It is worth the few dollars to check out.

Here is some promotional copy they gave me permission to use. If you want to see Ed Tate and some other highly regarded professional speakers in the Opus, then click the link at the bottom of this post.

What is The Opus then?

“To Become the best, biggest, most incredible, abundant, and spectacular YOU possible.”

Every person born on the planet arrives with the potential to create an incredible Opus. But only some people do. Why is that?

In this spectacular follow up to the Law of Attraction you will find amazing insights from Top Achievers and Teachers on how to turn your intentions into accomplishments.

In The Opus you will be shown the formula and patterns Top Achievers use to create greater abundance in Wealth, Health, Relationships and self achievement.

OPUS Movie Information

It is fortunate that the Olympics are occurring the same week, because it allows us to draw many parallels with the championship. Similar to competitors in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking, Olympic athletes will spend years trying to qualify at home, scoring in the top positions in semifinals, and attempting to win Olympic glory. However, like in all areas of life, they will at some point fail. It is inevitable, but it is not the failure that we dwell upon, but what that failure teaches us about winning that is important.

I remember losing my area competition this year. Though I had elements of a great speech, I did not connect with the audience. I believed that I was so good, that I didn’t need to worry about the connection. It would just work because I had prepared more than anyone else. WOW, was I wrong.

I learned a lesson that I would not have learned if I had not lost. If I had not failed, I wouldn’t have realized that intellectualism doesn’t connect, that most people like Chicken Soup for The Soul themed stories, and that it’s about the audience…its all about the audience. Your message is not as important as you think.

Sometimes I think that we diehard competitors get so wrapped up in the technical details of speech writing and delivery that we forget what really matters; our energy, our delivery, and our wardrobe are perfect but we left out something…the message. It is only then through failure, that we feel the pain of losing, allow it to temper our resolve, and don’t give up until we have won it all.

Keep losing, keep failing, and above all else…keep trying.

Final Results of the 2008 World Champion of Public Speaking:

LaShunda Rundles
Region 3 · District 50 · Texas, USA

Second Place
K. Loghandran
DNAR District 51 · Malaysia

Third Place
Katherine Morrison
Region 7 · District 31 · Massachusetts, USA

What is the audience thinking?

“Is he nervous? What is he doing? What is he doing up there?”, could be going through their minds.

It is then, after 10 seconds that you start, “I bet you wonder why I was just standing here staring at you for the past 10 seconds.”, or you could just yell, “FIRE!” and run out of the room…but let’s not shock them that much.

Anyway that you shock your audience, with a powerful action statement, saying something controversial, or even adversarial, you can shock your audience into paying attention to what you have to say. A shocking opening attracts attention to you and gets the audience to wonder what is going to come out of your mouth next. Trust me. It works and let me tell you why.

Imagine that you just came into a conference room. You had spent the last hour answering phone calls, answering e-mails, and trying to get a late TPS report finished. What is on your mind? The voice mails piling up, the e-mail burying you or the TPS reports that are filling your in-box? Whatever it is, you attention is not fully on this goofball standing in front of you.

Then all of the sudden, he is just standing there or maybe he said something shocking that totally stopped your train of thought. All of the sudden, you are not thinking about that girl in logistics, but you are thinking about what is going to come out of this person’s mouth next. You are hooked.

Why a shocking opening is so powerful is that it breaks the state of the audience. The listeners are usually so wrapped up in their own thoughts, that if you are not someone that they know they have to pay attention to, then it is likely that they might miss a large part of your speech because they were not paying attention. The audience is in a state that is not listening to you. The goal of the shocking opening is to then break that state and get them thinking about you, or more specifically your message.

How do you do it? Be memorable. Don’t start with, “Thank you for inviting me to speak or Mr. Toastmasters, fellow Toastmasters, and guests.”

Instead, engage their imaginations, say something unexpected, or point out something obvious that happened. In my studies of the great speakers, they always have some hook, some device that they use to capture the attention of the audience to pull them away from their inner focused state to an outward focused state of paying attention to your speech.

How do you know when you have succeeded? The audience is staring at you in apt attention and not their blackberries, their hands, or the ceiling above your head. How do you know what to say? Experiment with it. Have some fun with different openings.

What is your favorite way to break the audience’s state and get them to pay attention to you?

This is a problem I see from many Toastmasters both experienced and new. Many of them think that it is just about writing some notes, getting up there and speaking. WRONG! If you are really going to be a better speaker, you have to practice, practice, and practice some more. Every time you write a speech, it is going to take you hours to get it correct. Then after you give it, you can still go back, edit, practice, and make it something memorable.

Practice, practice, practice is the only way to really get better.

• Talk with the Vice President of Education (VPE) to get your Icebreaker scheduled
• See if the VPE can assign you a mentor

Goals for Part 2

1. Learn more about the club structure
2. Take on different meeting roles
3. Write and give your first speech, “The Icebreaker”

The Club Structure

As a new member, there is a lot of information thrown at you in the first few weeks. Toastmasters meetings are not like normal business meetings and at first the structure can seem quite off and disorientating. However, as you progress through the program, you will see that the club is structured with a purpose, and that is to help members grow as effective speakers in leaders.

As you read through the back of the competent communicator manual, you will get a better understanding of the overall agenda of the meeting, the parts that fill our the agenda, and the roles within the parts that help members succeed in speaking and leading.

The Executive Council, consisting of the President, Vice Presidents, Treasurer, Secretary, and Sergeant at Arms are responsible for maintaining the structure and flow of the meeting. This includes the set up of the meeting space, the opening, business meeting, educational speeches, table topics, and evaluation. Each section of the meeting has different goals and people assigned to roles are responsible for leading those sections.

Meeting Roles

If you break the meeting down into primary sections: Set up, opening, business, speeches, table topics, and evaluations – there are different roles within these primary sections for structure and execution.

In the clubs I am involved in, the sections are run by the following roles:

Set Up – Sergeant at Arms
Opening and Business – President
Speeches – Toastmaster
Table Topics – Table Topic Mager
Evaluations – General Evaluator

To be successful in Toastmasters, I encourage you to take on as many of the roles as possible within the first few meetings. Doing that will help you better understand the structure of the meetings and will serve you to become more comfortable in front of your club.

The Icebreaker

Ah the Icebreaker, that glorious first speech that so many new members run from. There is really not much to say about the icebreaker. It is tough, but it really takes just getting up there and doing it.

For me, I mind mapped my first speech and got up there and gave it. I said “um” 12 times, but after that the numbers of “ums” dropped to 6, then 2, and then none within the first few speeches. Today, I now slap myself if I say filler words.

You can do it. Whether you are a new or returning Toastmaster, the Icebreaker is nothing to fear. It is a lot of fun and once you get good at speaking, you can actually make a lot of money just standing in front of people speaking.

Conclusion

It is my hope that I have encouraged you to really get the most out of Toastmasters as possible. To do that, please get out the materials you have received from Toastmasters and figure out:

1. The structure of the club
2. What the various meeting roles are
3. Getting your Icebreaker done

I look forward to sharing more information about how to succeed in Toastmasters with you in the future.

Vikas Jhingran (Region VII, District 31)

2nd Place Rory Vaden (Region V)

3rd Place Mark Hunter (Australia)

Next year I expect to see my name somewhere in that list.