Speak Up!
Don’t stick me with your labels.
Living a life under label is living with limitation.
Sure labels serve a purpose for identification but they are misused to divide, to isolate and to put us into boxes that make other people comfortable. Labels are used to prevent us from thinking. They stop us questioning beyond the superficial. [Read more...]
On Saturday the Sydney SoapBox was held at the Opera House as part of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
In my usual fashion I jumped in, said I’ll speak and thought about it later. I hadn’t been to the Soapbox competition, didn’t know what happened, what types of rants were delivered or any of the details. [Read more...]
For those that haven’t worked it out yet I love to speak in public.
My battle was the reverse public speaking fear – private speaking! I could address an entire restaurant on a topic off-the-cuff but sit me next to someone I didn’t know… Terror – if they didn’t start the conversation I was screwed. Nervous, anxious, heart racing type stuff. [Read more...]
Isn’t that a killer question! Many people join toastmasters because they have some level of fear about public speaking.
But what are they afraid of. If that is you – what are you afraid of. [Read more...]
This is always a funny one for me because I wasn’t afraid of public speaking. Even as a kid in school – if we needed to deliver a speech I would pick the most controversial topic I could. My issue was the reverse. I was afraid of ‘private-speaking’.
What? Well if invited out with people I didn’t know I would have been comfortable addressing the entire restaurant but would [Read more...]
I don’t use notes when speaking. As a toastmaster at meetings that can lead to the question of how I can do that – what is my speech preparation?
My secret is to make it easy for myself. I have a technique I use that works for me and I stick to it! [Read more...]
Yesterday I was lucky enough to deliver a speech to Citi WIBF Toastmasters entitled “Toastmasters – What’s In It For Me?’
My focus was on the bigger picture of Toastmasters. Toastmasters providing the communication tools and techniques that empower us to become the confident and effective leader in our life.
That to me is what Toastmasters is. [Read more...]
Mal Hewitt (aka Uncle Mal) a man of music. This is a man who inspired more than one generation of school kids with music.
I first met Uncle Mal on a State Music Camp in 1996. I wasn’t a musician! I wasn’t serious about music. I didn’t even take music as a subject and had taken the trombone up as a joke several years before. I felt a little out of place at music camp but my life was touched and changed by this man. [Read more...]
Reflecting on life can be a funny thing. As I look back I laugh at how laid back my family were about achievements and our approach to them.
So many things I did in my teens because I didn’t yet know I couldn’t, shouldn’t, or wouldn’t if I knew enough to be scared!
When I played trombone I did a performance major for my HSC. That year my trombone teacher had other stuff on so I missed almost the entire school [Read more...]
Three years ago Good Friday turned bad.
I visited my sister who shouldn’t have still been alive. That day was the last day I saw her and burned into my memory are the green skin and yellow eyes of failing liver and kidneys.
Nick went to the Easter Show with a mate at my insistence. That one act was something my sister had done to me. Yes I pushed him away – not knowing [Read more...]
