This post ended up being so long, that I am breaking it into two parts. Part 1 was posted yesterday and part 2 follows:
If you didn’t catch my post from Saturday, the Lady and the Champs workshops give you the opportunity to hang out with four Toastmasters World Champions of Public Speaking and NSA Hall of Fame Speaker Patricia Fripp to learn more about the art of speaking and gain specific knowledge to make you a better speaker. The workshops also teach you about the business of speaking and how you can develop more opportunities to speak.
Allow me to continue my review of the remainder of the seminar.
Craig Valentine
“How to Create Killer Content”
WOW! This presentation rocked. It provided so much value to everyone in the room, that Craig had sold out of all of the physical copies of his home study courses before he got to the back of the room. Not only did I walk away with some killer content pointers (and a home study course), but it demonstrated a point Darren made during his keynote on developing product to share with people that want to be trained by you. Craig demonstrated that this knowledge was valuable and he did it in a way that made us all want to take a piece of him home. This is one program that you have to see at some point in your life.
“How to Master Delivery: A Coaching Program”
This was a great breakout, because it addressed how you perform on the platform. After this session I felt that I better understood what techniques that when internalized, separate the good speakers from world class. In this session, I learned how to use questions to the audience better, move on stage, and how to get the audience to connect.
Darren LaCroix
“Got Mentors? Mentors Made Me Who I Am! Who, What, and How?”
Darren is one of my favorite keynote presenters, because he has such a great presence during his keynotes. He is one of the few speakers that manages to touch your heart and soul making you laugh and cry. I am go grateful for the opportunities I have had to meet with him over the last few months and he always provides the best content and is a wonderful person to be around.
I am lucky, because I got to see this presentation at the District 40 conference in November. Mentoring is a very important topic for me, because I have always struggled with being coachable. Many times my ego gets in the way of being coached, and this keynote highlighted for me the reason why I have to open up and allow myself to be coached. This keynote helped me see where I am still closed off to feedback and gave me some ideas to put into practice in my life.
“Got Humor? Comedy Secrets for Professional Presentations”
This was an important session for me, because I am not funny. I am not joking, I have been working the past few months to become less like a robot on stage and work on my humor. This session gave me a great introduction to the basics of comedy in presentations and I look forward to testing new material in upcoming Toastmaster projects.
In Summary
I really enjoyed this conference. Having attended another camp a few months ago, I understood the value of attending a live seminar but this was really a step above other workshops I have attended. Not only were the sessions with Patricia and the Champs awesome, but everyone in attendance was positive, focused on improvement, and willing to talk about their experiences.
One of the most valuable experiences during this camp was the EdgeNet Summit. Being a Champions Edge member gave us free access to Fripp and the Champ the day before the main event and it was an amazingly useful session. For more information on the Summit, check out my post from Saturday where I talk in more detail about the value I got from the Summit.
I look forward to my next opportunity to attend the EdgeNet Summit, Lady and the Champs, or other live seminars as my budget will allow.
About the Author: My Toastmasters Blog is written and edited by Chris Elliott, the founder of the young professional coaching site Young Profit Pros. Chris enjoys using his knowledge and experiences during his speaking engagements, workshops, consulting projects, and one-on-one coaching sessions. The result—connecting people and empowering change. If you would like information on how you can bring Chris to speak to your next meeting, please download Chris' one sheet or contact him by clicking here.
What many of the attendees of Lady and Champs may not realize is that my keynote “It is Not a Conversation it is Conversational” and Darren’s “Got Mentors?” were new speeches. Although some of the examples we have used before the speeches have never been delivered in this format.