Here Tanya shares some of her earlier speeches (since April 2006), as a guideline of her personal interpretations of the different Competent Communicator manual objectives. Each speech objective is different. A Toastmaster receives two manuals from which they learn the tried and tested methods and practice them in front of like-minded supportive fellow members. Everyone goes at their own pace, finding their own unique path. They give each other evaluations, written and verbal, which help everyone to constantly learn and improve their own styles. The various roles, undertaken in each weekly meeting, help members develop well-rounded duties for work or when promoting themselves in business as well as in special interest activities.
The volunteer organization thrives on sincerely supporting one another, being helpful and informative. People who laugh and learn together, forge strong bonds and learn to pay forward what they have gleaned.
Jolly Good Luck, fellow and future Toastmasters!
Tanya's First Speech: (The Ice Breaker)
THE DATE I WILL NEVER FORGET (6 May 06)
My name is Tanya Freedman and I'm a recovering Talk-a-holic!
Madam Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters and welcome guests?.
In my 19th year, I went on a double date - my very first date - and it changed my life's direction forever.
Maybe with you, it may have been a date, a chance meeting, an interview, or even a glance across a crowded room. Well, here's what happened to me to make me vow to break out of my prison, out of my shell once and for all.
In my teens I was the quietest wallflower you'd ever meet. I'm sure my passion on spending all my free hours reading and writing romantic fiction has much to do with that.
When my English Lit teacher gently encouraged me to go out and live a little, I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and accept my very first date.
Barry, a handsome guy who had no idea what he was getting into, took me out to an Italian restaurant, with his best friend and his very trendy girl-friend. The 17 year-old was like a cross between a mini Marilyn Monroe and Sarah Jessica Parker. Animatedly she told us all about her sophisticated real estate job, her parents, her holidays, and she may have started talking about her love life. But by then I was mesmerized by her lips moving so eloquently and so fast.
As I stumbled over my "hmms" and "errs" visions of my dowdy mute spinsterhood flashed before me, and by this time I couldn't even muster up the courage to order my own meal. The lasagna must have been delicious, but I don't remember anything other than my promises pingponging inside my head. This was going to be my first and last date I would ever be silent in.
I was so humiliated with my awakened revelation poor Barry never knew what he'd done wrong for me to refuse to see him again.
So being an all-or-nothing type of girl, the painful shyness and calm was replaced by the pendulum swinging too far the other way. Now I couldn't keep my opinions to myself.
It took me years to realize that whenever anyone asked me at work, "how are you?" they didn't expect me to divulge anything personal about myself. They just wanted to hear the innocuous, "Fine thanks," as we walked past each other.
I got into a lot of trouble, even losing good friends because of my talkativeness. Instead of showing my caring, I came across as overbearing and opinionated. Who? Me?
It's not at all English or Canadian to be so outspoken. Very few people feel comfortable with my brand of candor. And so I've worked very hard - and still am - at getting balance between frankness and discretion. So that people don't start avoiding me. Cher, Jackie Collins, Oprah, they can get away with such honesty, but me, well.... I'm just not that famous - yet!
I get many compliments on my English accent, people often anticipate more intelligence from me than I give myself credit for. But to avoid disappointing them, I'd rather develop my sense of humor, and entertaining skills.
Oh, and listening skills! I have to learn to listen more, as most people are very kind and don't interrupt me when I go off on one of my passionate exposés! Canadians are so polite!
I've often mistaken my husband's silence for attentiveness. He's British, so you can imagine how quiet HE is! I used to rave about his listening skills, until he finally confessed that he's often mesmerized by the speed of my moving lips.
"I marvel at the potential perpetual motion machine that is your mouth." He said. And I wrote it down, because I didn't think you'd believe me.
I'm bringing up my daughter to express her feelings and share her opinions, too. In fact, when she heard me draft this speech she said, "Daddy's got a bigger part than me, that's not fair!"
Even as a baby, my daughter was similar to her Daddy. She can be very focused and budda-calm.
When Natalia was eight someone commented on how mature she was to use sentences starting with, "I'm not comfortable with...."
Now, she's the ripe age of 10 and when I'm off lecturing to her and say something like, "Dare to be different, Natalia, dare to be unique."
She calmly replies "Dare to be quiet, Mummy." Am I teaching her too much honesty? Or is this talk-a-holic retribution? I'll let you decide!
Don't get me wrong, I don't see my talkativeness as a totally derogatory trait. I just wish to lasso my loquaciousness and channel my gift of the gab, honing them to enhance my burgeoning writing career.
I look forward to contributing to the energy of our group, as with your honest feedback and support, I know together, with perseverance and tenacity, we can harness and bring out the best in each of our own individual aspirations and goals.
And finally, now that you know me a little better, I'll finish in the words of another Brit, the take-no-prisonors comedian, Graham Norton, who says, "That's enough about me, what do you think about me?"
Madame Toastmaster
...
Tanya's Speech Two:
DIFFERENT HATS FOR DIFFERENT THOUGHTS
6 THINKING HATS FOR CREATING A SPEECH – by Tanya Freedman (inspired by Edward De Bono's book)
- Updated and changed for audience in Youth Leadership Program on 28 March 2007
I’d like to share with you this trick that may make your speech writing easier, if not more fun to create, and deliver. How do you react when faced with a problem that needs solving? Or approaching anything new, like writing a speech? Edward de Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” principals have helped me in many cases, by helping me break down the various actions and aspects of what I want to achieve. So to create a speech, for example, lets get an overview of the six different hats and what they stand for. Each of these people with different hats represent these attributes: BLUE Thinking Hat: all about the plan - the thinking through; the PROCESS, reviewing the facts and the sequence of hats to use in a particular situation: WHITE Thinking Hat: – Neutral; data, facts & figures RED Thinking Hat:– Emotions: How do we feel about the issue? Fear, Frustration, Excitement, Challenge? BLACK Thinking Hat: - Negative, doom and gloom; why something’s not going to work. YELLOW Thinking Hat: - optimistic Pollyanna, always finds the silver lining in any situation. GREEN Thinking Hat: - Brainstorming - Creative problem solving. Thinking out of the planet, not just the box. Now lets use the example of actually using these hats to show how we’d go about creating a speech: Challenge: Creating/Writing a speech: I can’t think of any subject to talk about: the BLUE thinking Hat helps me structure and organize my thoughts and plan ahead – what do I love to talk about? What are my passions, my interests? WHITE Thinking Hat: Looking at the plain facts: I love music, fashion, games, TV, movies. Putting on RED Thinking Hat: - I gauge how I’m feeling about these subjects, and actually talking about them? Worried, scared to embarrass myself? Then the BLACKThinking Hat: My pessimistic side says: Everyone will laugh at me, they’ll be bored, they won’t like my speech, or me - (all doom and gloom,) despite all my hard work. But with YELLOW Thinking Hat: I say to myself: I can do this! Lets go forward POSITIVELY. And How? With my GREEN Thinking Hat: start to Creatively Brainstorm
-Think about all the different ideas and topics and the freedom I have
-Make a mind map, or just outline short notes to get ideas you can build on? eg. I love art, or my music station, or a music instrument because I can really express myself. -What else comes to mind? Continue brainstorming... Now I put on the RED thinking Hat AGAIN: I gauge how I’m feeling about these new ideas, this new approach. Scared? Uncertain? Hopeful? Excited? Confident?
Finally with the BLUE Thinking Hat review all the facts so far; Read manuals in your New Member kit; Plan the next course of action to take for best results. Prepare and plan by reading classic books such as Dale Carnegie’s “The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking. Listen to the speeches at your Toastmasters meetings, evaluate them for your own learning curve. How do you feel when you hear their speeches? What are you learning from everyone? What would you do differently or in your own unique way? Ask for - and take on board - fellow Toastmasters’ feedback on your speeches.
Then go for it and practice. Kick it up a notch.
Think about the audience as your friends who want to hear what you’ve got to say about yourself, your hobbies/interests & opinions. And most importantly, enjoy it, we’re all here to help each other succeed!
Do you believe in the adage that we all have a book in us? Well, today I challenge you that no matter what your background, or what your passions or skills are, I believe we are all writers at heart. How many of you are already published? Letter to a newspaper editor / Toastmasters Magazine / web site/ short/long fiction... How many of you would like to be published? Well, I’d like to share my experiences with you on what steps you can take to being published. All you need is the tenacity & the will to succeed, a pen & paper. I believe we are all writers here. The difference between writing a speech and writing for publication are: - When delivering your speech you take advantage of making eye contact, and your body language and personality help to bring home the message. - When writing for a reading audience your every punchy word has to earn its keep, and to have the desired impact on the reader. Think about our need to express, share, or teach our unique interpretations and pearls of wisdom. Some of us have a greater need than others to be heard or to write, but we all want to connect. Your soul may need the writing outlet to experience and express deeper joy. So how did I start to make my life-long dream come true? A turning point in my fortieth year, after my mother’s cancer diagnosis made me rethink my priorities of putting my business and family over my passion to becoming a fully fledged published author. In the words of Elvis’s song; it was now or never. I had to get over my Scarlet O’Hara desease. Tomorrow isn’t another day – it’s here, today. But where do I start, I wondered. Fiction or non fiction? I’d been published in the early 90s in UK writing magazines, stories, and poetry, but this time I was taking a six month sabbatical from my lucrative art school business to see if I could make a success out of my writing career. This was serious. I knew it could take years to get published. So, setting aside my rose-tinted spectacles about becoming a famous romance author I donned my green thinking hat and started to brainstorm creatively. I concentrated on the question: what do I love most? Art, business and writing. Why not combine all of them by writing articles about all that I’ve learned along the way in my business? Why not write a book on how to S&R an art school? So I researched the market for a similar book, asking myself, “If I was a new entrepreneur, where would I start and what kind of book would be most helpful to me? I started in the good old library, the Internet and then in the book stores. There weren’t any books that covered my specific niche market with the type of practical and well-rounded guidance I was planning to share. Bingo! I then wrote down all distinctive points of my premise and why I should be the expert to write this particular book. I homed in on one publisher who deals with business books, in a Start and Run series. And not afraid of rejection, thanks to my business background, I called Self Counsel Press. Either I was very lucky, or my English accent gave the impressions I knew what I was talking about, or my pitch of my book idea was fresh, the big cheese, the acquisitions editor replied, “Yes, it’s something we’d like to have a look at.” (Yes, he’s a Brit too.) So I put on my skates, my Super Woman outfit and my life jacket and prepared to write a book proposal. This is a 30-50 page document detailing the concept, feasibility and marketability of the idea, and a sample chapter so they can gauge the quality of my writing and its content. From the moment of conception to the time the book is on the shelves can sometimes take upto 2 years. And as some of you already know, I’m happy to share anything I know and am learning along the way, but right now let me give you my quick do’s and don’ts on how you can start planning your publishing career. - Don’t take rejection personally, learn from it - Don’t listen to the inner voice of doubt - Don’t second-guess yourself - Don’t over edit - Don’t procrastinate – - Just sit down and Write! - Do believe in yourself and visualise your success - Delve into your business and personal life skills for inspiration - Research your ideas through books, the Internet, thepublishers' web sites, and through your network. - Why not join a writing group or form one of your own? I can help. Ask for guidance – I’ve had some amazing help from new friends from this very group! Asking costs little! Just like you need to practice your speeches, practice by actually writing. Whether its non-fiction, short or long fiction, poetry, screenwriting or technical how-to books, if you want something so passionately, you’ll find a way to make it happen. And finally let your personality and unique individuality shine through – because no one else is quite like you. And if you look closely at your experiences and your passions you may surprise yourself, you may find you do have a book in you. Maybe two, or three.... As Billy Crystal said in Throw Momma from the Train, “A writer writes, always!” Just go for it!
What do you think about when spring is here? About clearing away all proof of winter, getting rid of accumulated stuff from your house and garage? How about concentrating on spring-cleaning your office, as the snow melts and clogs up the gutters? First of all lets make one thing clear before I start – I hate cleaning of any sort. Especially mounds of paperwork. Yuck! It's as if the little green helpers from the fairytales, make the piles multiply instead of helping me the traditional benevolent way. My office is my writing domain. I also call it the library because of the bookshelves lining the walls. When it takes me 20 mins to find a certain document, or even my own hand bag, I know the time to spring clean the office has come! Where do I start? The desk, the computer, the Toastmasters and other magazines and articles I haven’t read yet? Or should I just throw my arms up in defeat and walk back out? Well, here’s my advice based on what’s worked for me: the procrastinator extraodinaire: put really inspiring music in your CD player, whatever will get you in the mood to start and get the task done. Give yourself a 2-hour window – OK, 30 mins if that’s all you can bear at the beginning.Whatever will help you kid yourself into starting - that’s the most important thing. Then collect the piles of papers off all the surfaces in your office into a box, to keep them all in one place.This will make you feel better as it will give you room to work on and your desk will start to look neat as you sort through the documents. Then lets review your filing system – how has it been working for you in the past few months or even years? I’ve changed my system a few times, for my my antique importing business, and again when starting to run a home based art school business. Home-based businesses are notorious for taking over your life, if you’re not careful. I updated the filing system and changed it again when I started writing full time a couple of years ago. I have separate filing cabinets for my fiction and personal documents, and other writing, such as articles, promotions, etc. So when I finished writing and editing my business book, I had the most fantastic sense of accomplishment when I collected all the documents, manuscripts and everything to do with the Jolly Good ArtSchool, and putting into all away in a box. Great fun! Once starting new projects, the old ones are safely filed away and my mind can grasp new ideas. I have two huge white pin boards where I tack all my “need to see” information. I also have pads and index cards on which I write my ideas, action plans and goals. But depending on your style, try what works for you and adjust it to meet all your particular needs. My final suggestions you can start with are: Have three plastic stackable organizer trays on your desk: “Action”, “To be Read”, and “File”. Keep as little on your desk as you can. I find this very hard to do. - Throw out or give away magazines,audio books and CDs that are no longer useful. - Catalogue all your books on an Excel spreadsheet, so you can remember which books you have. For example, my bookshelves include subjects such as Research, Psychology, Business, on Writing, inspirational, business, and so on. I do this because I have over 500 fiction books in my dressing room alone. -Delete any old or redundant files and articles from your computer to free up space, as well refresh your mind as to what you’ve got - Back up all the data regularly. Monthly would be good. I back up my book projects weekly onto CDs. -Keep all the bills and action mail in large envelopes, or in a 12 section (for every month) concertina folder where you can file and therefore find your documents fast. - File weekly, to keep up with the paperwork, make it a habit and it won’t nag at you every time you come in to the office.Update your filing system regularly, every 6 months should do it. See all these actions as necessary maintenance. Wouldn’t you rather spend 15-30 min a week, rather than having to tackle mountains of paperwork and lose precious time and frustration while searching for certain things? So,please, don’t do as I do – please do as I beg you to do: don’t leave the paper work to mount up and grow – those jolly green helpers will play havoc with it and your mind, too.