Below is another Toastmasters speech I gave – just last night, actually! It was inspired by a book I read recently, called The Radium Girls; The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, by Kate Moore. I’d known of the Radium Girls before, but I’d always been curious to know more. Her book is a very […]
Read More The Radium GirlsMy next toastmaster speech project is supposed to be a “touching speech,” It’s practicing how to convey emotion through storytelling. Instead of just saying “Billy felt sad because he wasn’t invited to Joey’s birthday party”, you’d tell the story of Billy watching his friends pass by on their way to Joey’s party and wondering why […]
Read More Touchy FeetIt’s been a while since I’ve shared a Toastmaster speech. Last night I gave speech #3 from the Advanced Communicator Series – Storytelling. The project was to tell a story with a moral. The examples they gave were The Tortoise and the Hare and another one about mice and a cat. I struggled to think […]
Read More A Tale of Two SquirrelsLast night I gave my 10th and final speech in the Toastmaster Competent Communicator book. It was an inspirational speech and had to be between 8-10 minutes long. I really struggled with this one. I think I felt intimidated by the idea of speaking for 8 minutes straight without notes. The previous speeches were all […]
Read More Toastmaster Speech #10 – Go Play OutsideThis is the text of the minimalism speech I gave at a Toastmasters meeting in April. I got a lot of good feedback, mostly of people who agreed that they wanted to part with a lot of their crap. A couple of guys insisted that as Connecticut Yankees, they could not part with their stuff […]
Read More Toastmaster Speech – Minimalism – Paring Down to Get More Out of LifeI’m not one to wish the days away, but going back to a full work week after two nice, long holiday weekends is rough. Last night I gave my 6th Toastmaster speech. I might be starting to get the hang of it. I spent a ton of time preparing a PowerPoint presentation to accompany my speech, […]
Read More It’s Only TuesdayLast night I gave my fourth speech at Toastmasters. As usual, I waited until the last possible moment to write the speech (guess how I spent my 4th of July?) I was editing it up until an hour before I had to go live. I even had to use my notes because I was afraid I […]
Read More Toastmaster Speech #4I participate in my local Toastmaster’s club. Toastmasters is an international organization that helps people develop speaking and leadership skills. Here is the latest speech I gave, shortly after I bought my new car. Recently, I bought a new car and while this is a good thing, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad in saying […]
Read More Tribute to the CavalierI mentioned a couple of whiles ago that I was going to join Toastmasters again. I’ve been going for about two months now and last Monday I did my first speech, which is known as The Ice Breaker. The objective of the speech is to introduce yourself to your audience and demonstrate what speaking skills […]
Read More Toastmasters Ice Breaker SpeechOn Friday, I sat down with my boss to discuss how things have been going since I transferred into her department earlier this year. We talked for 2 hours, and probably could have gone on longer if it hadn’t been 5:30 on a Friday afternoon. I won’t detail the whole conversation, but there were two things […]
Read More You’re Beautiful, It’s True.
Uncommon Heather 