project evaluator and hence these regular stints have allowed me to practice my evaluation skills in many different venues, environments and situations. I see this achievement as part of the cumulative journey of being a active toastmaster, i.e. to practice, learn and to share.

The area contest will be held on 8 September 2007. More updates after that contest!

Speak well and live well.

The three “Nos” of Investing in the Stock Market

2007-08-23T19:51:00.001-07:00

My draft speech that I will deliver tomorrow at the Humourous Speech Contest is here.

Speak well and live well!

How you can learn to be an effective Master of Ceremonies (Emcee)

2007-08-20T00:55:00.001-07:00

What is this "one"?
Your boss asked you to be one for an upcoming meeting.
Your company's annual dinner and dance needs one.
You are scared to become one.
What is this "one"?

Master of Ceremonies (Emcee)
It is the role of the master of ceremonies!

Before I joined toastmasters, I thought that the emcee was the person who held onto the microphone and filled up the time between between prize presentations by talking about inconsequential things. Little did I know that my journey into the toastmasters movement would reveal that the emcee is arguably one of the most important roles that you can take in your personal, and professional lives!

What does an emcee or toastmaster of the day do?
During a toastmasters meeting, there is a club member who is assigned the role of the toastmaster of the day (TMD) or sometimes it's referred to as toastmaster of the evening (TME) as most toastmasters meetings are held during weekday evenings. What a toastmaster of the day does is to manage the day's meeting by being the facilitator of the meeting. The TMD announces any changes in the program which is typically sent out to participants a few days before each meeting. He or she welcomes the participants to the meeting and manages how each person who is speaking or making presentations will be welcomed and introduced to the participants. It is about getting the meeting going in an orderly manner and in the sequence as provided in the program.

How it works is that for each meeting, the lecturn or place where the speeches or presentations take place is controlled by the TMD. The TMD will hand over control of the lecturn to each of the various speakers who need to deliver their speeches. In return, each speaker will return back control of the meeting to the TMD once they have finished their speeches.

The Toastmaster of the Day / Emcee can make or break a meeting
The tone of the meeting can be made or broken by the TMD as he is the one that sets the atmosphere. If the TMD is serious, dead-pan and expressionless, you can be sure that most of the participants will react to his lack of energy and enthusiasm with equal if not extra measure. Hence, successful toastmasters meetings are helped by having a TMD/emcee who is able to feel the pulse of the participants, work with it and inject his enthusiasm and energy to get the participants pumped up about the meeting.

How to be an effective Master of Ceremonies (Emcee) / Toastmaster of the Day
It all begins with practice, practice and more practice. :) Visiting and joining a toastmasters club is a great way to start the ball rolling. Even the most gifted athletes who win Olympic medals train hard 24x7x365 in order to get themselves ready for a shot to qualify to win a medal. So too is the journey to be an effective emcee.

First of all, you need regular practice. Second of all, you need to be coached. Toastmasters meetings provide that coaching as many experienced toastmasters also went through the process of taking up the role as an emcee during a meeting as the toastmaster of the day. They would be happy to share in a supporting and non-threatening way how you can become a better emcee. Thirdly, learn from seeing experienced toastmasters perform the toastmaster of the day role and how they manage the meeting by the remarks they inject into the meeting as well as managing the changes to the program in order to bring about a meeting that fulfils the agenda while keeping to the time alloted.

Are you intrigued about what goes on in a toastmasters meeting? Drop me a email at rod.loh @ gmail.com or leave a comment with a contact email and you can get in touch with me.

Speak well and live well!

What you learn from a humourous speech contest

2007-08-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

I was helping out at the Open Alumni Toastmasters Club as one of the two Sergeant-at-Arms during our recent Club Contest and was gratified to see many toastmasters from the club participating. It was their first contest for some of them and it heartens me to see my fellow club members pick up courage to take the plunge into the world of competitive speaking!

Atmosphere of a contest is electrifying!
The atmosphere in a contest is different from that of a monthly chapter meeting. "How so?" you may well ask!

For starters, the club contest is attended by judges, appointment-holders and guests who are not members of the club. That means that there are many strangers in the room! This means there are people who are interested to hear what you have to say to them during the contest.

A contest is also held to a strict set of rules that all participants must adhere to. For instance, time disqualification is automatic if you fail to stop by seven minutes and thirty seconds for the humourous speech contest. The formality of the contest raises the stakes in the speech there will be a champion, a first runner-up and a second runner-up when all the judges marks have been tallied.

A healthy tension
There is a healthy tension as one prepares for and waits to deliver their speeches as you know how the other contestants perform since you are in the same room as them. In addition, the response (or lack thereof) from the audience is live, in real-time, online! No possibility of hitting the "pause" button to rewind if you made a small mistake. You have to overcome any setback or mistake and just get the speech delivered to the best of your ability with the time that you are alloted.

We are all humorous (to some extent!)
I realised that humour is in all of us in different doses. One of our fellow toastmasters is a lady who is naturally funny. Even when she tries to be serious, she makes us laugh because her serious demeanour does not gel with her cute image. Some of the participants draw from their family life experiences, showing photographs of their child and family and the humorous adventures of family life. Many in the audience could relate to that. Others made use of dialogue to draw out the humourous situations they encountered with some artistic licence!

The greatest benefit from participating in a contest is process of challenging yourself. To paraphrase a toastmaster I heard at ACCA Toastmasters Club (Cliff) who mentioned, "Life is simple, but it's not easy" I would leave you with this quote:

"Contesting is simple, but it's not esay."

May you speak well and live well.

Humourous Speech and Evaluation Speech Contests at ACCA Toastmasters Club

2007-08-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

I just came back from attending the ACCA Toastmasters Club's Humorous Speech and Evaluation Speech Contest held at AEC Centre, 12th Floor. By the way, the Club will be holding their regular Chapter meetings at Cairnhill Community Club after this contest.

The contest was interesting as the speakers tried their best to tickle the funny bones of the audience by using humour, one of the most potent forces of nature to connect and communicate with the audience.

I too learnt more about using techniques such as:

play on words
exaggeration or hyberbole
dialogue
props

that could be used to inject humour and spice into the speech. I am participating in the NTU Alumni Toastmasters Club contest on 25 August 2007 and hope I will be able to elicit some genuine laughter from the audience. I have drafted my speech but on a second reading, it does not come across as funny. I think I will have to change the speech and have two weeks to do so.

Let's see how it goes after I attend tomorrow evening's Open Alumni Toastmasters Club Humourous and Evaluation Speech contests.

Speak well and live well!

Project 2: Speak with Sincerity in Mandarin (由衷之言) you zhong zhi yan

2007-08-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

I attended the Braddell Heights Mandarin Toastmasters Club meeting yesterday night at Braddell Heights CC which is near to Serangoon NEL MRT station.

This is my project 2 "Speak with Sincerity".

One of the reasons why I joined Mandarin Toastmasters was to improve my spoken and written English. It takes me much longer to draft a mandarin speech as I first write it out in English and then translate it into chinese.

The excellent language evaluator as well as my evaluator give me useful pointers. My mandarin expression is still weak but I endeavour to try my best and not to give up although it scares me sometimes to express myself in mandarin as I am not 100% confident whether the expression works.

I remember DTM John Sih's words, "Practice makes Better!"

To be better, I need to practice!

Below is my speech which is 90% close to what I delivered last night.
----------------------

Mandarin Speech

Date: 八月十四日二〇〇七年 (14 August 2007)

Project 2: 由衷之言

Title: 我的课外活动 (My Extracurricular Activities)

Time: 五到七分钟

开顶Opening

Do you remember when you were in school you participated in ECAs?

你记得你在念书的时候参加过什么课外活动呢?

What ECAs was it? Dance? Speech/Drama? Table-tennis?

是不是舞蹈,还是演出,可能是运动,比如乒乓,尾毛球还是篮球呢?

My speech today will touch the ECAs or volunteer activities that I have done

今天我要跟大家说我在社会工作之后地课外活动

in the past 10 years or so.

正文Body

出生

ISACA

When I first starting working, I got involved with ISACA through a colleague.

当我刚开始工作那时,一个同事发现我对电脑及审计有兴趣,他就邀请我参加他的电脑审计协会地刊登委员会. 我答应了它因为我想学习新的技术及知事和跟电脑审计转越专业人士社交。

He was on the main committee and he roped me into the publication sub-committee to help draft the quarterly newsletter.

Isn’t that how we get involved in committees? Because someone we know asked us?

这不是大家被拉进去帮忙某种委员会和理事会的吗? 因为有人邀请我们去参加?而且因为我们要学一些东西?

The information systems audit and control association brings together professionals who are in IT audit, security and controls together to share and learn about developments in the industry.

电脑审计协会是为专业人士所成立的.它的活动包过电脑保安和审计之类的讲座,训练等等.

如果你要对电脑审计这项题目有兴趣的话,参加这个协会能加强你对这类地经验.

I have been involved for almost 10 years and only stepped down last week.

我在这个协会已经上任了十年.趁精作过秘书直到会长的职位.上个星期刚下任.退出电脑审计的江湖.

参加电脑审计协会是和大人沟通,那我是怎么学会跟小孩沟通呢?

kidsREAD

Many of our members here have children. Do you read to your children?

会员门总有几位是家长呢？作家张你们有更孩子读故事习惯吗？

kidsREAD is a program started by the National Library Board in conjunction with self-help groups such as CDAC, Mendaki and Sinda in fostering a lifelong love for reading.

如果你有那个习惯那很好！如果你没有那个习惯不怕,你可以参加由图书馆里局及华族会组办的儿童阅读训练班(kidsREAD)。这个儿童阅读训练班让义工们学习各种方式让我们激发小朋友对阅读英语书的兴趣。

I enjoy kidsREAD because I get to interact with children aged 7 to 8.

我对这项义务已经作了两年的时间了.我每个星期六从十一点半到十二点半到欲朗西第四十二街跟一群七到八岁的小朋友进行阅读活动.

At 7 to 8 years of age, children are quite fun to be with.

当小朋友在七到八年岁的侍候,教他们东西也是挺好玩的.

We do reading of storybooks provided by the NLB and also arts and crafts related to the stories.

在阅读班上,我会用大本故事书念出来给他们听.也跟那些同学门一起念故事.

I have been involved in this program for the past two years and it is very fulfilling.

我在华助会已经当了五年的议工.起初是帮忙学业督导小组,帮忙小屋技校留学生补习.

结尾Conclusion

我参加加这么多课外活动是因为想帮别人而且学会更多的技巧而任认识多一些朋友。希望将来这些经验及技巧能让我应付将来生命的挑战。

理宾师.

Advanced Project 3:The Demonstration Talk (Speak to Inform manual)

2007-07-13T00:04:00.000-07:00

I prepared the following speech for my AP3 at the Rivervale Punggol Toastmasters Club meeting on 11 July 2007 (Third Wednesday of the month) at Hougang Community Club, 35 Hougang Ave 3, Classroom #02-12, S(538840) at 7.30 pm. The actual speech delivered is about 70% close to what I prepared as usually I use the script as the starting point but am flexible to drop certain parts if I run out of time or if I forget the script! :-)

Advanced Project 3:The Demonstration Talk
Speaking to Inform
Timing: 5 to 7 Minutes

[Objective: Prepare a demonstration speech to clearly explain a process, product, or activity. Conduct the demonstration as part of a speech delivered without notes.]

Opening

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to wield the power of death in your hands?
Have you ever held something that weighed only 3.9kg fully loaded and could reach out and kill someone flying at a speed of 975 m/s at an effective range of about 550 metres?
Have you ever taken aim at a target and imagined if it were a real human being before pulling the trigger?

Body

The Singapore Armed Forces celebrates 40 years of National Service this year and almost half of all Singapore citizens go through National Service, with many doing their service in the army. Your spouse, brother, male colleague or even relative could be someone who has gone through his national service in the army.

Any Singaporean male who has served his National Service in the army after going through basic military training (BMT) would have had the privilege of learning, using and mastering the skill of handling the M16 infantry rifle. The M16 is a basic weapon for a soldier. It is one of the most recognisable weapons in the world besides the imfamous Kalishnikov AK-47.

M16 handing over ceremony
The M16 rifle is something that every recruit will get to receive during the rifle handing over ceremony. This is where the Platoon Commander or the Company Commander will officially hand out to each recruit his weapon or colloquially known as his "wife" during BMT. Each soldier is to take care of his weapon as he would his spouse, keep the rifle clean and learn how to use it effectively to engage targets.
[Demonstrate the handing over ceremony with M16.]

What it feels to have and to hold the M16
The first thing I realised about the weapon was that it was heavy! Although compared to other rifles (e.g. the SAR21), the M16 is relatively light, to a boy fresh from Junior College and first time in the armed forces, it felt heavy to me! Learning about parts of the rifle, how to field strip or disassemble the rifle and assembling it back was easy enough. The tough part was the shooting and hitting your target consistently.

How it sounds to fire an M16

The second thing that struck me was how loud the sound was of a shot fired from the M16. It went "PANG PANG" and if you did not wear ear-plugs when the rifle was firing, it was pretty noisy. I was initially scared of the rifle's firing sound. It took me some time before I got used to it and then focussed on the aiming, the breathing, the squeeze of the trigger and the firm hold over the rifle as the force from the recoil from the firing of the bullet was transmitted to the hollow in your shoulder

[Demonstrate the PANG PANG sound, and how the recoil hits the shoulder.]

How the recoil hits your shoulder

I can still recall the minor bruises I usually received after firing the weapon at the range as my delicate shoulder was not used to the pounding from the supposedly "recoiless" weapon. :-)

My first M16 firing experience
Once you have gone through the realities of weapons handling. You realise it is not easy to shoot accurately and consistently and good shooters are those who not only have a good aim but are able to breath correctly, hold their weapon correctly and pull the trigger with the sustained pressure that results in the discharge of a 5.56 round that spins towards the target before embedding itself with a "thud".

Unlike what you see in the movies with people shooting from the hip “Rambo” style, the accurate way of shooting requires you to: [Demonstrate the shooting fundamentals]

A) Hold the rifle properly

B) Aim accurately

C) Hold your breath- half breath

D) Squeeze the trigger firmly

E) Hold the rifle securely for the recoil

Before you can fire your rifle accurately, you must “Zero” it or align the sights properly so that you will hit at what you aim. This is done by firing at a bull! Not a real world, but a target we affectionately call, “the Canadian Bull”.

My toy M16
Having completed my 10 years of reservist liability and transferred into Mindef Reserve, I find myself nostalgic when I see the M16 rifle and even bought a toy replica with a reddish plastic bit for the barrel to differentiate it from the real weapon. You can buy it from OG for only S$27 (approx. US$17). I play with it whenever I want to play pretend soldiers or let off some steam but pretending to shoot people that irritate me to no end! :-)

Conclusion

I have shared how it feels to hold and handle the M16.

I have shared how it sounds and moves when fired.

I have shared what it takes to fire the M16 rifle.

I hope my sharing has allowed you to better appreciate some of the things Singaporean men go through in their National Service.

Back to you TME.

How do you tell people that "YOU SUCK" with ease and confidence

2007-07-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post may contain some ungrammatical expressions and colloquialisms e.g. "You suck" and reader discretion is advised. Please do not read this if you are easily offended.

A toastmaster is called upon to do project evaluations. A project is a speech and project evaluations are speech evaluations where the evaluator is given two to three minutes and thirty seconds to comment on how well (or poorly!) the project speaker has performed in relation to his project objectives in a supportive and constructive manner.

What I learnt from doing project evaluations
Many project evaluators also take the opportunity to comment on other aspects of public speaking such as vocal variety, appearance, body gestures and so on shown by the speaker. After doing evaluations for a few years, I realised that the single most important thing that you have to learn, known and practice as a project evaluator is...

How do you tell people that "YOU SUCK" with ease and confidence?

All of us have egos. Some of you have big egos, some have small egos. Some have tough egos others have fragile ones. How do you give constructive feedback without making the other person want to quit toastmasters altogether and yet tell the truth with love? That is truly challenging and it is still something I struggle with when I encounter abysmal speakers. Some speakers know they suck and are receptive to comments put to them gently. Others totally suck and they do not know they suck. Those are the scary ones! :-)

Suggestions on sharing evaluations without breaking egos
Let me share how I TRY to make my evaluations less hurting to those with fragile egos:

1. Butter the speaker up
- Tell them they dress well, have good eye contact, chose relevant or useful topic etc. Focus on some positive and be genuine about it. :-)

2. Address the areas where they failed to meet project objectives
- Speech evaluation is for them to improve on areas where they can do better to MEET project objectives. A prepared speech done in a normal toastmasters meeting allows the toastmaster to learn and apply the speaking making skills given in the manual. It is not to win contests.

3. Give examples on what did not work, and give examples on what may work
- This is critical because there is no point telling people they suck without specifically referring to that one or two parts of their speech where it happened. Do not just point out problems, value-add by giving possible solutions.

4. Empathise with the speaker
- I try to put myself in the speaker's shoes and share how I also found a particular project challenging because of the reasons I mentioned.

You will find that the two to three minutes and thirty seconds do not give you a lot of time to cover all those areas. Just pick one or two that may work and improvise. With practiceyou will find that your skills will improve and next time you can tell people that you know how to tell others "They suck!" with ease and confidence.

Money Mastery Toastmasters Club

2007-07-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

I was at the Money Mastery Toastmasters Club which meets every 1st Wednesday of the month at Toa Payoh SAFRA Club, Thomson Room (7.30 pm).

It was an interesting visit as I learnt more about the limiting beliefs of money such as:

Money is the root of all evil
To make money you have to have money
Money is everything

The meeting was well attended and there were basic as well as advanced speeches being delivered during the meeting. Two visiting toastmasters delivered their projects in addition to the two speakers from the club that did that projects 7 and 8.

If you live around the Toa Payoh area, you can consider visiting them. Drop me a comment here if you wish to get in touch with them! :-)

Telok Blangah Toastmasters Club Meeting on 28 June 2007

2007-07-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

I was invited by the advisor Wen Liang to the Telok Blangah Community Club Toastmasters Club meeting on 28 June 2007 (Thursday). The meeting was held in the cosy conference room in the Community Club itself.

The interesting part about the meeting was the President Brian. He is a Junior College Student as is all of the ripe young age of 18! :)

The Power of Positive Speaking

2007-06-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Words are powerful.

Words spoken out loud are even more powerful!

Words have power over life and death
They have the power of life and death. Spoken words can build you up or to tear you down. In my toastmasters career, I now know why the founders of the toastmasters movement have incorporated the power of positive speaking into the basic communication and leadership manuals. What Dr. Ralph C. Smedley started in motion was a movement that helped develop the potential in thousands upon thousands of people all over the world, because he saw that the power of the spoken word to move others to greater heights.

Have you ever encountered a situation where your parents scolded you harshly for something you had done? Have you ever been berated by your boss for a task not done to satisfaction. And have you ever been chided by colleagues for your actions? None of us likes to be criticised or scolded. Sometimes the criticism is important for us to grow, to know what is the right thing to do, to avoid harming ourselves or others. But words spoken harshly with a mean spirit and vengeful viciousness does nothing but kills our human spirit and our own self-confidence.

We remember how people made us feel rather than what they said
I remember someone say that we remember how someone made us feel more than what the person said. How true! How many of our hang-ups, phobias and fears in life are because of something someone said when we were young and impressionable; naive and vulnerable? How many times did we feel like dying because instead of receiving encouragement and support from our loved ones, we encountered apathy, accusations and recriminations spoken harshly?

One of the things that keep me going back to toastmasters is the spirit of positivity and encouargement that permeates most meetings. The warmth and support one gets from toastmasters is a stress reliever and also helps ones to regain own self image and allows us to be revalidated again as rightful members of the human race!

Encourage someone today
So the next time you see your fellow loved one, relative or friend being down or depressed. Say something encouraging and positive with a sincere heart because all of you have the power of positive speaking in you... to speak life into others!

How do you handle table topics?

2007-06-24T19:45:00.001-07:00

P1010034
Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

The Table topics session in any toastmasters meeting tends to be the most intimidating session to uninitiated toastmasters because unlike a prepared speech, you cannot fully prepare for a table-topics session unless you know the questions before hand.

I used to fear table-topics too
I used to fear table-topics as well because you were at your most exposed. You had potentially an unfamiliar topic, you had to talk about that topic for 1 to 2 minutes and 30 seconds. You had to address the topic. It was still a speech but without a prepared script!

But think about real-life, do we have prepared scripts all the time? Have you ever encountered a time when someone, your boss, friend or colleague asked you something you did not have an answer for?

Welcome to table-topics! That is exactly what it is about -- training you to be able to field any types of questions, queries or comments in a calm, composed and collected manner and sounding intelligent in the process!

How do you handle table-topics
With a lot of practice! :-)

The one thing I learnt from my journey attempting table topics is that you have to practice, practice and practice. It is not so much about practicing so that the topic that came up may come out again, but it is about training your mind to be able to react to new and potentially unfamiliar material. I will share how I approach table-topics with a view of helping you find that perfect, poised, (impromptu) presentation that will blow away audiences (figuratively) and wow them!

3 Step approach in handling table-topics

Step 1: Listen to the question carefully and brainstorm
You will be surprised at how fast your brain can generate thoughts. The problem is not the quantity but more the quality of thoughts. When I first hear any table-topics, e.g. "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword," my first few thoughts in my head after many sessions of taking part in table-topics during meetings are:

what is a pen, what is a sword
differences/similarities
what do they symbolise
ah! can use what each symbolise and play off each other - one hand vs other hand
go go go!

This takes training because my initial thoughts before I trained my mind was:

cheem (profound) statement
how, how, what to say, how to answer, die lah (oh dear) cannot answer
siao liao (oh dear), sure malu (embarass) myself one
ok, ok, nevermind, just go......

You can see the difference is that my brainstorming in the first instance tries to connect the table-topics with things I already know and to use that connection to form a structure in which to address the table topic. You can train your brain to do that too but it takes practice and the willingness to try table-topics.

Step 2: Apply a structure and start speaking
There are a couple of templates that most experienced table-topics use. These include:

a) Pros and Cons / Agree vs Disagree / On the one hand vs On the other hand
You can spell out the pros and cons or agree with or disagree with the statement or topic giving examples and reasons for doing so. You can also conclude by agreeing, disagreeing or being neutral. Support what you say with why you say it. This will add more meat to your table-topics.

b) Before and after (using time factor to analyse the topic)
You can also analyse the topic by saying, previously I would have done this... But now I would do that. Or you could say, historically it was like this, in the future it may be like that...

c) Disregard the question or reintrepret it
This is slightly more risky as you may not be directly addressing the topic and this could cost you at a contest. However, for practice and during club meetings, you can try this if you want to make it more interesting or if you deliberately want to inject humour in a possibly serious topic.

There are other ways to address the topic that has elements of (a) , (b) and (c) above. Try them out, experiment and see what works or does not work in your own style.

Step 4: Deliver your table-topic as a speech
I sometimes forget that a table-topic is a speech. It is a short and impromptu speech but it is still a still one. Hence, you would need to have an impactful opening, a body with a couple of points using the structure above, and a conclusion. This is sometimes lacking when we are panicking as the amber and red light flashes at us! Control yourself, keep within the time and conclude as this will wrap up the speech. If you are at a contest, never be disqualified because of time. So do be attentive of the traffic lights as they are there to guide you and toastmasters should strive to always speak within the time allocated.

There you have it, a simple 3-step approach that could help you getting the next best table-topics speaker ribbon during your club meeting!

Speak well and live well!

Memoirs of a Vice-President Education of the Open Alumni Toastmasters Club

2007-06-21T23:10:00.001-07:00

3rd Thursday of June 2007. 21 June 2007 7.30 p.m. to be exact.

It was at my club's monthly meeting but what made it significant was that it was my last chapter meeting as the Vice-President (Education) [VPE] of the club. For those of you who do not know what does a VPE do, he or she organises the club meeting with the help of the appointment holders, project speakers and evaluators to get the meeting going. It is a role that requires you to plan, organise and execute the meeting. You become a event organiser, the one "in-charge" and the one whom everyone will look for when things go wrong. :-)

It is not a role for the faint-hearted!

What I learnt as a Vice-President (Education)
The key lesson I learnt as a VPE was to plan your work and work your plan. Planning is key to executing a successful meeting as there is a certain logical sequence that works reasonably well after I have planned about 12 meetings plus a 4 speechcraft sessions. Here is my five (5) step method in getting meetings going. I am sure other VPEs out there and fellow toastmasters may have different ways in organising their meetings.

Step 1: Line up your speaking slots
Toastmasters exist to support our educational growth of our members. We want our members to develop public communication and leadership skills by doing the speeches. Hence, the first step, which comes immediately after a chapter meeting (or even earlier if you are very well organised) is to ask your members to book their speaking slots. Create a demand by subtly hinting to your members, slots are filling up fast, let me know as soon as you can if you want one or else it will be given to the next person who first asks for it!

Step 2: Line up your evaluators
Clubs that have many experienced toastmasters who have achieved their Competent Communicator or Advanced Communicator awards can tap internally for experienced evaluators. I tend to get at least three quarters or even all of the evaluators for my four to five prepared speech speakers because it helps us to learn from the better evaluators and speakers from other toastmasters clubs. It allows creates opportunities for networking by our club members and they get to know new people whilst attending our regular monthly club meeting.

Asking evaluators early helps. I typically ask about one, sometimes even two months in advance so that I am assured of that person's presence at my club. I am thankful that my President is also quite effective and helpful in getting evaluators for our club. :-)

Step 3: Line up your appointment holders
Filling up the remainding appointment holders are relatively easier once you have placed the major speaking and evaluator slots. The most important appointment holder is actually the Toastmaster of the evening or TME. I usually let a newer (but not totally fresh) toastmaster handle this role to let him/her learn how to be a master of ceremonies (emcee). Totally new toastmasters may not be suitable as they may be overawed and too new to understand what to do. Toastmasters who have done project 3 to 10 are my typical candidates.

However, when there are very important meetings when we try to do recruitment or have a special occasion, I may personally step in to carry out this role or appoint an experienced toastmaster to do so as the TME can make or break a meeting through the tone he sets and the ambience he creates during the meeting.

The other roles such as ah-counter, who counts our pause fillers of "er", "ah", "and", "so" etc, timer, sergeant-at-arms, can be rotated among members or even guests who are not totally new to toastmasters.

I have discovered that the language evaluator imparts the most useful information than the prepared speech evaluators. This is because in the hands of a seasoned language evaluator such as Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) Richard Sng, you get an english lesson chock-full of tips on grammar, pronuniciation, use of expressions and vocabulary. Other language evaluators we have had the privilege of listening to include DTM Wekie Tay.

Step 4: Invite guests!
A club can only grow if members bring guests. There will be a natural attrition of membership in any club due to family and work commitments and hence a vibrant club needs to continually attract people who are keen to improve their public communication and leadership to visit and hopefully join the club. I was heartened when two of our guests (one of them a very regular visitor!) finally decided to join our club based on what they experienced during the meeting.

Step 5: Be flexible and have fun :-)
One of the occupational hazards of being a Vice-President (Education) is that members sometimes call up last minute to cancel their speaking slots due to work, family or other emergencies. How do you handle such situations? With a huge dollop of humour. I found that getting angry or upset does not help to solve the problem. Instead, I have developed a way to help me deal with these situations. Remember in "Step 2: Line up your evaluators", I mentioned that I tend to get three quarters of the number of evaluators I need from other clubs? This allows me to pull out our internal evaluator as it is easier to change his or her schedule that someone whom you have specially invited for the meeting.

What if it is an evaluator who pulls out? This is where I will tap on myself (if necessary) or any of my more experienced club members to step in to help out as an evaluator.

Unexpected events happen in life all the time. Instead of beating my chest and crying out to the heavens, "WHY"... I laugh it off and try to scramble to see what resources I can activate. Ultimately, I remember that a toastmasters meeting is practice for real-life, so things do happen and I just need to deal with it and move on.

I hope you have learnt something useful from my experience. There are even better organised VPEs out there who slog day-in-day-out to help ensure the successful conduct of monthly or even fortnightly meetings for members. Do spare a thought for them and occasionally give them a pat on the back and say,

"Well done! Thanks for all your hard work!"

Back to you, toastmaster of the day.

The Open Alumni Toastmasters Club meets every 3rd Thursday of the month at 7.30 p.m. at:

The Corporate Office
Level 9, 138 Robinson Road (S)068906
(Near to Tanjong Pagar MRT).

Drop me an email at speaking.life at gmail.com if you want to know more details. :-)

Our meeting schedule for the rest of 2007 are:

19 July 2007
16 August 2007
20 September 2007
18 October 2007
15 November 2007
20 December 2007

Toastmasters is therapy though speaking and sharing

2007-06-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

The longer I am involved in the toastmasters movement, the more I realise the benefits are beyond just public communication and leadership. It is about touching lives and being touched by the stories, anecdotes and experiences shared by fellow toastmasters in the warm environment of a club meeting. The photograph on the left shows Oprah Winfrey. She is America's leading businessn women and has built up a business empire on her brand name. One of the most recognisable product is her talk show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" where she will bring in guests to talk about their life experiences which straddle the spectrum of human emotions. She has guests talk about their personal failures and how they overcome them as well as their triumphs.

Toastmasters is like "The Oprah Winfrey Show"....almost!
If you have not visited a toastmasters meeting, you may not realise that some meetings are almost like "The Oprah Winfrey Show". While we may not have a talkshow host in the same mould as Oprah, there has been many instances when fellow toastmasters shared their joys and sorrows, their failures and successes. Many of their real-life experiences has touched me and left me a different person before I heard their stories.

Why toastmasters work is that the supportive environment helps speakers to open up more than they would in a social setting. All of us have egos, you, myself, everyone around us and it takes you time and the development of relationships with the club members to open up and share real stories. Not just the stories of success in the Singaporean sense of it, five Cs (cash, condo, credit cards, country club membership and car) but rather, how each of us travelled a different path to get where we are in the toastmasters club. While some of us joined toastmasters with some public speaking experience, others are totally new to the concept of public speaking and the common experience that ties us together is the knowledge that no matter how experienced you are as a speaker, ALL of us will experience fear and nervousness in front of the audience. It's just that the experienced speakers know how to deliver their speeches despite the fear!

Words that heal and words that kill
Toastmasters therapy comes in the form of those shared experiences. It allows a bond to be developed among club members, among guests and the speaker about their humanity. That all of us have weaknesses, frailties and fears. I enjoy going to toastmasters meetings because at least 30-40% of the time, I am laughing during the meeting! There tends to be plenty of humour in a toastmasters club and we all know that recent studies are starting to point out the therapeutic effects of laughter! Speech evaluations in toastmasters are delivered with the objective of being encouraging while pointing out areas for improvement. This skill is akin to being a trained therapist, where you need to diagnose what is not working for the speech and give positive constructive feedback to the speaker. In toastmasters, we know the power of the spoken word, it has both the capacity to heal and also the capacity to kill (our spirit).

With due respect to all trained therapists, toastmasters will not be able to do what these professionals can. What toastmasters can do is to allow you to connect with your fellow man and women, to share, to listen and to empathise the journey of life that all of us take. Each of us takes a different path. Each of us encounters unique experiences. And Each of us has something special to share. Allow toastmasters to be your platform for sharing and for speaking.

Speak life and speak it abundantly!

What visual aids should I use in my speech?

2007-06-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

Many toastmasters who are doing their basic communication and leadership manual reach a milestone when they do their project 8, which involves using visual aids. This is where they are not only using themselves, their voice, words, body language and hand gestures to convey their message to the audience. They have to use something external, something within their control but if not properly integrated into their speech becomes an impediment, a crutch and a distraction.

What exactly are visual aids?
Visual aids can comprise different types of item such as:

handouts or notes
powerpoint slides
video clip
flips charts
white boards
props

The purpose of your visual aid is to help you deliver your message to the audience. The key word here is "help". Many of us when we are using visual aids allow it to dominate and become the primary focus of the presentation. You can learn how to avoid this trap.

The next section will share with you how each of these works (or not), under what circumstances and some pointers I have learnt and observed through my years in toastmastering.

Handouts
Handouts or type-written notes are useful to present to the audience if you are preparing to deliver a speech that uses technical information or where there is a lot of material for reference. Typically, handouts are used to elaborate on the details that are part of the topic but due to the time limit of five to seven minutes would be too much for the audience to absorb during that time. You can use handouts also when you want to give the audience something tangible they can bring back after your presentation. For example, if you presented a speech about 5 easy ways to use body language and give many examples in your handouts, the printed handout could be given to a newer toastmaster who would be doing his or her project incorporating body language.

Powerpoint slides (on notebooks with LCD projectors)
Powerpoint slides are one of the most commonly used and abused form of visual aid. If you work in an office environment and are required to make the occasional business presentation in your work, you will tend to rely on this tool to get the job done. However, while many of us know how to use powerpoint slides in the technical sense of the word, we do not understand how to use it in a public communication setting.

One of the pitfalls you (and I!) tend to make is that we put too much material into the powerpoint slides. A slide has as many as 10 bullet and sub-bullet points with very few pictures or graphics. The human eye and brain is trained to be attracted by picture and not words because words engage a different part of our brain compared to pictures. Hence, we tend to prepare powerpoint slides as we would prepare handouts. That is not appropriate. If you have a lot of background material to share with the audience, try to put these in handouts and leave them to the audience for later reading.

If you have read of how Steve Jobs does his presentations during MacWorld conferences, he uses very few words but many pictures and graphics to tell a story about the new product that he is introducing, be it the iPod or iBook etc. The secret of using powerpoint slides effectively is to remove your bullet points from the main slides and use captions or key phrases instead.

Rather than having a slide to say,
"Product A has the following features:
- It can slice and dice the vegetables in 2000 different variations
- It costs $1,999 and comes with a three-year warranty
- It is manufactured in Osaka, Japan
- It is of good quality"

You can just have one slide with the product and use buzzwords such as:
"Product A.
Flexible...
Reliable...
Quality by Japan... " and use pictures or graphics to emphasise such qualities instead of spelling it out verbatim in the powerpoint slide.

Video clip
This is not so commonly used but will start to become more prevalent in the edge of Youtube and dailymotion. The use of video clips requires you to be very selective since the average time allocated for a speech is five to seven minutes. Hence, you clip should ideally be not more than 1-2 minutes or else it will appear that your speech is just a distraction for the main event, the video clip! Knowing which part of the clip you want to show and setting it up is critical. You also need to work the clip in explaining the context of that clip to the overall video as well as to your speech.

Flips charts
Another oldie but a goodie. Prior to LCD projectors and notebook computers, presenters made use of flip charts to write down ther points and diagrams as a visual aid for their speeches. This is still a useful aid as most meeting rooms and seminar venues do provide this item. However, the downside of flip charts is its small size. Hence, it is suitable for small groups of <20 style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">White boards
Easily available at most venues and its size can vary depending on what model is available at the speaking venue. The downside of white boards is that they are relatively static and you would not be able to flip the chart or to add new material to the board unless you were drawing onto the existing graphics or words or you erased the earlier material. Good for on the spot drawing of drawings and diagrams and if audience participation is required. However, its limitation is its static nature.

Props
This is one of the most challenging visual aids to use in a presentation. If you use it too early, it will spoil the element of surprise. If you keep it covered, then the mystery and suspense sometimes overshadows what you want to say. Props are useful if well integrated into your presentation. For example, if you wanted to demonstrate how to use a foil (a type of sword used in fencing), then it would be useful to have the foil ready to demonstrate the fencing stance. Also, too many props make it somewhat distracting and would make it challenging for the audience to focus their attention on you. :-)

Suggestions on using visual aids
The use of visual aids really depends on your message and topic. Abstract concepts are more easily explained using handouts to provide the background and the powerpoints used should contain more analogies and examples to help the audience understand. If an emotional speech is required, props may be useful as it could be used to evoke nostalgia, sentimentality and shared experiences e.g. an old photo, a momento etc. Use more than one visual aid if appropriate. Powerpoint by itself tends to become a robotic slide by slide torture of the audience because speakers tend to follow the powerpoint script and read the bullet points to the audience. This is one of the most heinous punishments you can inflict upon your audience! I know because I have done this to people before I became an experienced toastmaster and so have they done it to me as well! ;-)

Experiment and try out different techniques as there are many ways in which visual aids can be used. Come down and practice at a toastmasters meeting and may your visual aids add impact to your speech immediately!

A Speech Too Far: How to Bridge the Connection with Your Audience

2007-06-17T07:09:00.001-07:00

poster1960291
Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

My five years or so in the toastmasters movement has seen me prepare, deliver and evaluation hundreds of speeches. I have prepared and delivered at least ten speeches from the basic communication and leadership manual as well as ten speeches from the Inter-personal Communication advanced manual (5) as well as the Entertaining Speaker advanced manual (5). These efforts have yielded me a Competent Toastmaster (CTM) award as well as Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) award. I have completed five speeches from the Story Telling advanced manual and have just finished the second speech from the Speak to Inform advanced manual. In terms of formal speeches, that makes it a cumulative total of twenty-seven (27).

So many speeches so little time
These twenty-seven speeches excludes table-topics, speeches done for humourous speech and international speech contests. If I include those speeches, then it would be closer to thirty-seven speeches. What has preparing and delivering all these speeches done for me? It has allowed me to understand what it takes to move people. Not physically, but metaphorically, i.e. how to touch them emotionally and logically and sometimes both in the same speech! This is because one of the key secrets that public speaking in toastmasters has taught me is this:

YOU MUST CONNECT WITH THE AUDIENCE TO DELIVER AN EFFECTIVE SPEECH!

Speak with your audience in mind
It is easy to write and deliver a speech without thinking about your audience. It is easy to write a speech that only concerns what you want talk, discuss and air. Why should the audience be in part of my speech? Who are they to me??? Before I joined toastmasters and delivered my thirty-seven speeches to live audiences, I would have thought that I just had to make sure the audience could hear me and that was half the battle won. How wrong was I! It is so easy to drone on and on and think or pretend that the audience is interested. It is difficult to speak and bring value into other people's lives simply by crafting your speech with your audience in mind. Why should they listen to you? Why should they invest the five to seven minutes listening to you when they could be listening to their own thoughts, day-dreams and worries while sitting there in front of you? As speakers and as toastmasters, we must always ask ourselves, what value do we bring into their lives?

The greatest human need is to be listened to
All of us want to be listened to. Nobody likes to lecture an audience. Nobody likes to talk to a wall. Nobody wants to be ignored. In order for the audience to want to listen attentively and feel that they have gained something from our speech, we must value their time and impart something useful to them. Human beings are different and yet human beings are the same. We have similar motivations, dreams and nightmares. We all want to be healthy and happy. We want to be safe, to have family and friends around us, to feel that there is hope for the future. We want to learn, to grow and to share. There is much in common we can use that allows us to connect with the audience. Let me share a few examples:

Use the "We" and "you" word
Using the "we" word can work miracles. I learnt from Craig Valentine, the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking, and he encourages us to connect to the audience by using "you". Instead of saying, "one should consider this", we can say, "You should consider this".

Put yourself to the same level as the audience
In your speech, make reference to a mistake, error or blooper that you made to connect with the audience. No-one likes a self-satisfied smug speaker and neither does your audience. One of the experienced toastmasters I know likes to make jokes about his own lack of hair. Go ahead, include a self-deprecating statement or point as this will help relax the audience and allow you to endear yourself to them when you speak to them.

Ask the audience questions
This is a favourite technique of mine. Asking relevant questions to the audience allows you to get the audience to think and participate in the speech mentally. One of the key rookie mistakes I used to make when I used this technique was forgetting to pause! Remember to pause after the question, at least for 1 to 2 seconds. You let your audience have time to digest the question and start thinking about it.

Use eye contact to establish rapport
Your eyes are the windows to your soul! If you want to get a sense of how your audience is responding to your speech you must look at them. Look, not stare! ;-) Glance for 1 second, move on to another person and so on. In an audience of 30 to 300, you cannot physically look at everyone but you can glance at one spot, move on to another spot and so on. This allows you to give attention to different parts of the room and for the audience to know you are interested in them, how they are feeling and if they are getting your message.

Bridge the gap: Consider Toastmasters
These tips are useless to you unless you practice them! And what way to better practice them than to join a toastmasters club! If you are interested to find out more about the tips I have shared above, come visit my club or any toastmasters club in Singapore and all over the world. Who knows? You may be the next world champion of public speaking!

Be well and prosper through public speaking!

The Art of Public Speaking and Confident Living by Patrick Chang

2007-06-14T09:10:00.001-07:00

Just got home from an exciting and meaningful workshop conducted by the experienced Advanced Toastmaster Bronze, Advanced Leader, Mr Patrick Chang who shared some insights on how we can become better public speakers and confident leaders.

I enjoyed the session tremendously as we had a great time listening, laughing and losing ourselves in Patrick's stories, anecdotes and quotations that encouraged us to take advantage of toastmasters to prepare, practice and present our speeches so that we can improve and become better speakers!

One key takeaway from his session was that it was more blessed to give than to receive. In giving generously, we reap the benefits in so many other different ways. When we teach in learn!

Patrick ended the session with a parting note... For us to leverage on the power of mentoring to share, learn and grow together. A meaningful and valueful workshop by a very fluent speaker!

Project 8: Visual Aids - How to use a lifeline

2007-06-14T01:19:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

I was at the Punggol Rivervale Toastmasters club yesterday evening and was struck by Handi's (picture on the right) use of visual aids for his Project 8. I was his evaluator and I specifically praised him for his innovative use of a long piece of paper marked in intervals of five years to depict literally the length of time in years that an average person lives.

Handi used that prop very appropriately to demonstrate how life is short and what takes up major chunks of our life. It was related to speech titled "Life is short, seize it!"

I asked him after the meeting if he had thought up of this technique himself and he told me that he read it up on the internet. It was still an effective way of illustrating how our lives can be measured in terms of the length of time and use the paper to show how bits of it is used for growing up, growing old and the remainder is our productive time.

What then do we do with the bit in the middle?

How thought-provoking!

I learn something new at each toastmasters meeting! Wouldn't you want to learn something new too?

Punggol Rivervale Toastmasters Club Meeting on 13 June 2007 @ Hougang

2007-06-13T10:30:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

The north-eastern part of Singapore saw the meeting of the Punggol Rivervale Toastmasters Club where speakers did project 8 visual aids covering topics relating to "Difficult digital video recording" to "Life is short, seize the day" as well as project 9 persuasive speaking. An advanced project 2 from the speak to inform manual (resources for informing) was also delivered.

Table-topics included:

You are what you think you are (used in District 80 contest 2007)
The pen is mightier than the sword (used in Division B contest 2007)
Less is more (used in Area B2 contest 2007)

The group was small but the spirit was strong as toastmasters from the club gamely moved one step closer to achieving their Competent Communicator awards. Thanks goes to Dex Yuen from Braddell Heights Toastmasters Club as well as Kampong Glam toastmasters club for gracing the occasion as a project evaluator. It was an enjoyable meeting filled with fun, fellowship and freedom to learn, enjoy and grow together in toastmasters!

www.flickr.com

panzergrenadier's Toastmasters - Rivervale Punggol TMC photoset

Singhealth Toastmasters Club Meeting

2007-06-12T09:14:00.001-07:00

I was fortunate to be invited to the Singhealth Toastmasters Club (previously Singhealth Nurses Toastmasters Club) on 12 June 2006 and was rewarded with a 20 minute presentation by Distinguished Toastmaster Mr. Richard Sng, who spoke about "Tips, Tools & Techniques to Presenting Effectively". I look up to Richard as he is a veteran toastmaster and a trainer by profession. He the best language evaluator that I know of in Singapore and I have been a toastmaster for close to 5 years!

Highlights of the meeting
The meeting featured some very good toastmasters. Geok Cheng from NTU Alumni Toastmasters presented a Toast from the Speciality Speeches Advanced Manual amid the basic projects done by the dedicated members of the Singhealth toastmasters club! CL Sau Ying who was suffering from flu still braved her illness to deliver a cogent and succinct evaluation for her fellow club member! Experienced evaluators like Seh Leng and my fellow club member Annabelle also graced the occasion.

Table-Topics
The table-topics covered included quotes from sages, examples included:

Shoes tell a person's personality
Knowledge is power
All man by nature desires knowledge
Great thinking precedes great deeds
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is to be understood
Be vigilant, guard your mind against negative thoughts

Language Evaluator's brief report
The Club Vice-President Education Tamil had invited me to be the language evaluator for this meeting and I thoroughly enjoyed myself with the role. :-) The word of the evening chosen by me was "heart" and I extolled the members to use the word as its literal, figurative and idiomatic meanings. Many of the speakers rose up to the challenge and used the word of the evening liberally but correctly in their speeches.

Most of the members spoke well and I detected more good use of the English language compared to abuses! The President of the Club, Flora was most eloquent in her well-prepared opening address and she has one of the most precise articulation that I can hear in a toastmaster.

I could hear only some minor issues to be corrected, including:

Pronunciation: "conclude" - to pronounce as "kern" instead of "corn"; "drought" - to pronounce as "drout" vs. "draft"
Grammatical issues - plural vs. singular verbs
Use of colloquial terms - the "sh*t" word was used

Good people good meeting
The Singhealth toastmasters club is made up of warm and friendly members who take the commitment to attend club meetings and to deliver their projects to the best of their abilities. I salute their dedication and was glad to have participated in their meeting which featured excellent nasi-lemak dinner with chicken nuggets, otah, fishball, pickled vegetables and sambal chilli! Good food, good toastmaster, a very powerful combination!

Won't you take the step to visit a toastmasters club today?

How to be a language evaluator at a toastmasters meeting

2007-06-10T07:54:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

I realised that there are people searching for language evaluation resources out in the internet and even before I plunged into the language evaluator's role some time ago, I too wanted to find out as much as I could before I took it on. However, there wasn't much to go on and I took the plunge after experiencing some very good language evaluators such as Distinguished Toastmaster Mr. Richard Sng from Brilliant Advanced Toastmasters Club and other evaluators.

Simple Structured Sample of a 10-minute language evaluation
I will share what I typically use in my own language evaluations. It is not the model answer that we in Singapore are so fond of but it has worked for me so far as a structure in which you can comment intelligently about the use of English during a toastmasters meeting.

Greetings: I start my presentation by greeting the president, district officers (if any), fellow toastmasters ladies and gentlemen.
Explain to guests what the role of the language evaluator:

To comment on good use of English

To comment on inappropriate use

To offer suggestions on how we can improve

Good use of english (As a language evaluator, you must be very attentive to capture and classify what you hear into the categories that make sense to the audience)

Vivid use of language e.g. His ego shattered into a million shards of self-consciousness
Metaphors e.g. He hammered the point home by reiterating the key argument.
Similes e.g. As right as rain
Power of three e.g. He took his explanation, hook, line and sinker.
Alliteration e.g. Her assured aura permeated through the entire room.
Rhymes e.g. The rain in spain falls mainly on the plain.

Inappropriate use

Colloquialism e.g. You guys want to hear about this?

Singlish e.g. After he entered the room, he on the light.

Grammar e.g. Last night he goes to the supermarket.

Plural/singular e.g. There are many toastmaster in the room.
Objectionable expressions e.g. filthy rich
Pronunication e.g. tree vs. three

Conclude

I usually try to conclude positively with a tip e.g. use Merriam Webster online as you can hear the pronunciation of words over the internet

To start, you don't have to be good
To be good, you have to start
My good friend Patrick Chang likes to use the phrase above and I'll reproduce it here for the benefit of budding closet language evaluators who think they want to take the plunge. Language evaluation is not for everyone but if you are reasonably fluent in the English language, can speak grammatical sentences 99% of the time and have the confidence to listen well and to be able to comment why the sentence you heard is inappropriate or breaks certain grammar rules or is just not suitable in a formal toastmasters meeting, you might just be the next language evaluator we can tap on!

I do not claim to be an expert in this area as I too am constantly learning from better language evaluators and better speakers. But I learnt that important line from Patrick... You have to start somewhere.

All the best in your language evaluation journey!

How to speak well live well

2007-06-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

Speak well. Live well.

These four words are powerful if you can internalise them. They appear so deceptively simple, but it is the simple things in life that are the most difficult to do well.

Why do I say this?

Communication is part of our humanity
To speak well is to communicate well. Speaking comes naturally to human beings. Most children when they reach the age where they can talk, will start to progress from their babbling to childish bantering to speaking and then to talking, talking and talking (non-stop!) Parents who are reading this and have their children along running and making a lot of noise and talking would wish for their children to stay silent, at least for a little while while daddy or mommy can think for a while in silence. :-)

But speaking is only one part of the human equation. The other part is listening. To speak well and connect to the other party is also to listen well. Speaking is not lecturing. Speaking is not talking down to people. Speaking is not a one-way street. To be able to touch another person's heart, mind and soul, we need to pause after we speak to allow the other person to speak.

Learning the hard way
My spouse and I learnt this the hard way. When we first had our conversations, I was listening for information when I should be listening for empathy, for emotion and for love. When she spoke, she was pouring out her emotions, she didn't want solutions to perceived problems! Ha! The power of active listening, to not only listen to the words and meaning, but to listen to the emotions and sometimes the nuances of the conversation. How do we learn to do this? How do we take baby steps to truly train our ears to hear, to really really hear?

Active listening starts with practice
To be able to listen well, you have to practice. I have learnt from my toastmastering activity to really listen well because I have done many project evaluations. For the benefit of those who do not know toastmastering terms, a "project" is a speech in toastmasters lingo. So what I have done is to listen to many speeches and to give verbal and oral feedback to the speaker in a constructive and positive manner. What happens in a speech evaluation is that the speaker will deliver a 5 to 7 minute speech according to the objectives of the basic communication manual developed by Toastmasters International. The appointed evaluator, will listen to the speech, note down how the speaker has (or has not!) met the project objectives, areas that the speaker has done well, areas where the speaker can improve and other suggestions.

Practice is available at toastmasters
In order for you to give an effective evaluation, you must be able to listen well and listen attentively! This requires you to look out for the speech structure, content, delivery, vocal
variety, body gestures, confidence and whether the speaker has met the project objectives. You then need to write all these down, identify the key points to highlight to the speaker and then deliver an oral (followed by verbal) evaluation as a speech for 2-3 minutes. :-)

My own life has been enriched because toastmasters makes me feel alive and connected to my fellow human being. In our fast paced, frentic and furiously stressful life that is Singapore, take time out to connect so that you can be a better speaker, live a better life.

Listen well. Speak well. Live well.

How to improve your public speaking and communication skills by attending quality programmes by toastmasters

2007-06-07T08:18:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

Have you ever received unsolicted emails, flyers or brochures advertising training courses before?

Receiving training flyers and brochures
I'm sure many of you have received such invitations! Some of them are quality courses, some of them are mediocre but most of them costs considerable amounts of monies.

In my organisation, the fax machine regular spits out unsolicted faxes to attend public communication courses for about $400-$500 a day conducted by overseas trainers. That's the going rate for attending professional courses on how to be a better speaker and communicator.

Open secret about where to get value-for-money training
Here's a open secret I would like to share with you about public speaking and communication training. You can avail yourself to quality training by experienced public speakers (and many are full-time trainers by profession!) for as little as $0.50 per day! For the price of less than a cup of coffee or tea, you can be trained by experienced toastmasters by joining a toastmasters club!

Why join toastmasters
If you ever have a problem:

articulating your ideas to your boss, supervisor or colleague;
explaining something to your spouse, children or family member;
convincing someone of the validity of your ideas, your approach, your method;
standing in front of your customers, clients or business partners;
making a thank-you or acceptance speech at a dinner, a function or a wedding

Join toastmasters!

I can say, sincerely from the bottom of my heart, this is not a marketing gimmick or ruse. I have been a toastmaster for close to 5 years and I have moved from being a Competent Toastmaster to a Competent Leader to a Advanced Communicator Bronze. I have participated in Humourous Speech Contests, Evaluation Contests, International Speech contests. And I have won contests at the Club, the Area, the Division and competed among the best in Asia at the district for the Table-Topics contest.

Toastmasters provides value-for-money training
Toastmasters works and is a value-for-money programme that teaches you:

Fundamentals of public speaking
Overcoming fear of speaking in front of an audience
How to think on your feet and respond to virtually any topic that is thrown at you
The secret to crafting any type of speech
How to capture the audience's attention
And much, much more

So long as you are serious about becoming a better speaking. So long as you are willing to invest at least once a month (if not more often) to attend a club meeting. So long as you are willing to attend so many education workshops on public communication and leadership for as low as $8 for a 2 hour workshop, toastmasters is for you!

Special offer for visitors to fivecentstencents blog
I invite all visitors to my blog to attend the Open Alumni Toastmasters Club's Education Workshop on THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING at a discounted rate. Just quote this code word "fivecentstencents.blogspot.com" and you can bring along a friend to this meeting free-of-charge (buy 1 get 1 free!). To register, email to speaking.life at gmail.com with your name and contact number and we will reserve a seat for you!

Part I: THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Learn the skills and techniques of public speaking to boost your career and life
Learn how to control the butterflies within you to impress, persuade and to inspire

Part II: THE ART OF CONFIDENT LIVING

Learn about skills and techniques of living confidently
Learn about how to expand your life exponentially

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Patrick Chang, currently the Membership Director of Asia Professional Speakers - Singapore, is a public speaking trainer with more than 20 years of training experience. He is the founder of SimplySpeaking, an organisation specialising in public speaking and presentation training. In 1998, Patrick began providing public speaking training and has since trained more than 1000 participants including students, undergraduates, school parent volunteers, teachers, corporate executives, business owners, statutory boards, MNCs, community clubs and toastmasters clubs.

Date: 14 June 2007 (Thursday)
Place: The Corporate Office
(Near Tanjong Pagar MRT and Raffles Place MRT)
Level 9, Great Wall Room
138 Robinson Road
Singapore 068906
Time: 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm
Investment: $8 only (Each paying participant can bring 1 friend for FREE! Just quote fivecentstencents.blogspot.com)
(Light Refreshments will be served)

5 Tips on writing a humourous speech on cue

2007-06-06T19:54:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

The gentlemen on the right-hand side picture is Mr. William Lim. He is a trainer and an author of a book, "Are You with Me" on public communication. He is a very humourous person and loves to pepper his speeches with humour. His smile radiates warmth throughout the room!

In the toastmasters calendar, September and October is the period for speech contests and the upcoming speech contests will be focussed on humourous speeches as well as evaluations.

Writing a humourous speech is challenging
Coming up with a humourous speech is difficult. This is coming from a 5 year veteran of the toastmasters movement. I also use humour in my speech, but more often than not, the humour is not scripted. I happen to have a natural conversational style that lends itself to be perceived as humourous even when that was not my intention. That is the crux of writing and delivering a humourous speech. How to be funny, on cue!

Resources on the internet via google
I googled "How to write a humorous speech" and goggle threw up the following article by Steve Pavlina. His article shares some techniques about using humour in speaking situations and surprise, surprise, he is also a toastmaster. Imagine that! :-)

From his blog, I managed to find another useful reference online Humour Power. This blog contains useful snippets of information about how we can use humour in presentations. Okay, enough of me telling you what other people wrote. So what is my take on how we can write a humourous speech? To save you time and effort in ploughing through these websites, let me summarise the key pointers they offer for speakers who want to write and then deliver a powerfully humourous speech:

5 tips on writing a humourous speech on cue

1) Play on words / abbreviation
Words have different meanings and this can be exploited for fun. The example given in the Humour Power blog is where the tour guide in a movie "Vegas Vacation" starring Chevy Chase was giving the family a tour of Hoover dam, and he tells them that he is their "dam tour guide" with the wordplay on "dam" vs. "damn". The humour is that it sounds like the tour guide is swearing when he is not. :-)

Closer to home, Patrick made a joke when he introduced me as he said I was a old friend of his, and he went on to say, "I'm the one who is old not him!" which drew lots of laughs from the toastmasters present. :-)

I'd like to add my own variation in that you can play with abbreviations and this works well in Singapore because this is a land that also loves abbreviations. Take this sentence.

"You can take the PIE, exit CTE and connect to the BKE you should be on the right direction."

If you are not a Singaporean resident, you would not understand what it means at all as those abbreviations relate to names of expressways or highways in Singapore. (PIE=Pan Island Expressway, CTE=Central Expressway, BKE=Bukit Timah Expressway)

Last night at the AIA Alexandra Toastmasters meeting, Patrick Chang made a joke about the 3M which stands for the "Medisave, Medishield and Medifund" framework in public health. However, Patrick changed that to "Make More Money" and it was hilarious because we were in a room full of financial planners and other entrepreneurs so most of us caught the joke. :-)))

2) Self-deprecate
William also used the technique of self-deprecation. He was evaluating Clifford Heng's speech from the story telling manual, a folktale, where Clifford told the story of the "Three Little Pigs" albeit with a modern twist. William made a joke about himself being one of the pigs during the course of the session and it was quite funny too.

3) Exaggeration
I used this technique in last year's humourous speech contest where I won at the Area B2 level for my speech on the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT). Some of my club members can still remember that speech! :-) Over there, I exaggerated the movements of the various test stations of this test which is the annual fitness test that all Singaporean reservists have to go through when they are still on reservist status. You can also exaggerate a point. In my speech, I exaggerated the distance one had to run by saying,

"And to top it all off, you need to run not 2.4 cm, not 240 m but 2.4 killllooooometers from here to far far away!"

That elicited some laughs from the audience.

4) Vary your vocal speed
At the District 80 Toastmasters Hong Kong annual convention, the winner of the International Speech Contest Eddie used plenty of humour even though the contest was not a humourous speech contest. At one stage, he varied his speaking pace by speaking fast and that made him sound quite funny because when you speak fast people usually think that's pretty comical.

5) Connect with the audience
The best humour comes by relating and connecting with the audience. Find something topical in the news, inside or around the room of the meeting so that you can use the information about the place and incorporate it into a joke or something humourous that can be weaved into your speech.

Writing and delivering humourous speeches can be challenging, especially for those who are not by nature, humourous. :-) I wish you all the best in your efforts to write and deliver that humour-packed speech!

How to Eat that Frog - Advanced Project Speech Evaluation

2007-06-06T09:30:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

My evaluator on the right gave me a fair evaluation. Overall, I presented my speech pretty much according to the written version in the earlier post. In terms of delivery and confidence, the speech was effective in meeting the objectives. Cher Khim had three recommendations for me.

Recommendations by the project evaluator
Firstly, he suggested that I used a flipchart or used a whyteboard to jot down the 3 steps in overcoming procrastination (or eating your frog!) which were:

Determine your goals and set a plan
Prioritise: use the 80-20 rule or ABCDE method
Motivate yourself into action

This was to help refer the audience to the points articulated in my speech and acts as a visual aid to help memory retention.

Secondly, he suggested a call to action for my conclusion. I had only asked the audience to eat that frog but should have spelt it out clearer to them to go back, make a list of their goals and set about planning their activities to the methods described.

Thirdly, my evaluator also thought the speech would have more impact if I used my own experience in using Brian Tracy's methods in overcoming procrastination to connect to the audience better.

His observations were very useful and I will use them to deliver an even more powerful AP2 - Resources for Informing from the Speak to Inform manual.

A call to action
If you are reading my post and you are curious to find out what toastmasters is about, leave a comment with a contact email/number and I will invite you to visit us as a guest, no obligations.

If you never try, how do you know you'd love it or hate it?

PS
The remarkable lady, Choo Choo below won the best speaker award. Congratulations and kudos. :-)

How to Eat that Frog! >> An Advanced Project 1 (Speak to Inform Manual)

2007-06-05T20:19:00.001-07:00

Today's post will be my speech that I will be delivering at AIA Alexandra Toastmasters Club later this evening (AIA Alexandra TMC meets every 1st Wednesday of the month) Email to patrick at simplyspeaking.org if you wish to visit their club!

I will be delivering a five to seven minute speech to meet the following objectives:

* Select new and useful information for presentation to the audience
* Organise the information for easy understandability and retention
* Present the information in a way that will help motivate the audience to learn

This is my speech:

Title: Eat That Frog!

OPENING

1. How many of you wished you could:
a. Work productively at the office and go home early to your families?
b. Find enough time to revise that school examination, professional certification, that higher degree?
c. Achieve work-life balance?

2. I am going to share with you some interesting insights that I have learnt from reading this book, “Eat That Frog” (21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time) by Brian Tracy

BODY

3. Who is Brian Tracy?
a. One of America’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness.
b. Addresses over 250,000 people each year
c. Best selling author of “Maximum Achievement” and “The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success”

4. Why Eat that Frog?
a. “Frog” refers to the biggest, most important task, the one that you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it now.
b. It is also the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment.

5. How to Eat that Frog?
a. Determine your Goal and set a Plan
i. Determine your goal – if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there
ii. Set your plan to achieve it
• In writing and be clear
• Helps to focus the mind and the will
• SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time)

b. Prioritise: Apply the 80-20 and ABCDE rule
i. 80-20 Rule: Pareto principle
• Named after 19th century Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)
• Oberved that 80% of income in Italy went to 20% of the population
• Common rule of thumb in business; e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients."

ii. Prioritise
• Do what is Important and Urgent
• Do what is important but not urgent
• Leave the rest to sort themselves out
• ABCDE method
• A – something that you must do or face serious consequences
• B – something you should do or face mild consequences
• C – Something that would be nice to do but no consequences
• D – Something you can delegate to someone else
• E – Something you can eliminate and it won’t make a difference in your life

c. Motivate yourself into action
i. Control your thoughts
• We become what we think
o If you think you can do it, you’re right
o If you think you cannot do it, you’re also right!
• Keep thoughts and energy focused forward
o On the things you can do to improve your life
o Let the rest go
• Accept complete responsibility for yourself and for everything that happens to you
o Refuse to criticize or blame other for anything
o Resolve to make progress rather than excuses

CONCLUSION

6. Let’s recap the 3 Step Guide to Eating that Frog!

a. Determine your Goal and set a Plan
b. Prioritise: Apply the 80-20 and ABCDE rule
c. Motivate yourself into action

For those who need coaching tips on public speaking, feel free to leave a comment in my blog.

Toastmasters. Simply Amazing.

How to search for the word of the day for language evaluation

2007-06-04T01:09:00.000-07:00

In a toastmasters meeting, you may encounter this appointment known as the "Language Evaluator" or "Grammarian". The language evaluator is given the task of commenting on the use (and sometimes, abuse!) of the English language during a toastmasters meeting.

The language evaluator also helps to enlarge the vocabulary of the members by introducing what is known as, "Word of the Evening" or "Word of the Day" depending on when the meeting is held.

How do you search and think up of the word of the day as a language evaluator? That was the issue facing me as I prepared to go to the Brilliant Advanced Toastmasters Club to help out as a language evaluator on 4 June 2007 (Monday) at Hong Lim Community Club.

Fortunately, internet resources are plentiful nowadays and I managed to google my way to this website Dictionary.com. The website has a section called "Word of the Day" which offers a word that could be shared during a toastmasters meeting. So I just spend the whole of 30 seconds reading the word, the meaning, the context in which it could be used and printed it out. In a total of 2 minutes (including printing time), I have found the word of the day. :-)

A couple of months ago, I also found out that the Merriam Webster online dictionary was one where they have the pronunciation of the word embedded into the website. Sometimes you find a word that you do not know how to spell, and more critically, you do not know how to pronounce. No need to worry! With Merriam-Website you can listen to how Americans do it. ;-)

Here is the word of the evening that I used for the meeting.

Perfunctory

Learn a new word or phrase every month with toastmasters.

There are many clubs in Singapore, visit one today!

Learn how to speak better by practising at a toastmasters club

2007-06-02T04:24:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

You want to become a better speaker.

You want to be confident, composed and calm in front of an audience.

You want to win friends and influence people.

You want it all.

But what are you willing to sacrifice to achieve your goal to be a better speaker?

Investment in being a toastmaster
Are you willing to:

attend a toastmasters club meeting at least once a month to prepare and deliver a speech?

listen to a more experienced speaker give you coaching tips on how to be better in a constructive manner?

spend one full Saturday at a Achievers day speech program, where speakers take turns to do their project speeches and complete their Competent Communicator, Advanced Communicator awards?

Are you prepared to do what it takes, in a supportive and friendly environment to be the best speaker that you can be?

Toastmasters presents many opportunities to practice speaking
The amazing thing about toastmasters is that there are many opportunities for you to learn and practice public speaking if you approach it with the appropriate attitude. Division Z organised an Achievers Day where toastmasters who were about to complete their 10th speech project from the basic communication and leadership manual could deliver their projects on a Saturday! We all know how precious our weekends are, with family commitments, time for leisure, relaxation and for us to recharge. But NO! Many toastmasters made their way to Kampong Glam CC Conference Room to achieve their speaking objectives. To be a Competent Communicator or an Advanced Communicator. Their commitment and drive reflects what toastmasters is about:

Learn by doing.

There are no short-cuts to success in any goal we set. It takes willpower, focus and determination as well as hard work for us to become a better speaker and a better leader. I have learnt that to represent Division B in the District 80 Table-Topics Contest in the Toastmasters Annual Convention for District 80 held in Hong Kong, is to visit clubs and participate in as many table-topics as I could get my hands on. And it paid off. For the first time since being a toastmaster for 5 years, I realise I can make it to the District competition.

It has energised me to strive to become better because learning never stops and we only learn by doing.

Are you learning today?

Want to speak to thousands with confidence and calmness?

2007-05-31T22:54:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

Imagine yourself standing in front of 30,000 people in a packed stadium. The atmosphere electrified by the energy and enthusiasm of the crowd, waiting for you to utter that word, phrase and sentence that will change their worlds forever.

Imagine.

I was at a rally where thousands were present on one location. The stadium was packed to the brim, with the audience in the stands and on the open field in front of the stage.

Imagine if you were the speaker, what would you do? What would you say? How would you address the audience numbering in the thousands?

Speaking to 10 vs 10,000
If you ever attended a toastmasters meeting, you will find that your audiences rarely hit the crowds seen in the photograph but it can vary from as small as 7 to as large as 37. A typical toastmasters club comprises 20 members and attendances at meetings can vary. Toastmasters teaches you how to speak in front of the audience, and the more you practice your public speaking skills, the more you realise that speaking to an audience of 10, 100, 1000 or 100000 is not that much different!

The confidence you gain from public speaking is knowing that you are speaking to a group as a collective and not a one-to-one conversation. As such, a one-to-many public speaking approach generally works for crowds no matter the size. Of course, logistically, you would need a good sound system with microphones and speakers to amplify your voice and you would have to modify your body language to what the audience can see but in various crowd sizes a few critical factors will determine if your speech succeeds or fails.

Key elements of a speech
All speeches require these three elements:

Opening
Body
Conclusion

Opening
The opening must be impactful, succinct and direct. This serves to set the tone for the speech and to capture the attention of the audience. Experienced toastmasters typically start a speech giving an interesting fact or a famous saying that gives it that "oomph".

Body
The body of the speech is where the main message should be. For a five to seven minute speech, about three to five main points will suffice. Too much information and the audience will lose concentration and their minds will start to wander. Too little information and one would not have sufficient content to address the topic on hand.

Conclusion
The conclusion is very important because the human brain is primed to remember the first and last thing of an event. Hence, it is critical for good speeches to have an impactful beginning and also a memorable conclusion. This also serves to let the audience know that the message is ending and to leave them with a call to action, an point to remember or just a thought to share with them.

Visit a toastmasters club now
Speaking to 10 or speaking to 10,000 requires public speaking skills. In your own lives, do you find that your lack of communication skills in a group setting hinders your career progression? Do you find not being able to capture the attention of your family members hindering your family relationships?Do you find that you are less than successful in romantic relationships because you are tongue tied and not confident of expressing your feelings in a interesting way?

Consider visiting a toastmasters club. You never know whether it works until you try.

Visit a club today!

Speaking life into others

2007-05-30T07:27:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier

Dale Carnegie once said in his legendary personal effectiveness book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People", that the greatest human need is to be heard.

How true!

I would like to add that since the greatest human need is to be heard, then when we open our mouths to speak, it should be something positive, uplifting and meaningful.

I came to join toastmasters sometime in 2002 when the previous company I had worked for had a toastmasters club. I was curious about toastmasters and public speaking because I was a consultant then and also did do some training as part of my job. I steadily did my basic speech projects starting from Project 1: The Icebreaker and progressed in my speeches. Sometime later, I got busier with work and became less regular in my attendance. Eventually, I managed to complete my 10 speech projects from the basic communication and leadership manual and obtained my Competent Toastmaster (CTM) title. It took me 1 year and 10 months to do so.

The company's toastmaster club later ceased to exist due to lack of management support and lack of members, I was introduced to the Open Alumni Toastmasters Club (then named Alumni Toastmasters Club) and I have been with them since 2004/5 until now.

I have not looked back since encountering toastmasters and now I am a member of the:

Open Alumni Toastmasters Club
NTU Alumni Toastmasters Club
Braddell Heights Mandarin Toastmasters Club
Rivervale Punggol Toastmasters Club

The key reason that I am still an active toastmaster is that it allows me to speak life into others. Public communication is an artful science that allows you to touch people through speaking to them. Communication entails not just giving others a message but also receiving messages back and understanding what the other person is trying to tell you. It allows us to build bonds and to connect with another person as a human being, a friend and a fellow toastmaster.

Each toastmaster session is a learning encounter where I learn about other people's lives, other people's experiences and other people's ups and downs. I share their love, their loss and their triumphs. I realise that the greater the variety of experiences others have gone through, the more common ground we have to connect and touch each other.

Toastmasters emphasise learning in a mutually supportive and condusive environment. Where all strive for common goals of excellence in public communication and leadership. The more I learn how to speak in toastmasters, I also learn how to listen and listen effectively. Not just for the words and language but for the emotions and feelings.

I have now achieved Advanced Communicator Bronze and am a Competent Leader but still am striving for my Advanced Communicator Silver title in the near future.

I encourage all who read this post to pay a visit to a toastmasters club, any club to see for yourself. Love it or hate it, but do not be apathetic to it.

I wish you good speaking and remember to speak life into others when you have the chance.

Language Evaluator at Pan Excellence Advanced Toastmasters Club

2007-05-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

I was invited to be the Language Evaluator at Pan Excellence Toastmasters Club. They meet every last Tuesday of the month at 7.30 pm at Leng Kee Community Club (near Redhill MRT station).

An advanced toastmasters club is similar to a normal club, in that the toastmasters meeting proceedings are the same. However, the prepared speech speakers were all doing their advanced speeches and I managed to listen to Advanced Projects from the Public Relations manual. Many experienced toastmasters were present and I gauge the accumulated public speaking experience of all toastmasters there to be close to at least 50 years ;-)

I enjoy being a Language Evaluator because it trains me to listen very carefully to the speaker and figure out quickly why a certain expression, phrase or word does not sound right, is ungrammatical or gets garbled by the speaker when he or she presents his speech.

You may think that you have to be a english teacher to be a language evaluator. However, that is not a necessity. English teachers would be more conversant with the technical terms referring to the errors but anyone who is an experienced toastmaster (i.e. at least achieved Competent Communicator and preferably at least an Advanced Communicator) who has a decent grasp of the english language can perform the role. I used to study literature during my 'A' levels but most of what I studied for practical criticism I have left at the exam hall. ;-)

It's more important to concentrate on listening for areas where people still make fundamental mistakes in pronunication, grammar and expressions. Being a language evaluator (or grammarian as the US Toastmasters preferred term) allows you to listen out for delightful, expressive and powerful words and phrases that tickle our ears and soothe our minds.

My own forays into language evaluation was inspired by a very experienced toastmaster, DTM Richard Sng who is one of the most professional and learned toastmaster that I have ever known in Singapore.

Simply amazing.

Would you want to take up the challenge of being a language evaluator?

Try it, as practice makes you a better toastmaster.

How to Keep Your Audiences on the Edge o Their Seats! (Toastmasters

2007-05-27T04:51:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by lunatic_fringe

One of the most valuable parts of the recent District 80 Toastmasters Annual Convention held in Hong Kong from 18 to 20 May 2007 was Craig Valentine's Keynote address plus his seminar on "How to Keep your Audiences on the Edge of Their Seats".

Despite being the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking, Craig sought out Patricia Fripp, one of the top speaking coaches in the USA, and got coaching from her on his presentation skills even after he was crowned World Champion.

Simply amazing.

There I was, sitting amid 500 participants made up of toastmasters from Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand and from neighbouring Asean countries. In the comfortable grey seats of the Hong Kong Convention Centre, listening attentively to Craig Valentine, arguably one of the best speakers I have ever heard in my life.

Craig's 3 step method how to keep our audiences on the edge of their seats comprises of the following:

Breathe Life into your Speech
Bring your Audience to You
Build a Message that Sticks

It sounds easy but that's what the professionals do well, simple things but he does it inordinately well!

1) Breathe Life into your Speech
The steps here are nothing magical but it works. First, tell a story and make a point. It's as simple as that but yet it's not that simple?

Sounds paradoxical?

When we tell the story we also need to paint the scene in the mind's eye of the audience. People remember what they saw in their mind. It's not what they see visually through their eyes but what is described to them in vivid detail in their mind's eye. For example, the scene, the sounds, the taste, the texture and feelings all come into play. Make it come alive for the audience.

2) Bring your Audience to You
Many speeches fail to connect with the audiences because the speech is about I, me, myself, the speaker. The audience is selfish, they want to know, "What's in it for me?" To answer that, Craig shared how we can:

tap and transport
search for similarities
show our failures and flaws

3) Build a Message that Sticks
The way we can do this is to be as specific as we can in painting the scene in our audience's mind. The use of foundational phrases also help because it summarises in a apt phrase the point the speaker wants to make. E.g. What got you here can't get you there was used by Craig to illustrate how we all can improve beyond our current level. Our past achievements have gotten us so far, but to move even further up we need to have more commitment, more drive and more willpower to do it.

It's not the same for you to read what I told you compared to the actual experience listening to Craig Valentine up-close and personal. He is a very tall gentlemen as you can see from this picture and has a great sense of humour. He uses his body language very effectively because no gesture is wasted, and it is all scripted yet it flow so naturally during his speech. Indeed, when you see a World Champion in action, the quality and ability shines through.

This was my first toastmasters annual convention but it won't be my last. I want to attend more conventions in the future, because if I want to be the best, I have to learn from the best!

So won't you join me and go for the next convention?

Imagination is the Best Nation!

2007-05-26T04:18:00.000-07:00

Craig Valentine, the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking, mentioned that a homeless lady that he knew would ask him this question,

"Sonny, do you know what is the best nation?"

Craig told her that he did not know...

She replied, "Imagination is the best nation!" :-)

It sounds a bit corny but it's true! Craig Valentine related this story in his presentation during the Toastmasters District 80 Annual Convention in Hong Kong held from 18 to 20 May 2007. It was truly memorable, inspiring and humourous.

Imagination is the best nation.

Think about it, most self-help motivational books and even toastmasters emphasise the importance of goal setting and the ability to work towards our dreams, one project at a time. In toastmasters, we embark on a journey of communication and leadership through doing it with commitment, discipline and imagination!

How would we craft our speeches without imagination?

How would be deliver a project speech without infusing in it ideas and thoughts generated through our imaginations? Truly, your mind and your ability to think, make and create ideas is the key to being a better speaker and leader. Napolean Hill said in his book, "Think and Grow Rich",

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

To be the best, we need to learn from the best. And the best make use of the power of their imagination, to create a future reality that is full of goals, achievements and dreams that compel us to follow because the best nation that we can be in is our

IMAGINATION.

Use your imagination today and follow-up with action and execution.

Remember, Imagination IS the best nation.

Back to you toastmaster of the day!

Kampong Glam Community Club Toastmasters Club Meeting

2007-05-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

I was helping out as a Project 10 Inspire Your Audience Evaluator at Kampong Glam Community Club Toastmasters Club where they celebrated their 20th Member today!

I learnt some interesting information from the meeting, for example:

Did you know that:

NEWS stands for North, South, East and West?
Project 1 "The Icebreaker" can be done based on a structure of information in a job application form?
The word "fancy" can be used as a verb, noun and adjective:

Noun: He had happy fancies.
Verb: I fancy it's going to rain.
Adjective: He wore fancy clothes and shoes to the party.

It was a good meeting because the table-topics done by Grace was based on a set of self-care cards (i.e. inspirational cards) that covered courage, independence, trust, connection.

One of the key reasons that I have been actively involved in toastmasters is that I never fail to learn something new from each meeting. The new fact, information or perspective adds that little bit more to the reservoir of experience which I store in my mind, with a review to pour that experience back into others lives for the better.

The theme for the toastmasters annual convention in Hong Kong in May 2007 was, "To be the Best, Learn from the Best". That is something I realise I accumulate each time I visit a toastmasters club.

Toastmasters, simply amazing. Consider joining one today!

Toastmasters Annual Convention - Hong Kong Part 2

2007-05-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

www.flickr.com

lunatic_fringe's Toastmasters Convention May 2007 HK photoset

Toastmasters Annual Convention Hong Kong - Part 1

2007-05-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

I was at the Toastmasters Annual Convention in Hong Kong from 18 to 20 May 2007 and it was an eye-opening experience filled with excitement and energy! Toastmasters are one of the more vocal groups to have fill a convention hall and this was no exception. Enthusiastic applause, responses from the audience and laughter are the hallmarks of this event. There was travel, toastmastering and table-topics that brought me to Hong Kong.

Travel
As amazing as it might sound, it was my first trip to Hong Kong. I have seen Hong Kong through various TVB dramas, films and from my relatives' experiences but it was my very first trip to see, touch and taste Hong Kong for myself. The main thing that hit me is the mass of humanity that is Hong Kong. There I was, waiting for my friend at Mong Kok MTR Station and the crowds and crowds of people filing past me through the MTR turnstiles was tremendous on a Friday evening. Men and women, young and old, trendy and dull were all moving to the hypnotic beat that is uniquely Hong Kong. You could feel the energy of the place.

Mong Kong was a shopping area and even at 11pm, you could see people in all directions in the crowded streets. Before I visited Hong Kong, I thought that it would be a chaotic place. Contrary to my preconceived notions, Hong Kong was an organised place. The systems and processes that kept Hong Kong running worked smoothly.

Another thing that struck me about Hong Kong was its service DNA. Service staff over there are much better than those in Singapore. Even the convenience store cashiers/clerks greeted you and interacted with you in a relatively friendly way even when I was buying a HKD 5.00 (SGD 1.00) mineral water. Simply amazing. ;-)

While the hotel room was small, it was reasonably comfortably and well served by the excellent MTR system. Hong Kong's MTR trains actually informed you where you were going and which door you needed to exit. I am convinced that the MTR beats SMRT hands-down. The integration of their Octopus card with retail merchants e.g. convenience stalls was also much better than our EZLink card.

The frequency of their trains were also better than what we have. We need to learn a lot from Hong Kong in these respects.

Toastmastering
The toastmastering was excellent. The keynote speaker was Mr. Craig Valentine, the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking. He was funny, responsive and made learning the tricks of keeping audiences at the edge of our seats very real with illustrated examples and simple exercises. It was worth the convention ticket just to see Craig in action but there were also the great gala dinners and entertainment arranged by the Hong Kong Convention Committee which did a fantastic job! Kudos and bouquets to them!

There were lion dancers, wu-shu performances, cantonese opera and even western opera singing items. Hong Kongers are very talented!

Table-Topics
The other aspect of the toastmastering was the Table-Topic contest that I participated. While I was not placed among the top 3 among 8 participants. It was a truly humbling and enriching experience that I have a long way to go in my toastmasters journey to seriously compete at that level.

Let me set the scene for you...

The holding room for the contestants were deathly cold at 20 degrees celsius. The tension in the air was palpable as the seven contestants gathered before we were each called for our turn. I had picked number 8 being the last table-topic speaker and could not see how the others performed. I ran in my mind the "model" that I would use to answer the topic--Start with a foundation phrase, address the contest chair and audience and plunge into the topic. As my turn arrived, I walked into the hall, feeling confident, smiling and waited for my name to be called...

"Final contestant, ABC...*applause*... You Are What You Think You Are, You Are What You Think You Are, ABC..."

I walked to the centre of the stage, looked down to collect my thoughts, looked up and was startled by the audience's reaction. I was thrown slightly off balance and out went my "script" as my brain started to work frantically to find things to say about this topic.

My initial reaction was to say that this sounds like Napolean Hill's "Whatever the Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve!" It would have been a great foundation phrase... IF I had the confidence to say it out... But I panicked and was not confident that I could pull off the quote. And so started my presentation by asking the audience what they thought (which I later found out had already been done) and then pieceing together bits and bytes from the hard-drive in my brain... I touched on the need for self-examination, to know what we are, what was inside of us... It was a bit meandering and did not really address the topic well in my own post-mortem analysis. I didn't exactly choke and was at a loss for words but I thought my words did not have the substance and conviction to move the audience.

Green light, amber light....and finally red light. I wrapped up and concluded, "Back to you Mr. Contest Chair..."

Walking down, I smiled but inside me I was deflated because I felt I had not done my best... And I knew I had no chance of placing in the top 3 for the contest.

When the results were announced, reality caught up and I was doing a critical silent self-examination of my own performance.

All-in-all, I think I was reasonably smooth in delivery but lacked the conviction because I could not pull out and synthesis the main key idea relating to the topic into a cogent and coherent form to the audience. Since I didn't believe in what I was saying, it was pretty difficult to convince the audience of that as well. Now, as I am writing out my experiences, I am very touched by two members of the audience who met me outside the hall as I was returning from the restroom who shook my hand and told me I did a nice speech. As Richard Sng mentioned in his speech, "Its All Right" as I think back of those two Hong Kong ladies who affirmed me even as I felt down after what I thought was not a good performance, they were kind enough give me the encouraging words that I will remember.

More posts to follow as I rack my brain from the best of the convention.

Stay tuned!

Toastmasters Annual Convention in Hong Kong

2007-05-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

Just came back from my first annual Toastmasters Convention that was held in Hong Kong.

3 words.

Energised.

Inspired.

Challenged.

More thoughts on the way... Stay tuned!

The Art of Impromptu Speaking: 5 Years of Training

2007-05-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

I have been a toastmaster for five years now. It is through the participation of table-topics as well as the opportunities to speak, speak and speak that has allowed me the opportunity to represent Division B in the table-topics contest to be held in Hong Kong on 20 May 2007.

Public speaking did not come to me naturally. When I was young, I was not particularly extroverted. Making friends was not something I went out of my way to do and hence my circle of friends was small but adequate. I was never the life of the party (not that I went to that many parties in my younger days!) During my university days in the Nanyang Technological University, there were class presentations on tutorials but these were nothing of the impromptu speaking which is an art by itself.

In the second company that I worked for, I even did some training as part of my job. That helped me to be more confident of speaking to people but it was only when I joined toastmasters that the real learning of the art of impromptu speaking started.

So how did I manage to represent Division B at the table-topics contest? And what is impromptu speaking some of you may be thinking?

Table-topics is a segment in most toastmasters meetings as an exercise in speaking off-the-cuff. In life, we are met with situations where we need to comment about something and sometimes we may not know all that much about it. Table-topic teaches you to take a topic, other than sex/religion/politics, and address it in a way that makes some sense. It is a mini-speech in itself where the speaker has to speak for at least 1 minute and at most 2 minutes 30 seconds. The challenge of table-topics is that you do not know what the topic will be.

Think of sitting for an exam where you do not even know the subject!

I learnt from 5 years of taking part in table-topics that what you say is important. But how you say it is also important. My own formula for handling table-topics is this:

Breathe. :-) and Smile
Listen to the topic, clarify if the table-topic master/emcee has not pronounced the word/prhase clearly
Spend about 10 seconds brainstorming ideas linked to the topic and organise them in some structure
Start with something impactful (if you can) or just plunge into the topic
Make use of rhetorical devices and word play and make 3-4 points about the topic
Take note of time and start to conclude when the amber (1 min 30 seconds) light is flashed
Conclude, if possible, link it to the opening.
Hand over time to table-topic master/emcee

It's not a perfect formula but works for me. The approach looks very structured and sequential but in reality my brain is firing off neurons and shooting off in different directions. It takes conscious effort to organise the thoughts and sieving out what is relevant and what is not.

Wish me luck for the upcoming contest and I will update this blog on how I fared. ;-)

Practice Makes Better: Learning from Taking Up Appointments in Toastmasters

2007-05-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

DTM Mr. John Sih likes to use this saying,"Practice makes better!"

This saying rings true whenever I take up appointments at Toastmasters meetings. :-)

I was helping out at Rivervale Toastmasters Club yesterday evening at Hougang CC along Hougang Avenue 3 and found that the visiting toastmaster that I wanted to ask to help me out as the Toastmaster of the Evening (or Master of Ceremony) was not available. Hence, I had to step in that role and made a slight mess of it as I did not do sufficient preparation.

Some rookie mistakes even for an Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB), Competent Leader (CL) were:

Not getting reflecting correct toastmasters designations in time for the program
Mixing up visiting toastmasters clubs up
Not having the contact numbers of the appointment holders
Arriving slightly late

I freely admit these mistakes because I was somewhat over-confident. Being the Vice-President (Education) for another club, I took it that I could breeze my way through this role which I had done last month. Unfortunately, it was not to be and I learned a valuable lesson to be humble and to continue to be well prepared even for roles that I had previously done without any problem.

I should learn from the book that I am reading "Eat that Frog!" by Brian Tracy. This work of non-fiction provides "21 Great Way to Stop Procrastination and get More Done in Less Time." Just what I need, to learn about prioritising. I am not sure is it me or do I find myself relearning the lessons of personal effectiveness workshops and seminars over and over again. One needs regular refresher lessons now and then to rewire our brains to the new thought patterns and more importantly, habits that will change our destiny!

So do not despair sometimes if you, like myself, fluff up somewhat the appointment that you take up during a toastmasters meeting. Each role is for us to learn something by doing, and this is one of the key features of toastmasters that I believe in. Learning by doing.

Are you doing something about your own development as a speaker?

You decide.

Making Conversation

2007-05-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

I am by nature a introverted person. That may seem not to be the case for those fellow toastmasters who know me but deep down inside my natural self, I prefer to company of myself. To think tranquil thoughts of introspection. To day-dream and to reflect.

That changed bit by bit as I started working and especially when I started toastmastering. Working life has a way to make ourselves professional extroverts because most introverts find it challenging to climb the corporate ladder by hunkering down and working hard without management and the bosses knowing about it.

When I started serious toastmastering and especially when I went through the Advanced Project Manual, "Inter-personal Communications", that really opened up my conversational skills and made me slightly more comfortable with strangers and new acquaintances.

The "Inter-personal Communication" project on small talk was very useful when one learns the art of making small-talk. It may sound easy, to strike up a conversation with strangers requires initiative to start the conversation and an openness to listen to people.

A typical approach can be:

Smile
Introduce yourself
Talk about general to specific (e.g. weather, why the person is at the location/event/place)
Ask questions based on information revealed by the person
Connect with common ground/topics
Go with the flow

It sounds easy but can be challenging because when we do not know the other party, we tend to worry about what we say? Will we say something stupid, inappropriate and offensive? Will there be an awkward silence as we run out of things to say? Will I commit a faux-pas during the conversation?

It's natural to have such negative thoughts as we all have fears and insecurities to a lesser or greater degree. Practice helps us overcome these insecurities. Some people might wonder, really, is it that simple? The answer is, "YES" but with practice!

Joining a toastmasters club helps as one gets to make small talk with club members, guests and appointment holders from other clubs before the meeting starts, during the break and sometimes during the drinks/supper after the meeting.

So do not hesitate, for those who want to pick up the art of the converstation, drop by a toastmasters club now!