The following is a speech I gave at my Toastmasters club in New Orleans this past Monday. Some notes follow the video.
In a nutshell, the speech is about the importance of taking action. If you’ve seen the movie The Secret or are otherwise familiar with the Law of Attraction, you may have noticed that a lot of emphasis is placed on the thinking side of things, and not so much on actually getting out there in the world and taking action.
Now that’s not to say that The Secret sucks or that the Law of Attraction is worthless; I’m simply saying that positive thinking is only half the battle.
If you’ve tried and failed putting the Law of Attraction into practice, it’s likely that you spent too much time thinking, and not enough time acting. To reach your goals, you need to do both consistently. Think the right thoughts and take the right actions.
It’s been said that luck is the meeting of preparation and opportunity. I agree with that, so I’d advise you to get busy preparing for the opportunities that are coming your way. Spend some time thinking and visualizing, sure, but then go attend those classes, make those phone calls, run those laps or do whatever it is you need to do to get yourself ready.
I’ll leave you with the quote from Yvon Chouinard that I used in my speech:
There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens.
Below is a video recording of a speech I gave as part of a Toastmasters contest this past Monday. A text version follows.
One thing that saddens me is when people settle for less than their best. Much of the time it’s for no other reason than they believe that their best, if they were to give it, wouldn’t be good enough anyway.
I had a conversation with a friend recently and discovered she has a secret desire to become a published author some day. Now that surprised me. I’d known this girl for years and I never even knew she liked to write. As it turns out, she writes short stories quite frequently, but they usually end up in a drawer somewhere, unread by anyone but herself. Once she even took part in that National Novel Writing Month, where you try to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in the month of November. My friend completed the challenge, actually wrote a 175-page novel in four week, but again, once she was done, she decided to hide the pages away in a drawer and not let anyone read them.
I listened to my friend tell me all this, and I asked her why she didn’t enter her stories in some competitions, or post them on the internet? How did she expect to become a published author if nobody ever got to read her stuff?
She replied that she didn’t feel her stories were good enough. She reads quite a lot herself, and couldn’t see her own stories and writing skills measuring up to the those of the pros.
Here’s a girl with all the intelligence and potential in the world, and she was telling me she believed her best simply wouldn’t be good enough. That saddens me. And the fact that there are sooo many people like her out there… well, that saddens me even more.
I’m lucky in that I was able to overcome such a limiting belief — the belief that my best isn’t good enough — and I’m so glad I did.
A little more than six months ago, I started this blog about personal development, which was kind of a ridiculous thing to do. Ridiculous because, if you Google the term “personal development blog,” you get back more than 50 million results. That means there are literally millions of other blogs out there on the same subject, many of them with huge followings and massive archives of great content. What made me think that I could carve out a niche for myself in such an already over-saturated market? What made me think that people would find and read my blog, and benefit from it? I mean, with all of those other blogs out there, you could assume that pretty much everything that ever needed to be said about personal development has already been said, said in hundreds of different ways and translated into languages that I’ve never even heard of.
Really, what the hell was I thinking, setting up a personal development blog?
Well, truth be told, I wasn’t thinking too much. I wasn’t worrying about the big picture. All that really mattered to me was that I loved personal development, and I wanted to help people. And so I started with that. I focused on sharing concepts that helped me and writing about my own experiments and experiences.
And you know what? These last six months have been fantastic. I’ve accelerated my own growth by forcing myself to research and write articles once a week, and I know for a fact that I’ve helped people and made their lives better, got them thinking in new ways and believing in themselves more. I’ve gotten feedback from people all over the world, folks thanking me for writing something that resonated with them, or challenged them in some positive way. One article I wrote resulted in a lengthy e-mail exchange with an old college friend, who had never been interested in personal development, but who is now setting lofty goals and striving to become a better version of himself.
What it all comes down to, is that I know I’m making a difference in people’s lives.
And it makes me wonder, what if I hadn’t set up my blog? what if I’d kept my passion for personal development to myself? what if I’d been scared to compete with those 50 million other blogs and decided not to bother?
Lots of folks would have missed out and I’d be feeling a lot less fulfilled, that’s what.
Now, I know I’m not the best personal development blogger out there, and I might never be… and I’m okay with that. What’s important though, is that I’m giving it my best shot. I realize that I don’t have to be the best in the world. I just have to be the best that I can be.
And when you think about it, everyone can be the best that they themselves can be. Personal greatness is within everyone’s grasp. The only person you have to compete with is yourself. Nobody else.
I’d like my friend, the secretive writer, to know this, too. She doesn’t have to be the best writer in the world. She just has to be the best writer she can be. If she strives for that, she’ll find an audience, she’ll make an impact by doing the thing she loves to do, and, most importantly, she won’t wake up some morning 50 years from now, filled with regret, wondering what her life would have been like if only she had followed her dream.
I’d like to leave you with this short poem, author unknown. Read it more than once, then let it sit with you for a while.
At God’s footstool, to confess,
A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
“I failed,” he cried. The master said,
“Thou didst thy best. That is success.”
Recently I’ve been reading Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins. I’ve found lots of good advice and food for thought in the book, and there’s one part in particular that I’d like to share here. It’s called The Precision Model, and it helps us cut through the mental fog and fluff and get to the heart of matters quickly. It can be used to greatly improve our communication with others, and to gain more clarity with our own thoughts, feelings and beliefs.
You can picture the five parts of this model on your fingers, as illustrated below.
Pinkies – Universals
The pinkies represent universals; words like all, every and never. Be careful with these type of words. If someone says they never win anything, is that really true, or just a generalization? Often it’s the latter, and such generalizations do us no favors.
I caught myself falling into this trap at a dance class a few weeks ago. After botching a certain step for the umpteenth time, I turned to my dance partner and said “I’m sorry, I always mess that part up.” I had to stop and ask myself, “Really? Always?” Besides the fact that I was being my own worst critic, I realized that saying such a thing didn’t send the best message to my brain. Think of a child who is constantly belittled and criticized by her parents. What kind of self-esteem will she have? What chance will she have to succeed in life? The same principle applies to your internal dialogue. Every now and then, stop and ask yourself if you’re feeding yourself accurate information, or if you’re selling yourself short.
Ring fingers – Limitations/Restrictions
The ring fingers represent limitations and restrictions in The Precision Model; words like should, shouldn’t, must, can’t and so on. Lots of people go around saying they can’t do something, or believing they have to do things they don’t like to do. You can break the cycle by asking certain types of questions. Examples:
What would happen if I did do that?
What would happen if I let that slide, if I just said no?
What would happen if I could do that?
The goal here is to train yourself to challenge the status quo, to see possibilities and opportunities instead of limitations and restrictions.
Middle fingers – Verbs
Middle fingers next, and these represent verbs. If someone tells you that they’re unhappy, or if you’re unhappy, you can’t do much to solve that problem until you find out how specifically you or that person is unhappy. You need to break through the fluff and get to the root cause of the unhappiness. So you probe and keep asking why why why until you expose the real problem, and then you can work towards solving it.
So the next time you tell yourself that you’re bored, lonely, sad or depressed, instead of just wallowing in your own misery, force yourself to be more specific. What is it in particular that’s causing you to feel that way? Drill down as much as you can; try to pinpoint the specific problem (a conversation with self might help you get there). Once you have it defined, there’s a much better chance that you’ll be able to move towards a solution.
Index fingers – Nouns
Index fingers represent nouns. You often hear people say “They don’t understand me… They’re never going to give me a fair chance… If it wasn’t for them…”
Who is they? Who is them? Are we talking about a whole group of people, or is it just one person in particular? Or do they only exist in your mind, some imaginary or overblown blockade you use as an excuse not to take action?
Another example: If you present a plan and someone says “That plan won’t work,” odds are that they only have a problem with a specific part of the plan, not the whole thing. So, again, you probe and ask why until you find out what the real problem is, and then you can work on overcoming it.
Thumbs – Comparisons
Lastly, the thumbs, which remind us to be wary of comparisons. When we say or think things like “That’s too much, that’s too many, that’s too expensive”, once again we’re restricting ourselves and often creating problems where there really aren’t any. For example, some of my friends here in the States think I’m too skinny, but back in Ireland I’ve never been called that. It used to upset me a little, but then I realized that in America I’m being compared to Americans, who on average are known to be a little on the chubby side. Once I saw it that way, being considered skinny was no longer problem for me. It was just perception, not reality.
A similar thing often happens with money or possessions, people thinking they don’t have enough. Consider who you’re comparing yourself to, and check if the problem is real or just something in your head.
…
So those are the five parts of The Precision Model. Once again, this model can be very helpful in communicating more effectively with others, and for sorting through your own internal dialog and figuring out where you might be limiting yourself.
To become more familiar with this model, I delivered a speech about it at Toastmasters this past Monday. You can watch it here (thanks to Darlyn for the camera work), with some notes below.
“You only have control over three things in your life — the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take.” That part of my presentation came from Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles. Thanks to some feedback after my speech, I’m considering that thoughts, words and actions might be a better trinity, since visualizing can be considered a form of thought. Also, the latter approach fits better with Gandhi’s teachings of non-violence: peaceful thoughts, words and actions.
Giving a talk on clarity and precision and my name tag was turned backwards the whole time. Oops.
I could have done much better with the visual aids. I took the diagram directly from the book but it wasn’t the best way of presenting the information to a live audience. I noticed at the beginning that everyone was gawking at the flip chart and trying to make sense of the diagram instead of listening to me. It would have been better to break up the visuals into more pages and step through them one at a time, revealing each part as I was talking about it. Lesson well learned.
Besides the flip chart, I didn’t use any notes and I cleared the lectern out of the way. I felt good about those things. I rehearsed the speech quite a bit at home (recording my practice runs on video and reviewing them several times) and so felt confident that I could deliver it without those common crutches.
There was quite a lot of content in the speech and I was pushing the 7-minute limit. One thing that helped me prepare for this was to practice delivering it as fast as I possibly could, trying to get everything said in 5 minutes or less. That forced me to organize my thoughts more quickly, cutting out a lot of the pauses where I was trying to think of what to say next. After doing that a few times, 7 minutes felt like an eternity. Some folks call this type of thing hyperclocking, and you can apply the concept to much more than public speaking.
Something I definitely need to work on: Vocal variety. I was at pretty much the same volume and speed for the whole speech. Not good for keeping the audience engaged.
Last Monday I delivered my sixth Toastmasters speech, entitled A Dozen Ways I Can Be a Better Public Speaker. The goal was to force myself to do a lot of the things I’d been hesitant to do as a public speaker, such as moving away from the lectern and expressing a controversial opinion. Here’s a video recording of the speech (with thanks to Dominic for manning the camera)…
The dozen ways:
Open dynamically
Get rid of the lectern
Use direct eye contact
Loosen up the body language
Sound like I care
Express a controversial opinion with confidence
Use less notes
Use notes on purpose, not by accident
Use long pauses
Video tape myself speaking in front of an audience
