Gone - In the Blink of an Eye.

This time last week I was going over the speech (yet again….and again), that I was to deliver the next day at the Toastmasters International Speech competition.

I am pleased and proud to say I placed first, and now move to the 4th level of the competition (Club- Area- Division- and District), and I am proud to represent all of those people from clubs, areas and our division at the next level. It is an honour and responsibility.

The win was also a surprise for two reasons. First, the other speakers were all truly terrific with amazing stories to tell, and told well, and also because in my presentation, I left out (forgot - went blank) a whole linking paragraph which in my mind was needed to link the ideas I had spoken about earlier. Two important issues arise from delivering this presentation.

Standing there in front of an audience and the judges, it was not a nice feeling going blank, and it felt like a very very long time as I stood there silently looking out at the expectant faces. It wasn’t....a long time, it just felt like it, and the audience may even have thought it was a deliberate pause. Later on, afterwards, asking various audience members if they had noticed, only one thought maybe I had briefly gone blank and momentarily lost it, and he was a very experienced speaker, but still he wasn’t sure. He said, "I saw you blink, and then it was gone....and you moved on...

My first point is that in life, to succeed, you don’t need to be perfect, just in action, or as Franklin D Roosevelt once said, ‘in the Arena’. You may, and most likely will make mistakes throughout your life. Don’t let them stop you. Carry on anyway. Learn from them. Make a Mea culpa, accept that it was your mistake, correct it and move on. If you stop in the middle of the speech and dwell upon the mistake, most likely you won’t complete the speech. Just keep going in life and with the goal.

Secondly, never underestimate the impact you have on other people’s lives. A man, a stranger, came up to me at the end of my presentation to tell me, in tears, that he too had lost a great friend (a young firefighter – son of his best friend) at a fire and appreciated what I had said about losing my young firefighter. Too, a woman spoke with me shortly after the presentation and referenced a part of my talk where I affirm that, with few exceptions, we are all accountable for what we think, say and do. Her case was one of the exceptions where her brilliant, bright, bubbly, born?to be an achiever – daughter, committed suicide, seemingly without rhyme or reason. She had appreciated that I had added that there were cause and effect circumstances that we don't yet understand, and need to be compassionate about.

Finally, like almost all success, it is achieved with the help of others supporting you. No less so in my case. A great support group and associates and friends to thank for our collective success.

Cheers.

GT.