Podcasts about toastmasters

In this episode, our 54th  episode, we talk with Blanca Rodriguez of Stuart, Florida,, USA.  Blanca returns to share her journey over the last four years since she joined as a new member.In this episode, we discuss:Multi-LingualPath to DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster)TedEx Blana Rodriguez can be contacted via: Website ~ www.woundedhealer.usEmail ~ r.blancae@yahoo.comPhone ~ 772-475-0126 This podcast episode is sponsored by our 2024-2026 Calendar Year Sponsor, District 31 Toastmasters ~ serving Rhode Island, Eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine in the USA, and the Canadian Maritime Provinces in Canada.  District 31 (“D31”) helps Toastmasters become better Communicators, and Leaders.  Learn how D31 Toastmasters can help you become a more powerful speaker and impactful leader by visiting district31.org/talkingtoastmasters.

Get Promoted Faster: How the Dolphin Strategy Took One Stuck Supervisor to VP — and What It Means for Women Leaders Last updated: September 26, 2026 Trusted by leaders at Stanford University, Ernst & Young, Autodesk, MGM Grand Resorts, and Farmers Insurance Executive Summary: Have you been told you "don't have the personality" for promotion? Sabrina Braham shares how her coaching client Martin, stuck five years as supervisor, reached VP using five moves: decode feedback, recruit dolphins, build your voice, make the Half-Point Ask, and volunteer for visibility. Use them to get promoted faster. Quick Takeaways: Vague feedback like "personality" isn't a verdict — translate it into observable behaviors. Recruit "dolphins": allies in the room who back your ideas when you speak. Employees with sponsors are twice as likely to be promoted (McKinsey & LeanIn.Org, 2025). Ask your manager for a 1–10 rating, then ask what earns one more half point. Martin: five stuck years, then manager in six months — then director and VP. Jump to: Martin's Story · Why You're Stuck · The 5 Moves · The Results · Action Plan · Mistakes to Avoid · FAQ · 2026 Trends As an executive leadership coach with over 30 years of experience (MA, MFT, PCC) and host of the Women's Leadership Success Podcast — on air since 2007 and ranked in the top 1.5% of podcasts worldwide — I hear one question more than any other: how do I get promoted faster when I'm already doing a great job? The question is urgent. By September 10, layoffs.fyi counted more than 128,000 tech layoffs in 2026 — already more than all of 2025. And McKinsey and LeanIn.Org's Women in the Workplace 2025 found only about half of companies still prioritize women's advancement. Good work alone won't help you get promoted faster. In Episode 169, the tables turned. My co-founder and executive producer, Tim Warren, interviewed me about Martin — a Fortune 500 supervisor told he "didn't have the personality" to be a manager. He believed it. Then, step by step, he proved it wrong. His story is the clearest map I know to get promoted faster, especially if you're the only one like you in the room. The Feedback That Kept Martin Stuck for Five Years At Martin's company, supervisors usually became managers within a year. Martin had been a supervisor for five. His numbers were strong, his people loved him, and his leaders said he was doing a great job. Then came the "but": he just didn't have the personality to be a manager. Martin grew up speaking English as a second language, was the first in his family to attend college, and graduated with honors. None of that protected him. When someone with authority labels you, you tend to believe it. I know that feeling. I was raised in a blue-collar family, and when someone with authority said I had a flaw, I assumed it was true. It took me years to unlearn. If you've absorbed a label like Martin's, take this from his story: the label can be wrong, and you can change the evidence behind it. His question to me was painful: could he change his personality to move up? Why Talented Leaders Don't Get Promoted Faster in 2026 Martin's situation isn't rare. A strong performer gets fuzzy feedback, loses confidence, goes quiet in the rooms where promotions are shaped — and stalls. Here's why that pattern makes it harder to get promoted faster right now. The "broken rung" is still broken For every 100 men promoted to first-level manager, only 93 women are promoted (McKinsey & LeanIn.Org, 2025). That first step — the one Martin was stuck on — shapes every level above it. The sponsorship gap is real At entry level, 31% of women have a sponsor versus 45% of men, and employees with sponsors are about twice as likely to be promoted. The finding that matters most: when women and men get equal career support, the gap in promotion ambition disappears. The problem isn't drive. It's backing. Being "the only" changes how you're heard Roughly one in five women are often the only woman in the room, more for senior and technical women (LeanIn.Org). Being "the only" tends to make people cautious about sharing ideas — less visibility when you need more. The cost of waiting In 2026's market, "I'll speak up once I feel confident" is a risky plan. To get promoted faster — or stand out after a layoff — treat visibility as a skill you practice. Ready to get promoted faster — before you feel fully ready? Leading Before You're Ready — a practical playbook for leaders stepping into bigger roles. Inside, you'll find: Language for speaking up with confidence before you feel fully ready Ways to build trust fast with the decision-makers who shape your next role A framework for positioning yourself as promotion-ready — actively, not passively GET THE COMPLIMENTARY PLAYBOOK The Dolphin Promotion Framework™: 5 Moves to Get Promoted Faster Here's exactly what Martin and I worked on. None of it required a new personality — just consistent, specific action. Each move helps you get promoted faster on its own; together they compound. Move 1: Decode the vague feedback "Personality" is nearly useless feedback. What does it even mean? So we started at ground zero: what would Martin need to do differently to be seen as a manager? The answer was concrete. In meetings with peers or senior leaders, Martin went quiet. That silence, and the confidence gap behind it, was what his leaders called "personality." Once we named the behavior, we could change it. Success metric: The feedback becomes two or three observable behaviors — your first step to get promoted faster. Move 2: Recruit your dolphins Picture a shipwreck survivor clinging to boards while a shark circles. When dolphins surround a person in the water, sharks tend to stay away — and dolphins have been reported guiding swimmers to shore. A dolphin at work is someone in the room who has your back, believes you're capable, and supports you when you speak up: A mentor shares knowledge and advice, often in private. A sponsor uses their power and influence to advocate for you — often when you're not in the room. A dolphin is in the meeting with you, backing your idea in real time. Far fewer leaders have dolphins than mentors. Lean In reports that high-potential women often have more mentors than men, yet mentorship didn't correlate with promotion. If you want to get promoted faster, real-time backing does what advice can't. How to find your dolphins: Look for a friend in your key meetings, or someone who often shares your viewpoint. If no one comes to mind, hold one-on-ones, share the idea you want to raise, and see who's aligned. Then make a simple ask. Try This Now (3 minutes): Pick the idea you most want to raise next meeting, then send one colleague: "Here's an idea I'd like to share Thursday. Would you be willing to support it when I bring it up?" That's the whole ask. Move 3: Build your speaking muscle — and rehearse your one main point The most cost-effective confidence builder I know is Toastmasters. Clubs are in nearly every U.S. city, dues are modest (often around $20 a month), and the program works. At a district meeting years ago, I was struck by the room: real confidence and presence, built through structured practice. Martin joined, and it helped him learn to speak up. The second half is rehearsal. You usually know the agenda and what would help your team. Pick your main point and practice it out loud. What surprises people: the CEOs I work with still rehearse their main points before meetings. Success metric: One prepared point, delivered weekly. Small reps like this are how you get promoted faster. Move 4: Make the Half-Point Ask With practice behind him, Martin went directly to the leaders who had formed the wrong impression. Most people skip this step, yet it's the move that helps you get promoted faster than any other. Here's the conversation: State the goal. "I'd like to be promoted to manager. What's helping, and what do I need to do differently?" Ask for a number. "On leading my team, from 1 to 10, what would you give me?" Ask for the half point. If it's a 7: "What would I need to do to be a 7.5?" Always just a half point. Schedule the follow-up. "Could I check back in a few weeks?" Why a half point? It's achievable, and it pulls your manager into problem-solving mode. Once they give a number, they become invested in your progress. There's a psychological bonus. It's why you notice red cars everywhere after buying one: the brain's attention filter, the reticular activating system, scans for what it's primed to find. After the Half-Point Ask, your manager watches for your improvement. Success metric: You have a baseline number from at least one decision-maker and a follow-up date on the calendar. Move 5: Volunteer for visibility Martin also began joining committees. On one sat five vice presidents — and Martin, a newly promoted manager. He practiced his idea for turning a project around. In the meeting, the VPs talked over him toward a decision. So Martin said, "I have an idea." The room stopped. The lead VP asked to hear it. Martin explained it in detail. When he finished, the room went silent. His heart sank. I blew it, he thought. Then the senior vice president said: "Good idea, Martin. Let's do that." That was the game changer. Rehearsal plus visibility had become executive presence — and the surest way to get promoted faster is to be seen doing the next job. What Happened Next: From Supervisor to VP After five stuck years, here's how Martin's trajectory changed: About 6 months: promoted to manager — roughly a 30% raise. About 4 months after that meeting: director. Two to three years later: promoted to vice president, with stock options, earning roughly double his supervisor pay. What moves me most is what didn't change: Martin kept his kindness and has mentored many others to promotion. His words: "I wish I would have contacted you sooner. It was a game changer. It changed my life....

There are seven quiet signals that show up in your life long before the money does, and most of them feel like losing.In this solo episode, Lewis walks you through the money mindset shifts he lived from his sister's couch to a life where his investing runs on autopilot. He tells you about the networking event where he stuffed cheese and crackers into his pockets with a full arm cast on, because he had no idea where his next meal was coming from.Then comes the number that stops you cold: 48% of people earning over $250,000 a year are still living paycheck to paycheck. A raise was never the answer. Lewis walks through why rich is a number and free is a length of time, and why saying no to a $20,000 sponsorship or a $10,000 coaching call felt like losing his mind right up until it felt like peace.You will hear how one conversation at a salsa club sent him to Toastmasters and rewired what he could charge, and how he bought a life insurance policy in his twenties for a wife and kids who did not exist yet.By the end you will have one small assignment: take what you have, divide it by what you spend in a month, and look at the number without flinching. Then start adding months.Make Money EasyThe School of GreatnessThe Greatness MindsetThe Mask of MasculinityIn this episode you will:Spot the seven quiet signs that wealth is already arriving before anyone else confirms itClimb Myron Golden's Four Levels of Value so you get paid for deciding and imagining instead of grinding harderDismantle the scarcity habits that keep hardworking people stuck, including judging the rich and hoarding out of fearReclaim your peace by saying no to real money that violates your values, the way Lewis Howes turned down millions in sponsorshipsMeasure your runway in months rather than chasing a net worth number, so freedom becomes something you can countBreak the paycheck to paycheck trap that still swallows nearly half of people earning over $250,000 a yearFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1984More SOG episodes we think you'll love! Get More From Lewis! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Leave an Amazon Rating or Review for my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Check out the full episode: https://greatness.lnk.to/1980DMLewis Howes was in his early 20s making a couple hundred bucks a week when he begged a guy earning multiple six figures to sit down with him at a Starbucks in Columbus, Ohio.He asked for the secret to money. The guy asked him what he was most afraid of.Public speaking. Lewis couldn't get through five people without stuttering and stumbling.The guy told him that fear was the exact thing blocking his income, and handed him a challenge: one speech a week, every week, for a year.He signed up at Toastmasters that same week. Two minutes or twenty, he showed up and spoke.By the end of that year he was making $5,000 a speech. He hadn't made $5,000 in the six months before he started.For years he was certain his problem was having no money. The problem was every belief about money he'd inherited.Whatever fear you're routing around, that's the address.Sign up for the Greatness newsletter: http://www.greatness.com/newsletter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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The Church of the Souls Evolution with The Reverend Blake Rubie The Tunnel of Light, God's Jail, and a Guided Tour of Heaven's Flowers and Animals In a solo, thirty-minute broadcast, Reverend Blake Rubie walks listeners through the moment of death, the spirit's journey down the tunnel of light, hell as God's jail, and a vivid tour of heaven's colors, living flowers, and animals that no longer eat each other. A Shorter Show and a New Book Reference Reverend Blake Rubie opens The Church of the Soul's Evolution on Saturday, September 19th, thanking Doug at BBS Radio and TV for a new theme song, "Grey Brain, Golden Soul," a seven-minute piece from which listeners hear only a clip. He tells the audience today's topic is heaven and what to expect there, drawing on his own book, The Grey Brain and the Golden Soul, an eighty-page Kindle title with thirty chapters of spirituality and evolution material. Rubie explains he has trimmed his program from fifty-five minutes down to thirty, saying at seventy-two he wants to conserve his energy for a busy retirement that already includes membership in four Toastmasters clubs and a Toastmasters meeting earlier that morning, plus exercise planned for right after the show. He apologizes to longtime listeners who may miss the longer format before turning to his main subject: what actually happens to a person at the moment of death. The Spirit Leaves the Body Rubie explains that every person carries a spirit made of light, translucent and shot through with billions of electrons, comparable, he says, to the glowing figure Patrick Swayze becomes at the end of the movie Ghost. At the body's expiration date, whether from accident, illness, or old age, the spirit pops free and can move by thought or fly. He teaches that souls are born on suns rather than planets, since the sun is the true source of light and the seat of the spirit world, and that other species across the universe are born on their own suns in the same way. Older souls, he suggests, may have lived many lives already, evolving through reincarnation across a universe divided into nine categories of planets from lowest to highest, with Earth ranked as a category one world still struggling near the bottom of that spiritual scale. Mother and Father God and the Birth of New Spirits Rubie describes the mother and father God as spirit parents living ninety-three million miles away on the sun, soulmates who evolved through countless lifetimes on other planets before reaching the highest category of existence. He says new spirits are created when the two merge, their united thoughts and spoken words giving birth to a baby spirit that eventually grows old enough to be born onto a planet, sometimes Earth. He compares this spiritual merging loosely to human reproduction while stressing it works differently, guided purely by shared intent rather than physical union. Rubie adds that the spirit shares the physical body's features and even its organs, arranged in something like a mirror image, and that spirits can eat, drink, and feel pain much as people do. He also describes the spirit's nightly excursions during sleep, when it leaves the body to work through daytime worries and returns before waking, provided a person gets seven or eight hours of rest. God's Jail and the Logic of Forgiveness Rubie turns to what he calls the other direction some spirits travel: down into the Earth's core, a realm of lava beds and dark caverns he identifies as hell, or God's jail, overseen by Archangel Lucifer. Souls who committed serious sins, he says, do their time there and rehabilitate rather than suffer eternal damnation, using Hitler as his example of someone who might have been shaped by childhood abuse or by a role the mother and father God intended so humanity could eventually learn to move beyond its warring ways. Rubie argues that if earthly mothers and fathers would not condemn a child to endless suffering over a mistake, heavenly parents, being still more loving, surely would not either, calling this reasoning irrefutable. He then describes the freed spirit itself as the real, pure self, lighter and more mobile than the body, with vision spanning three hundred sixty degrees and senses sharper than anything experienced while alive on Earth. Down the Tunnel Toward the Light Rubie describes the more common journey after death, down a circular, light-blue tunnel toward a distant pinprick of light, ninety-three million miles away on the sun, an image he ties to the book and film 90 Minutes in Heaven, in which a man struck by a semi truck arrives at the Pearly Gates and is met by deceased relatives. He explains that travelers can likewise be greeted by angels or by loved ones going back generations, and that not everyone completes the trip: some become ghosts still wandering Earth's surface, unaware they have died, especially those killed suddenly and violently. Rubie also revisits the pre-existence, the state before birth, describing how a warrior angel escorts every unborn spirit from the sun down through the atmosphere and into the mother's womb, and suggesting that babies may retain a dim memory of looking out through their mother's eyes during that nine-month, submerged existence before entering the world. A Guided Tour of Heaven's Light and Living Flowers Arriving at last in that world of light, Rubie says, spirits behold colors more vivid than any on Earth, some found nowhere else, and living flowers, including roses whose intricate inner parts turn to watch onlookers pass. Advanced souls may arrive by a more direct route, a chariot sent by Archangel Gabriel, and everyone is eventually reunited with deceased relatives, pets, and old friends from other lifetimes on other planets, since he considers all souls one large, interrelated family. He describes fields of green grass walked barefoot, robes of white shining according to one's spiritual development, and trees of the Tree of Life bearing edible fruit. Notably, he says, lions, tigers, and lambs there no longer eat one another, unlike on violent Earth, which he blames in part for humanity's wars. Running short on his newly shortened thirty minutes, Rubie promises to continue next week, offering a closing blessing and love to his listeners before signing off.

Joe Bains was a massive introvert with zero personality and by dragging himself kicking and screaming through absolute hell he became an extrovert and now he's a Biohacker, Comedian, Toastmaster, Tantric Yogi and psychonaut.

What if changing your attitude starts with changing the questions you ask yourself? Stephen Shaner has taken a remarkable path through music, the military, firefighting, air traffic control, technology, leadership, magic, and public speaking. Along the way, he became fascinated with how people respond to life and why some people remain positive when things go wrong. Stephen and I explore how attitude becomes a choice, why focusing on what you can control can reduce fear and frustration, and how simple changes in vocabulary can shift your outlook. We also talk about gratitude, energy, service, leadership, passion, and discovering who you are beyond what you do for work. Stephen shares lessons from Stephen Covey, Toastmasters, his own leadership experiences, and everyday moments when one different question changed everything. I believe you will find some useful ideas here for building a more positive attitude and making choices that help you move forward. Highlights: 02:58 – Follow Stephen's unusual path from music and the military to leadership and speaking. 10:21 – Discover why knowing who you are matters more than defining yourself by your job. 13:44 – Learn why attitude is a choice, even when circumstances are difficult. 22:42 – See how changing your words can shift the way you experience everyday challenges. 30:21 – Hear how gratitude can quickly change your focus and mood. 52:30 – Learn how one different question can turn a negative situation into a positive one. About the Guest: Stephen Shaner has been studying the concept of “attitude” for more than 35 years. Specifically, his interest has focused on how attitude affects people, and the people around them. He has incorporated learning experiences from a multitude of sources, research, and training relative to behavior, attitude, ethics, and business and personal relations. Stephen, as a facilitator of Stephen Covey's “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" for 15 years, was able to gain powerful insight. These opportunities led him to design informative and relevant presentations. Coupled with his contagious attitude, his extensive experience has made him a popular resource for keynotes, seminars, workshops, private sessions, newsletters and articles. He is a sought-after mentor for business professionals and individuals seeking for meaningful and lasting improvement. In his professional life, after 20 years of employment with HealthPartners, Stephen recently retired as the Manager of the Regional Technology Center in Duluth, Minnesota. He has been an active member of Toastmasters International for over 23 years, where he has held many leadership positions, including District Director for a membership base of approximately 5,000, and Region IV Advisor, with responsibilities covering six U.S. states and four Canadian Provinces. Stephen currently lives with his wife in Tennessee. Stephen continues to incorporate his leadership and communication skills to help professional and private entities meet their specific demands and goals.  His success is based on delivering personalized training, guidance, and entertaining messages, and his passion for teaching and sharing his knowledge for the benefit of those around him.  As an award-winning international speaker, his presentations have reached around the globe to businesses including England, Germany, Canada, the Philippines, and India.    Stephen is also building a successful podcast titled, “Are You Awesome Today?” He will soon be releasing his 200th episode, all featuring a truly international cache of professionals, covering a myriad of relevant, interesting and dynamic topics.   Stephen has developed presentations that reach to the core of what attitude is and how having the right one can dramatically change lives professionally and personally. You are invited to explore all Stephen has to offer, or contact him to discuss a presentation that fits your needs. Ways to connect with Stephen: Website: www.awesomeattitude.net LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenshaner/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:04 What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Hi there, everyone. Wherever you happen to be, welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. I am your host Michael Hingston, and today we get to chat with Stephen Shainer. And Stephen is a person who's going to talk a lot about attitudes. So we ought to have a great discussion about cats. Then we'll see. Anyway, Stephen, welcome to Unstoppable Mindset. We're glad you're here. Stephen Shaner  01:23 Well, thank you so much, Michael. It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me. Michael Hingson  01:26 Actually, my cat does does pretty well. My cat has developed this habit that she likes to be petted while she eats, and I'm the one that has to pet her since now I'm the only one in the house. But literally, she'll yell and won't eat until I go in and pet her while she's eating, it's it's really funny. Stephen Shaner  01:45 Ours was abused in two homes before we got her by both people and animals, and we got her from the shelter. She had very little fur from the anxiety. They told us she was a medium-haired tabby, and we got her home, and she just went poof, and just this giant fur ball. And it turns out she's part Norwegian forest cat, but she's just a little angel. She just her favorite place to be is on one of our laps, and she she doesn't get into anything. She doesn't scratch furniture. She has no interest in people, food. She just wants to be held and likes to purr. Michael Hingson  02:14 Well, and that's what counts. Well, we rescued this one. We rescued Stitch 11 years ago. Now it's actually getting 11 years and almost a month. And people lived in the apartment next to us, and the the wife died, and it was the wife's cat basically because the husband decided to go live in an assisted living facility and had absolutely no interest in the cat. Just told his caregiver and his sister who were moving out his furniture, take the cat to the pound. I don't want anything to do with it. We learned about that, and we said, "Well, we'll find it a home, because we didn't want a cat at the time. We was all we were living in apartments and had two golden or two Labrador Retriever dogs, a guide dog, and the dog's mother, who was also a service dog for my wife. And so we said, "We'll find it a home, and as I love to say, I then made the mistake of asking what the cat's name was, and they told me the cat's name was Stitch, and I realized that this cat was going nowhere since my wife had been a quilter since 1994. Stephen Shaner  03:15 That's a great story, Michael Hingson  03:16 and Stitch has been now with us for over 11 years, and it's and it's great. And my wife has passed away, but you know, Stitch and my current guide dog Alamo keep an eye on me. And I'm sure my wife is monitoring from somewhere, so I got to be a good kid, or I'm going to get in trouble. Stephen Shaner  03:32 Yep, good. Michael Hingson  03:33 So you know, it kind of works. Well, tell us about kind of maybe the early Stephen growing up. Let's start there. It's always great to start at the beginning. Stephen Shaner  03:41 Wow, way back there. I know Michael Hingson  03:43 a long time ago. Stephen Shaner  03:45 Yeah, early. My my dad played guitar professionally for many years, and he's done some other things as well. But that was his primary love, his passion. And growing up, I learned guitar a little bit, and then by the time I got to elementary school, I had picked up trumpet and did well with the trumpet. Had fun with it in high school. By my 10th grade, I was playing in the the college jazz band, and then when I graduated from high school, I joined the army and I went through the Navy School of Music and graduated from that. I played trumpet and guitar in the army for three and a half years. The Michael Hingson  04:17 boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B Stephen Shaner  04:20 did a lot of funerals. Yes, I did. I was a bugler and got out of the army and didn't do much with music after that. But I I got a job at the mines, copper mines there in Arizona. Worked there two weeks and we had a cave in one night. And okay, that's the end of that. Were you out near Bisbee Michael Hingson  04:37 or where were you? Stephen Shaner  04:38 I was out near Superior. Michael Hingson  04:40 Superior. Okay. Yeah, Stephen Shaner  04:41 that that area. So then I became a full time firefighter EMT, and did that for a couple years. I left that job through something less stressful. I became an air traffic controller. Michael Hingson  04:53 Yeah, that was less stressful, right? Stephen Shaner  04:55 It was, yeah. Good job. So that was in San Diego, and did not like. The job and ended up going out to Florida, Daytona Beach, Florida, and it was in San Diego. I started picking up Magic a little bit, and went to Florida and went to Embry-Riddle Air Natical University for a year. Didn't care for that. I got hired by GE to do some computer type stuff and worked with them for a little bit. Then I was accepted to Magic College, and they only take so many students a year, and I was accepted. They were in Los Angeles, you know. So I went San Diego, Florida, then went back to L.A. I went to Magic College, spent some time Michael Hingson  05:31 at the Magic Castle, of course. I Stephen Shaner  05:32 worked the Magic Castle for a few years while I was out there, and just had a good time and left L.A. Went up to Washington State and got back into computers, and continued to do the magic, and then I ended up getting a job at the Nevada Tuss Site. So I worked there for five and a half years, along with Area 51, a little bit, and then. So, are there are Michael Hingson  05:52 there any aliens out there? No, Stephen Shaner  05:53 it's it's a great subterfuge, though. I know people think that's it. They don't know what's really going on out there. So, I was out at Michael Hingson  06:03 Roswell several years ago speaking somewhere, and it was fun to to make jokes about the the aliens. And I'm sure that they stored them out there somewhere. Stephen Shaner  06:12 Yeah. So, and then when I when that job, they stopped doing nuclear testing about three four months after I got there, and so my company went from a little over 10,000 employees, and over the next five and a half years, they were doing, you know, reduction in forces every six months, and we got down to about 1800. And I was like, you know, there's no future here. So we went to Minnesota, and I took a little time off, figure out what I wanted to do. When I grew up, at that point, I had I had two Oracle certifications, Oracle programming language, and so I got to Minneapolis then and got a job with the U.S. Postal Service as a contractor and helped them develop a national training database. And then I went to work for a healthcare company when that project was done, and I was with them for 20 years. Michael Hingson  06:58 Wow! Stephen Shaner  06:59 And they eventually moved me up to Duluth. They asked me to go relocate up there. They're going to open a new IT facility up in Duluth, Minnesota, and they asked me to consider relocating up there and managing this new facility. So did that, and I ran that place for about 14 years before I retired in 2019. Now I'm down here in Tennessee, speaking and doing magic, and I've got the podcast. I just published my third book and doing a lot of emergency communications on radio and that type of stuff and having a good time. Michael Hingson  07:27 I, when I was doing computer sales, especially the last few years, worked for Quantum Corporation, so we were the manufacturers of a lot of the digital linear tape technology and tape libraries and so on, and it was fascinating to to see all the things that the companies were doing. Wall Street used a lot of Sybase much more than Oracle, and I guess it all had to do with the fact that they were not formatted fields so much in Sybase. And I'm not quite sure what the advantage of that was, but people seemed to like Sybase at least for a while. Stephen Shaner  08:02 Yeah, I I knew some people that did both at at I don't remember what companies were at, but they were doing both Oracle and Sidebase, and there were some you know pros and cons for both. Michael Hingson  08:13 Yeah, is Sybase still around today? Stephen Shaner  08:16 That I don't know. Michael Hingson  08:17 Yeah, I don't either. I mean, Oracle certainly is, but yeah, Stephen Shaner  08:20 Oracle. It's been Michael Hingson  08:20 a long time since since I was involved with it all. It kind of really ended a few months after September 11th for me, so I've never really checked. I should go back and check and see if Sybase is around. I know it it was it would it would definitely be a problem for for blind people to do a lot with with Sybase when they were not formatted fields, but there are some technologies that even can handle that today, which which is kind of cool. Yes, but Oracle definitely certainly made life great for Larry Ellison anyway. Stephen Shaner  08:52 Yeah, it did. I met him. We were at a. It was a different company. It was a company that manufactured the computerized maintenance management software that we use at the Nevada test site. We was having a user group meeting in Dallas, and he came in during the last day and talked to us for a few minutes. It was when they were promoting Oracle Personal Seven, ah, and so he came in. So I did get to beat Larry Ellison. He's a he's a different guy. Michael Hingson  09:18 Well, that's cool. So so now today, what do you do exactly? Stephen Shaner  09:23 Well, along the way, along through all of those travels, I really became a people watcher. I just loved watching people and and how they acted, how they reacted, how they proacted, and the vocabulary they use, and just how they how they interacted with other people, I was fascinated by that, and that's how I kind of got caught up into this this attitude stuff, and learned quite a bit along the way just by watching people. I got involved in Toastmasters about 24 years ago, and kind of went up through the ranks there, and and was a what they every club is in an area. Are in a dis in a division. Every division is in a district, and the districts are pretty large. And the top three people in in the district are what they call the district trio. And I ended up serving in those three positions. First, I was the what they called the lieutenant governor of marketing. So I spent a year marketing Toastmasters. I created 16 clubs, new clubs for our district. Our district was most of Minnesota, North Central Ontario. It was big, and had over 5000 members, almost 300 clubs at that point. And then the next year, I was Lieutenant Governor of Education training, so I was working on you know training district leaders and club officers and those those programs. And then I was elected district governor. As district governor, I had 10 division governors, 58 area governors, and a leadership team of about 30. Did that for a year, and just loved it. What a great experience! And then I was immediate past district governor for a year, and then the board of directors, Toastmasters, appointed me to be a region advisor, and I did that for a year. And I had I had Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, part of Wyoming, part of Nebraska. I had Montana, I had Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Western Ontario. Michael Hingson  11:06 Wow! Stephen Shaner  11:07 Yeah, so and that was a fabulous experience. Yeah, then after that, done a lot of mentoring. Been mentored by a lot of people. I served as a past region advisor on the past region advisor council, where we looked at the past the Regent Advisor program, then I spent two years serving on the International Disciplinary Committee. So I've done done a lot of things in that organization, but my whole focus has been you know speaking on attitude and and those types of topics. I I do I have a real passion for helping people find their passions. Too often you know, ask somebody who are you, and they'll say things like, "Well, I'm a computer programmer. I'm a lawyer. No, that's what you do. Are you? And they don't know how to answer that question. Or, or you ask them, "What are you passionate about? And you get a blank stare. So, I I developed a program called Find Your Peace, which is your passion, your purpose, your potential, and your personal mission. And it's a month long, and it just takes these people through a exercise of self discovery, and they discover really who they are and why they do the things they do and think the way they think. And it's just it's really a lot of fun watching them go through that that transformation. Michael Hingson  12:10 Stephen Covey been a pretty significant influence for you. Stephen Shaner  12:14 I met him, and that that was yeah. I I was a facilitator of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits when I got to the healthcare company I worked, they that was a mandatory class for all new employees, and I had been using it for years before that, and had taught some of it to a few people here and there. Nothing formal, but after I took the class, they had they had six certified instructors there at the company, and the head guy came to me and he says, "You know this stuff better than we do. Would you be willing to help us teach this stuff? I said, "Sure. Shortly after that, four of the other instructors left the company, so it was him, me, and one other person. Then the other person left, so it was just him and me. And then he said, "I'm just too busy take it over. So, so I was running that program for a while until the company dropped it. But in I don't remember what year it was was when Stephen Covey released the Eighth Habit. He was doing a seminar in Minneapolis, and I and I went to that, and there was about 250 of us in attendance, and they brought in box lunches for us. And so I ate lunch, and I walked out to the lobby. This was at the Minneapolis Convention Center, and I walked out to the lobby, and was throwing my lunch stuff away, and I turned around and he was walking up. So I stuck my hand out and I shook his hand. I said, "Thank you. And he smiled. He says, "What are you thanking me for? I says, "Your seven habits have changed my life in so many ways. And I thought that would be the end of the conversation. It wasn't. He put his arm around me and he pulled me over to the corner, and he said, "Tell me your story. And so I told him, you know, about my life, pre-seven habits, and some things I've been doing since. Then he asked me a question I wasn't expecting. He says, "Which habit do you think is most important? I says, "Well, for me, habit one, be proactive. He said, "Really? Why one? I says, "Well, I think if you master habit one, you'll have huge successes with the other six habits. I says, and if you don't, you may have some successes, but nowhere near the level, you know, that you could. And he he smiled and he says, "You get it. Then he then he says, "What's your name? I says, "Stephen. He goes, "Oh, great name. But the the lesson for me was, if somebody like Stephen Covey can make me the most important person in his life for 10 minutes, you know, how should we be treating the people we that we interact with. Michael Hingson  14:23 Yeah, where does attitude come from? Stephen Shaner  14:25 You know, this is a this is this is a thing that when I when I talk about it, I get a lot of you know people looking at me like no, no, no. So, but here's here's here's the way we feel, and I felt this way for a long time too. It's okay. I'm this way because of my parents or because of my grandparents. Okay, I have a negative attitude because it's Monday, or because it's you know the sun isn't shining, or because so and so is in the White House, or whatever. So many people feel like attitude is placed upon us. I'm this way because of what's going on around me. When the fact is, attitude is a choice that we can make. And that's the whole habit. One be proactive, you know. He, Stephen Covey, teaches us that between stimulus and our response, there is a space, you know, where we can choose what our response is going to be, and we're the only animal that can do that. I mean, if I if I'm hiking through the woods and I accidentally walk between Mama Bear and her cub, she's not going to be proactive. She's she's going to react, and so so those those or she or Michael Hingson  15:25 you can say she's going to be proactive and get you out of the world. But yeah, I hear you. Maybe Stephen Shaner  15:29 yeah. So but and I was working for a guy when I when I first started looking at some of the stuff. I was working for a guy who took credit for everything I did, and he wasn't shy about it. We'd be sitting in a meeting, and I'd be sitting next to him. He'd go, "Yep, I did this, and I did this, and I did this, and I just sit there quietly. And one day, he, the whole day long, is over there typing on his computer. Finally, he's the printer, and he he comes over and he hands me. He had just he had just redone his resume, and he handed it to me. And I'm I'm looking at this, and I'm thinking, you know, I could put my name at the top of this resume. It would be perfect, and it got to the point. So you imagine the emotions. I mean, those negative emotions come in-the frustration, the anger, and those types of things. And I decided it was time to move on. But before I did, I took some time. I went out into the wilderness, and I took Seven Habits book. I took Tony Robbins' Awaken the giant within. I took my scriptures and I took my journal and I took some food and water and I just went out there and and so I'm reading Stephen Covey and he's telling me that if I'm having a bad day, it's because I decided to, not what I wanted to hear. Then I'm reading Tony Robbins and he's telling me frustration is a good thing and it's also not what I wanted to hear. But then as I read my scriptures and and was writing my journal, I kind of came back to this concept of being of service, and I came out of that weekend with a huge breakthrough. And it was like, so what? So what if he's taking credit for what I do? Is it my job to make him look good? You know. And so my attitude completely changed because I asked different questions, and I and I decided that, you know, I can have good attitude anyway. Went back to work. He continued to do that. Didn't matter. I I had a better attitude. I was more energetic. I had fun at the job, and it was because you know it was all on me. I had to make a decision and decide. So so I've learned, and I've helped a lot of other people realize that you know if you're having this, and Stephen was right, if you're having a bad day, it's because you decided to, and yeah, bad things do happen, okay, to us. But it's still, if we decide to be in a negative mood, that is because we decided to. I know people have gone through divorce, have been thrilled, you know, and it's just it's it's how you look at it. The questions you ask are so important. Michael Hingson  17:38 Well, I know everybody talks about September 11th. What a horrible time it was! How stressful it was, and so on. And yeah, it was a bad thing. On the other hand, as as I point out to people, people ask me all the time, "Well, you survived. What do you think about that? And I said, "Well, I know there were people who who did not, and I am I'm sad about that. But by the same token, the very fact that I survived really means what I need to do is decide how I'm going to live my life and what I'm going to do with that. And we were very blessed. I think almost immediately the media got a hold of of my story. That happened because we we started by talking with the person who was in charge of information at Guide Dogs for the Blind, where I've gotten all of my dogs, and she wanted to put out a story, and that got to the media, and I chose to start to answer questions that people wanted to ask from the media. What I learned was that was much more therapeutic than in going to any kind of counseling sessions would be because you never knew what they were going to ask. Some people asked really good questions. Some people asked really dumb questions. But the point is that that allowing myself to be subjected to all of that taught me how to how to think and deal with all of it. And and the reality is, what I learned was ultimately for me, it's what am I going to do with my life because I survived, and then phone calls started coming in from people saying we'd love to have you come and speak and talk to us about what we should learn from the World Trade Center, which over the years has evolved to a lot more than what happened on September 11th, but why I got to the World Trade Center in the first place, and the the lessons to be learned from all of that, and the bottom line is that that I learned, as as you pointed out, how much of it is really choice, and I could be negative about the World Trade Center or not. Certainly, it was a not a very very positive thing, but how I deal with it is really the issue as far as my personal life is concerned. Stephen Shaner  19:47 Yeah, you get it. That's that's exactly it. We have we have that opportunity to make that choice. I Michael Hingson  19:53 met someone who had a brother who was a police officer. And died at the World Trade Center. He was a fireman, and he switched and decided he wanted to become a police officer because he wanted to go kill terrorists and he wanted to capture them and put them in jail and maybe get a chance to kill them. That was his choice, and that always struck me as that's not going to help. On the other hand, I can certainly talk to to people here and anywhere about the World Trade Center and how we deal with our lives, and we can talk about God and where God is in all of it. People always ask me if you know if I think that God just really blew it that day, and and again, my my point is, why do you think that? You know, the reality is, everyone has a choice in the world that they can make at any given time, and and we need to make those choices, and we need to live by the choices that we make. Stephen Shaner  20:54 Yes, absolutely. And there's some other things we can do when we find ourselves in those negative places. Number one is ask different questions. Sometimes negative things happen, and we're asking the wrong questions. You know, why me? You know, those those types of questions. And guess what? We'll get the answers. So, and it seems a funny one. I had a when I was working up in Duluth. My my direct report manager was down in Minneapolis, so we were about 160 miles away, and every now and then my team would make a mistake of some kind, and there was a senior director down there that every time that happened, he would immediately go to my boss, you know, and and question this, and then I get pulled in later, and I just I would get so frustrated that he wouldn't come to me with this stuff, you know, and this went on for a long time, and one day we had we'd made a mistake, and so he sent an email to my boss. Look what they did this time. So my boss forwarded to me, and he just simply typed in Stephen question mark. You know, of course, as soon as I saw it, you know, I was like, I was so frustrated, and I kept asking, does he go to my boss? Why doesn't he come to me? Why did you know? And it was just these negative anger, frustration. And finally, I calmed down. I said, "Okay, why am I really upset here? Am I upset because my team made a mistake? No, they make mistakes. They're exceptional at fixing problems and making sure they don't happen again. That wasn't. Was I upset that my boss knew? No, I'd already told him, you know, he needed to know. Okay, so that wasn't it, and I kept coming back to this. Why does he go to him? Why did he come to me? And then finally, I changed a little bit, and I said, Why would he go to my boss? And I thought, I was, well, they've known each other for years, they have a relationship, they have trust, and I said, maybe he doesn't even know he can come to me. I was just thinking that. Stephen Shaner  22:42 Yeah, all of a sudden, I was like, "Okay, I'm in control again. So I called or I replied to the email. Here's what happened. Here's what we've done to fix it. It won't happen again. And I said, "If anything like this happens in the future, please let me know. Okay. I set that off. I then called this this gentleman and I and I set up a one-on-one with him that we could meet every two weeks, and I could start building that relationship with him, build the trust. And after a while, he didn't go to my boss anymore. He came to me. But by changing the questions, Michael Hingson  23:10 yeah, Stephen Shaner  23:10 you know, we'll get different answers. If Speaker 1  23:16 you enjoy Unstoppable Mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week. We've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Stephen Shaner  23:48 Well, and and then there's you know the vocabulary we're using too. Michael Hingson  23:52 I was Stephen Shaner  23:52 sitting at a Toastmasters conference one night, Friday night dinner, the round table. There's I think eight of us at the table. So it was me, my wife Nancy was next to me, and my former boss was next to her. He he and I joined Toastmasters at the same time, and and this was right when I was getting ready to become the district governor. And I and I looked over at at my former boss. I says, "Are you going to be an area governor next year? And him being him and his sense of hearing, he says, "Well, why would I want to do that? So I replied, "It's the best job in the district. You get to visit clubs, you get to give presentations, you get to organize speech contests. It's a lot of fun. And at the same time, then a lady across the table I just met, she she piped up. She says, "Well, a lady in my club is an area governor, and she hates it. And I said, "Really? Why? She says, "Well, she has to go visit clubs, and she has to organize speech contests, and she has to give presentations. And you see the difference. I was saying you get to do these things. She was saying you have to have to do these things. Yeah. How do you feel when you have to do something? You know, versus get to, and we can change our vocabulary just that simple, and it it makes a. Huge difference. If I say, "Oh, this is devastating, what am I going to experience? Devastation, whatever that means to me, you know. And I used the words like that. There's something bad happening. I'd use those negative words, and now I've just I've switched it up. So something like that happens. I just I just go, okay, this is entertaining because that changes me instantly because being entertained is a completely different experience than being devastated. Okay, so I can look at whatever is going on completely differently from an entertaining standpoint, and it takes me in a completely different direction. So vocabulary is huge. The the words we use, and I and I always tell people: take if you're in a negative place, what do you what are you watching? What are you listening to? What are you reading? You know what were you with? You know, take a look at those things. For years, I would watch the news programs on Sunday, you know, and I just scream at the TV. And I haven't watched news on on television now probably in going on 20 years. You know, I don't need that because most of it is negative, you know. And I can get my news into, you know, as much as I need where I want to get it from, and and do it that way. So I watch Michael Hingson  26:11 I watch the news, but I also recognize something, and you're you're alluding to it certainly, which is it's it's all about how you choose to deal with what you see. When I was running from the collapse of Tower Two, the first thing I thought of when I started to run was God, I can't believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And as soon as I thought that, I heard a voice in my head as clearly as you hear me that said, don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And I also had this absolute perfect sense of conviction that if I and my guide dog Roselle worked together, we would be fine. And I have lived by that concept for now the last 24 and a half years, which really is one of things happen. There are a lot of things that we don't have control over. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't necessarily be aware of them, but it does mean that we don't need to let those things be things that we worry about because we're not going to have any control over them anyway. And that's 90 to 95% of what comes across in our lives, so it's it's for me. I don't mind watching the news. I I expect not very much from all of it, and I know they're going to come through every time. So it works out really well. But but the fact is that it's one of the ways that I have to get the news since I don't read newspapers directly. I can read. I can get the L.A. or the New York Times online, but still the news is is there, and I'll take what I can learn from it and move forward. But it is it gets back to again. It's a choice, right? Stephen Shaner  27:53 Yes. And you just you just nailed habit one. Be proactive. Yeah. There's a lot of things going on in the world. Okay. All the things of all the things we want in the world, some things we don't care about. Okay, but there are some things that concern us. Okay, so we we we pay more attention to those. There are a lot of things out there. They have no concern about that. And then inside all those things that concern us, there are things that we can influence and things that we can't. Okay, so proactive people focus on the things they can influence, the things they can control primarily themselves, okay, right? And yeah, reactive people. Where do they focus? They focus on the things they have no influence over, and they yell and scream and gripe and and do all those things like I used to do, and and that's the difference. That's really habit one in the nutshell. Yeah, focus on the things you control, and I and I work with people all the time, and I had one here recently. The guy was very frustrated about some things other people were doing, and and was just you know upset and frustrated. And I said, "Look, I says you have no control over those people. Don't worry about them. Focus on the wonderful things that you do every day for people, you know. And immediately his demeanor changed, his attitude changed, and and it really can be that simple, you know, just by changing, you know, asking different questions, using different vocabulary, and and especially if you focus on the things you can control, primarily yourself, it's huge. Michael Hingson  29:13 Yeah. Well, and and the reality is that just so many people just seem to enjoy worrying about all these things, and all they're doing is creating fear in their lives, which is which is so unfortunate, and we fear so many things, and and there's nothing that we're going to be able to do about most all of them because they're not really affecting us, or are touching us in any way. So it doesn't do us any good to to go off and continue to fret, but we do, and we we need to learn not to do that. And it's one of the the things I talk about in my my latest book, "Live Like a Guide Dog, which is all about learning lessons from dogs. You know, dogs don't do what ifs when something happens and it's over. It's over for the dog. They don't they don't go back. Well, what if. This had happened instead. They don't do that, and and it makes such a big difference. There's so much we could learn from observing our dogs. I don't know about cats. No, I do. Cats are good too, but but you know we we can learn so much from the way dogs behave. Dogs are are open to trust. I'm not going to say they're trusting all the time. I do think that dogs love unconditionally, but I don't think that they necessarily trust unconditionally. But they're open to trust, and that's the thing that we have forgotten how to do: is to be open to trust. Stephen Shaner  30:33 Very true, very true. Michael Hingson  30:35 And it is something that we really need to learn to deal with it, and hopefully, over time we will we will do more to catch on. I mean we've got all the stuff going on with politics today, and yeah, it doesn't matter what side of the the spectrum that you're on with with all of that. The bottom line is deal with what you can control, and don't worry about the rest. It makes such a big difference. So the problem is negativity is so much all around us. How do we get ourselves out of a negative mood? I think I kind of know where you're going to go with this, but I think it's a relevant question. How do we how do we get ourselves out of feeling negative all the time? Stephen Shaner  31:15 Touch on some of them. You know, change your vocabulary. You know, take a look at what's going on around you. See if you can eliminate what's causing that negativity, gratitude is huge. Michael Hingson  31:24 Yeah, Stephen Shaner  31:25 and in any given situation, there have been times when I've you know been okay, I've been down or there. But if I just take a breath and say, okay, what am I grateful for right now? You know that that can turn you around instantly. And in my workshops, I'll I'll ask that question. We'll go around the room, and people say, "Well, I'm grateful for you know my health, or my family, or my wife, or my creator, or whatever it may be. There's all these different things, but I take it a step further, and I say, "Okay, all of those things that you said you're grateful for have a relationship associated with it. Okay, so if you say you're you're grateful for your health, well, that's a relationship with yourself, perhaps your doctor, perhaps your creator. If you're grateful for your family, that's a relationship. Your employees, there's these relationships behind that. And then the next question I ask: Okay, so all those things that you're grateful for, all those relationships you're grateful for, do they know? And we miss that part sometimes. We miss Michael Hingson  32:19 that part. Stephen Shaner  32:19 Yeah, and if we if we are truly grateful for a certain thing in our life, and there's that relationship with it, let that person know, and that includes you know being grateful for yourself. You know, give yourself a pat on the back from time to time, and be grateful for that. In my book, I have the line, you know, every day above ground is a great day. Yeah, and and I was at a seminar, and there was a the guy in attendance that was you know three piece suit, Italian suit, you know the fancy shoes, and and the seminar leader asked him. He says, you know, do you consider yourself to be successful? He says, well, no. He says, well, how do you know when you're successful? The guy says, well, when I have a you know four and a half million dollar home and a and you know a $200,000 car and and all this stuff he listed off he says well how much or and he made and he he wanted to make an income of you know it was like you know 5 million a year or something he says well how much you make now he says well I'm at about 3 million a year you know and how much is your house well it's only about 2 million you know but he didn't consider himself successful and then there was another guy there in jeans, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and and the the some earlier asked him. He says, "Are you successful? He says, "Absolutely. And he asked him. He says, "How do you know you're successful? He says, "Every day above ground is a great day. And there you Michael Hingson  33:33 go. Stephen Shaner  33:33 And it's just and it's so true. But gratitude is huge. Just taking, like I said, take a step back, take a breath, and okay, what am I grateful for right now? And you can always be grateful for something, and that can change your attitude instantly. Michael Hingson  33:48 Well, and I think there's a lot of merit to that. I know for me, I'm grateful because I get to do what I think I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to be a teacher. I didn't get to teach for the longest time directly, but since September 11th, that's really what I do. I teach about life and philosophy. I get to teach about disabilities and help try to educate people. And most of the time, I think it probably goes over most people's heads. But every so often, you just never know when you might strike a nerve or you might say something that somebody just goes off and thinks about, and you've you've scored points and you've helped, and so I think that's that's extremely important. I I hear what you're saying. Every day above ground is a is a good day. There's no question about that. Stephen Shaner  34:32 And I don't want to make light of people that you know life through any illnesses and stuff like that. But again, in those situations, Michael Hingson  34:38 if Stephen Shaner  34:38 you if you think about what you are grateful for and have a positive attitude, you'll get through those situations a lot easier. That's for sure. Michael Hingson  34:46 I had a situation last year. Actually, it started in 2023, but I had a a or 2024. I had a a pain in my left arm, and it turns out when we finally. Dealt with it, and and and I had to take some blood tests, and discovered that we had a very elevated heart enzyme called troponin. I had a bad heart valve, and I knew immediately I have two ways to deal with this. I can be scared, fretful, why me? Or I can say, okay, we're going to fix it. And for me personally, I choose the positive way. I'm going to we're going to deal with it and all that. And and we did. I went into the the hospital for an operation to to replace the valve, which they did, And so this operation was supposed to take like two hours or two and a half hours, and it actually only took about an hour for me because, as I love to tell people, I have good veins and good arteries, so no problem. So they they went in, they replaced the the valve, and I wake up and I've had colonoscopies before, so I had some experience with this. I wake up, I'm listening to them, and so I I figure I had to to deal with these guys a little bit. So I started kind of moaning, and I said, "Gee, Doc, do you ever think I'll be able to play the violin? Unfortunately, somebody knew that one, and they said, "Probably. I said that's good because I never play it before. But but then I said, but you know what the doctor said is he sewed himself up, right? Suit yourself, and and you know they said you came right out of that anesthetic, didn't you? And I said, yeah, I told you I was going to come right out of it. But but you know it's been great ever since the valve got replaced, and and I was told that if I hadn't done it, I would have lived anywhere from six months to at most two years. But the valve was replaced, and I still get to to be around my guide dog Alamo and and my cat Stitch. So you know, Stephen Shaner  36:54 yeah, my wife Nancy here is a little over a year ago now. She had an episode where her her blood pressure was going up, but then it would come back down. So we're about there. There's a hospital about a half hour from us, but they don't have all the the fancy facilities and stuff. the The nearest big hospital is is about an hour from here. So I called the paramedics, and they came in and they got her hooked up the KG and were kind of monitoring everything. He says we're going to take her down to Cookville because they've got a good cardiology cardiology department at that hospital where they don't have one here locally. So halfway there, her blood pressure just dropped, and she went unconscious. Michael Hingson  37:40 So Stephen Shaner  37:41 they got her stable license, sirens rest the way in. So she was in that hospital for four days, had every heart test known to man, and you know I would go visit her and and spend a little time with her. And one of the visits, one of the nurses cornered me in the hallway, and she says, "Can I ask you a question? I said, "Sure. She says, "How can you be so positive during all this? And Alex Troy says, "Okay. I says, "Suppose I was very negative and very grumpy about all this. How would that help the situation, right? And I says, "Or if I was grumpy and in a negative mood, how would that help Nancy? And she just said, "You know, I never thought about it that way. And when they were checking her out, the the doctors and all the nurses came in and thanked both of us for for being so positive and friendly and nice with everything that was going on. So little things. And what did they finally decide? Nothing was wrong with her heart. So she has since now this year she had some more heart problems. She started having AFib issues, so they put a watchman in, and that kind of you know plugged that hole in the left ventricle so that she won't get the blood clots. So she doesn't have to be in a blood thinner. And about six days after that, her heart was kind of not working so well with it, so they put a pacemaker in. So she had two heart surgeries in about six days. But now, sounds like what what's going on is all of these problems are being caused by the COVID shots. Ah, and so because her heart was fine, you know, before, but now all of a sudden she's got these. But right now she's doing great. In fact, she had an appointment last two weeks ago, right before the ice storm, and the Cardia says everything's looking good. We'll see you in a year, so so things are going well now. Michael Hingson  39:32 Interesting. Well, you know, I've I've heard that some people have had reactions to the COVID shots, son, but I've never bought into the concept that they're just injecting you with a bunch of trackers to follow you wherever you go. I remember the first few times we had vaccinations, they did it in our in our cars, and so we drove up, and they would come out and they gave injections, and after they gave the injections, I'd reach over with my left hand. I go wait a minute, and I'd hit my right shoulder where they did the injection. I said I was just getting one of them little things that tried to get away, and you know, and the and the nurses finally say, "You don't really believe in those trackers, do you? And I said, "Heck no, I'm having too much fun, you know. Stephen Shaner  40:15 No, it's a Frank Stein monster you stuck in there that scares me. That's right. Yeah, Michael Hingson  40:20 but but you know, and you know, I I I do get vaccinations. I get the COVID vaccinations, and I asked someone when I I think it was November that we went in and had one. I travel enough that I'm always going to take no chances, so it's better to get vaccinated, and I don't have any reactions to them. But I asked if people still come in and talk about the trackers and all the the horrible things, and she said, "You just wouldn't believe how many people still buy into that. It's crazy. Stephen Shaner  40:49 Yes, indeed. Michael Hingson  40:50 If you really want to scare them, then you can tell them that AI helped develop the vaccinations and see what they do with that because it's true. But yeah, I Stephen Shaner  40:58 know everybody's loving AI. I said, yeah. Just go back on what 2001 of Space Odyssey and see how you feel about it. Yeah, right. Michael Hingson  41:05 Open the Pod Bay doors, Dave. You know what are you doing, Dave? Oh gosh, people are amazing, aren't they? Stephen Shaner  41:13 Yep. Yes, they are. But that's what makes life fun. You know, it's just the fact that people are different. It makes life fun because if everybody was the same, it'd be a boring place. It Michael Hingson  41:23 would be a boring place, so it's more fun to have people who are different and people who are not necessarily thinking the same way you are and intend to be negative. And maybe sometimes you can change some of those people, which is good. And it's always fun to to try. That's the Stephen Shaner  41:38 goal. Yeah, that's the goal. You know, be an example and show there's a different way. Michael Hingson  41:42 So, do questions matter? Asking questions matter. Stephen Shaner  41:44 Absolutely. Like I shared, you know, with the questions I was asking about this this this manager that was going to my boss, you know, just by asking different questions. And another thing is is I've had a lot of fun with this word, awesome. My company is awesome attitude, and I'm the bottom of all my emails, you'll see a "You are awesome, and I type that in every time. Michael Hingson  42:07 It's Stephen Shaner  42:07 not part of my signature, so I might say, "You know, thanks, you are awesome, or you know, you know, whatever message. I've gotten Michael Hingson  42:12 those. Stephen Shaner  42:13 Yeah, you are awesome, and people don't realize I type. In fact, I misspelled "awesome" one time when I sent the email, and the guy, the guy wrote back says you need to fix your signature. Awesome is misspelled, and I replied, "Oh, I says that's not part of my signature. I typed there time. And he was like, "Wow, personalized awesome messages. But it's amazing because people will respond to those emails, go, "Well, thank you so much. I wasn't expecting that. And barely a week goes by where somebody doesn't send me a text or something that they saw the word "awesome" somewhere, like recently, the guy was walking his dog, and he came across on the sidewalk where kids with chalk had had written "You are awesome" on the sidewalk, and he took a picture and he said, "Thought of you, and this happens all the time, and is another one of those vocabulary things, and and I'll share how the question changed that. In my first book, I talk about you know how are you today, and you think about all the different responses you can get to that question, and some are like I'm fine, you know I'm or I'm good. They're just pretty routine answers. I had one guy ignore me completely, just walked past me, you know. Then I had a guy one time. I was like, "Well, I'm alive, you know. So you get this variety of answers. And I had a guy one time. He asked me, "How are you today? And I said, "I'm awesome, thanks. And I kid you not, he looked at me and says, "That's too bad. I'm sorry to hear that. And and I smiled, and and he realized what he had done, and he says, and he apologized again. I was not sorry. He says, "I'm so used to hearing negative responses. I automatically assumed you said awful. Michael Hingson  43:47 Oh, okay. So, Stephen Shaner  43:48 so, and again, we asked that same question over and over. How are you today in this video? How are you? How's it going? What's up? You know, what's new? We we asked that same question. So I changed the question. The question is, "Are you awesome today? Michael Hingson  44:05 I know, and that's oh yeah, Stephen Shaner  44:07 that's it's unexpected. People don't expect that, and they think, "Oh, you know, yeah, I am awesome. That's the the title of my podcast: "Are you awesome today? And when I answer the phone, you know, it's, "Are you awesome today? Or if I call somebody and they answer the phone, I'll say, "Are you awesome today? And it's completely different. It gets them thinking differently, and it gets them. Yeah, I am awesome today. You know. So rather than the the same old, how are you today? I'm fine. It's yeah, I'm awesome. Thanks for asking. You know. So questions do matter. Michael Hingson  44:35 When people ask me how I am, I just say I'm lovely, and I learned that from a friend, and I love it. It's great, you know. And and I've had some people who go, "What? But but you know, awesome. Yes, absolutely. But I do love to say I'm lovely, and I love Stephen Shaner  44:52 that. And it's different. People don't expect it, and no, it'll make their day. Believe it. It has an effect. Had a young lady on ham radio, teenager. And I'd always, whenever I talked to her on the radio, they said, "How are you today? Or this was, you know, this back when I was asking that question, and she would reply, "Dandy, thanks. You know, there you go. Yeah, and it was just, it was so much fun. It was like that's the kind of things we like to hear. Michael Hingson  45:14 You still a ham operator? Stephen Shaner  45:15 Oh yeah, yeah. I've I'm the emergency coordinator for Macon County, and I'm the district emergency coordinator for 13 counties here in Middle Tennessee for Aries Amateur Emergency Services, and president of our local club, and so very active. I just did some some Poda before I got on on here with you. Parks on the air got three contacts: a guy at Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Michigan. Michael Hingson  45:39 If I got industrious, I would get an antenna and connect my Kenwood back up. It's been a while since we moved down here, and I haven't had this running at all down here. And I really need to get it get it back up on the air. I've been a ham operator since 1964. I got my novice license in '64. My dad could have gotten his at any time. He wanted to wait until I could get mine, so we got them at the same time. Nice. And then in '65, got technician, and then soon after that, general class. Nice. And we we set up rigs at opposite ends of the house, and we would talk to each other and drive people around the whole town crazy because we would be talking about the weather. You know, I'd say, "How's the weather over there? And he'd say, "Oh, it's raining over here, and people knew that we were at opposite ends of the same house. I say, well, it's really nice and sunny here, and just drove people crazy. Stephen Shaner  46:27 I bet, but yeah, Nancy's got her. She's a she's an extra amateur extra, and we've got our VE credential, so we give the tests, and we just have a blast with the hobby. It's a fun hobby, and then when you can do the committee service too, it's it's great. Michael Hingson  46:39 I used to do things with races and also with Mars. Stephen Shaner  46:42 Yeah, Michael Hingson  46:43 and it's been a while, but I really need to get the antenna up and get an antenna in here and get back on the air. I think it'd be a lot of fun to do. Stephen Shaner  46:53 Contact a local club. I'm sure some people help you get that. Yeah, Michael Hingson  46:55 I just really need to do that. Yeah. So, how does energy affect attitude, and how do I get more energy? Stephen Shaner  47:02 Ah, boy, you know that's such a great question. That's a that's Michael Hingson  47:05 a that's a detailed one, isn't Stephen Shaner  47:07 it? It is, and I awesome Michael Hingson  47:09 question. It Stephen Shaner  47:10 is. I watch people; those people that are positive all the time. You you know, we meet them. They're just no matter what's going on, they're always positive. They always seem to have a lot of energy, and and I found that if we we want more energy, what we need to do is give energy. What I mean by that is is movement. Okay, if we find ourselves kind of low on energy, the battery is a little low. Just get up and move. And it doesn't have to be anything, you know, strenuous. Just in my office, I had a sit stand station, which meant I could take my whole computer and to monitor everything, raise them up. I could stand for you know, and I would stand for hours during the day. They gave me energy. Take a five minute walk, you know. And music is huge. If you know, play some music, dance in your cube. You know, sell tickets, have a little concert in your cube, fight your coworkers, and have a good time. But but just get up, move. That's really all it is. I get up at four a.m. every day, and I do an exercise program called the Five Tibetans, and then I do Tai Chi, and then you know read or work on the computer, whatever, and do until Nancy gets up around seven. And but that those two things give me energy throughout the day. And if I find myself in a slump, just getting up and taking a short walk will boost my energy level up Michael Hingson  48:18 every time. Stephen Shaner  48:20 Yeah. So I Michael Hingson  48:21 we didn't design our house this way, but we have a long island, but separating the family room living room area from the kitchen. And now, since it's just me, I will do I will put an audio book on and just do laps around the island, and I can get up to 15,000 steps without any great difficulty, just reading a book and and doing it, and it's a great way to get energy. And to I Stephen Shaner  48:45 bought Nancy a walk pad. These are these are fairly new. It's like a little miniature treadmill. There doesn't have the big handle thing sticking up. It's just a flat treadmill for walking. They're designed so you can like sit it under your desk and you can you know take some steps while you're at your computer or something. Yeah. But but because it's you know a little rough for her. It's pretty hilly out here to to get us up. So she's got a nice level place that she can just you know walk for 2030 minutes every day in the house. Where especially when it was our ice storm going on a couple weeks ago, you know, stay in and stay warm and not slip and fall. And but there's there's ways to do that. And like I said, even just standing up, I did a presentation at the local chamber of commerce this morning, and when I was in my presentation, rather than go back and sit down, I went to the back and stood the whole time. And at church on Sunday, I stand through the entire service in the back and just keeps my energy up. So Michael Hingson  49:36 I don't always do that, but I oftentimes stand, and I've been to to many meetings, and I'll just stand in the back of the room. And frankly, given some of the speakers, it's better to stand and get a little bit more energy. But but a lot of times, it's just good for me anyway to to do that, which is cool. Stephen Shaner  49:54 Yeah. Michael Hingson  49:56 So, do you think? People generally tend to truly understand gratitude, or is that still a hurdle that a lot of people need to work to get through? Stephen Shaner  50:09 I think they, like I said, I think they say the word, you know, and I say, you know, I'm grateful for this. But what does that mean exactly? I don't think they take it down to the the detail. Okay, and like I said that there's relationships there. So if I say you know I'm grateful for my health, what does that mean? Okay, well you know I'm I'm grateful that and and I come from a every male on my dad's side and every male on my mom's side has had heart disease, died of heart disease. My dad had his first bypass surgery at 48. He had a second. He died of a heart attack. You know so I'm 67 and I take no medications. Okay, so I'm grateful for my health. You know, so and the relationship there, me, my family is affected by my health. You know, my friends, my coworker, everybody that is is in my life is affected by my health. I'm grateful for. I don't go to the doctors very often because I don't need to, but I'm grateful that you know you had a heart valve problem, and our medical system for those types of things is second to none. Michael Hingson  51:11 Yeah, Stephen Shaner  51:12 you know. So and even though I'm an hour away from a big hospital, I'm grateful that that is there if I do need it in in some way. You know, exactly, exactly right. Michael Hingson  51:21 Same thing for me. Stephen Shaner  51:23 Yeah. So we don't. I don't think we say, "Yeah, I'm grateful for that. But what does that really mean? And I think you're right. We don't. We don't take it deep enough and really think about. Okay, what does this really mean? And and again, with those relationships, okay, I'm grateful for my wife. Does she know? I hope so. You know, because I I do tell her frequently. I say Michael Hingson  51:42 telling her helps. Stephen Shaner  51:43 Yeah, it does. It really really does. So, Michael Hingson  51:48 and likewise, I'll bet she's grateful for you. Stephen Shaner  51:51 I think so. I hope so. So we've been we've been married. It'll be 45 years in July. So Michael Hingson  51:56 we were married 40 years before Karen passed. Karen was in a wheelchair her whole life, and the body just eventually slows down. I I learned from her sister that I've I've never heard this from my wife, but her sister told me, oh, they never thought she was going to live live past 30. Well, she lived to be 73, and the reality is, I I'm not sure. I totally buy that that that what her sister said was true because I've never been able to to verify it anywhere else. But Karen Karen lived a good life, but as I said, the body eventually does slow down, especially dealing with a wheelchair and all that, and things happen. But I know that we have 40 years of wonderful marriage memories, and as I said, she's out there monitoring. And if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it. So I don't even chase the girls. Stephen Shaner  52:48 Yeah, I would Michael Hingson  52:49 point out they don't seem to be chasing me either. No, no reference to anything on the podcast, folks. Just saying. So, Stephen Shaner  52:56 and I think attitude plays a huge role in your health too. And I know there's a lot of literature out there that would back that up. Michael Hingson  53:04 So clearly, a positive attitude is a wonderful thing, and I'm sure that that given all that you do with a positive attitude, you you by definition affect a lot of other people as well. Stephen Shaner  53:16 It's it's amazing how many people just make comments. You know, comment I'll make. Oh, I wasn't expecting that. Thank you so much, or anything like that. I was in a, I was out running errands one day for work at lunchtime, and as I was heading back to the office, I got rear-ended, and pretty substantially. And so I got to the side of the road and and kind of shut everything off. I took inventory. I was okay, but those negative emotions, you know, the frustration, the anger, and those things started to creep in, and I finally just I took a breath and I said, and I asked a question. The question

[34:30] The 2026 Toastmasters International Convention brought 1,137 attendees, including 392 first-timers, to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in August for four days of learning, inspiration and connection under the theme Wide Open Communication.For this special episode, we're doing things a little differently. Greg is joined by fellow podcaster and 12-year Toastmaster Michael Dugan of Seattle, Washington, who travelled to Vancouver for his first International Convention. Together, they look back at some of the people, learning and memorable moments from Vancouver, with Michael adding the perspective of experiencing it all for the first time.Their conversation touches on the energy of the opening ceremonies, Jody Carrington's keynote, educational sessions, the World Championship of Public Speaking, Golden Gavel recipient Jennifer Moss, the convention sing-along, some of the things you may have missed, and much, much more. Along the way, Greg and Michael share their own takes on what stood out, what they learned, and a few of the unexpected moments that made the Vancouver experience memorable.Of course, listening isn't quite the same as being there. But if something catches your interest, many of the convention sessions are still available to watch on demand.But that's only Part 1.In Episode #308, Vancouver 2026: Let's Hear From International Convention Attendees our bonus companion episode, we're turning the microphone over to the attendees themselves. Greg and Michael spoke with Toastmasters from around the world in Vancouver, including many first-timers, to find out what brought them to convention, what stood out, who inspired them, and what they'll take home from the experience.Special thanks to Michael Dugan, who was instrumental in helping make our two-part convention coverage possible. In addition to sharing his first-timer perspective, Michael shared the interviewing duties with Greg and provided a huge assist during the editing process. Michael is the host and producer of the Voice4Chefs podcast, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.Other Resources MentionedArticle: Communicators Connect at Convention 2026, Toastmaster magazine recap, SEP 20262026 International Convention / On Demand Club Resuscitation Please – Kathy Draper, 26-page convention handout Previous TMP interviews we promised to linkJoel Schwartzberg — #298: Spotting & Resolving Generative AI Pitfalls for CommunicatorsStefano McGhee — #306: Doesn't Sit Still - Introducing 2026-27 International President Stefano McGhee, DTM.Morag Mathieson — #270: Celebrating Women in Leadership and Toastmasters' Impact. Also links back to her original #236 International President interview.Aletta Rochat — #282: Inviting Opportunity: Meet 2025-2026 International President Aletta Rochat, DTMLuisa Montalvo — #260: Luisa Montalvo — 2024 World Champion of Public SpeakingJennifer Moss — #299: Championing Workplace Well-Being: Meet the 2026 Golden Gavel RecipientBlake Carver & Bambi Cash — #278: How to Take Great Photos: The Do's, Don'ts & TipsCarole Murphy and Tom Jones #301: Meet the 2026 Int'l Convention, Vancouver Canada Co-Chairs – Carole Murphy & Tom JonesPhoto: Past Int'l President, Deepak Menon, Michael Dugan & Greg Gazin

[39:18] Forty plus Voices from around the world. And one question at the heart of it all: What was it like to experience the 2026 Toastmasters International Convention in Vancouver, Canada? In this bonus episode and Part 2 of our convention coverage, Toastmasters Podcast host Greg and fellow podcaster & Toastmaster Michael Dugan turn the microphone over to the people who were there, including many experiencing their first International Convention.You'll hear attendees share...· What brought them to Vancouver and what surprised them once they arrived.· Their takeaways from the educational sessions and World Championship of Public Speaking.· The people and moments that inspired them.· What first-time attendees thought of the convention experience.· Why meeting friends, mentors and Toastmasters from around the world meant so much.· What they hope to take back to their clubs, districts and communities.Through all those different voices and experiences, one theme comes through again and again: Connection. Sometimes the most memorable convention moment wasn't a presentation at all. It was simply meeting another person.If you haven't already, we recommend listening first to Episode #307: Vancouver 2026: Our Highlights & Takeaways From the International Convention for Greg and Michael's highlights and takeaways from Vancouver.

Rik and Carol continue their talk about Chief Judging within Toastmasters and what they are responsible for.

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Most people who challenge a superior's decision get it wrong. They oppose. Nita Patel, VP of Engineering at Otis, says the people who have changed her mind did something else: they stayed curious. They asked what happens after step two. They wanted to understand rather than object. By the end of the conversation she is the one asking them what they think, without realizing she was challenged at all. That works because of the larger skill underneath it. Nita calls herself a translator, estimating 30 to 40% of her time goes to it: working out why a meeting matters, what the goal is, and which pieces of information will get someone there. The translation changes depending on whom you're speaking to. What she presents to a CEO is different from what she presents to the team building it or to a cross-functional peer. She splits translation in two. Translating an idea to stakeholders means finding the intent and explaining it separately to each group that has to buy-in. Translating an idea into action means breaking the problem down and moving forward before the full plan is in place. She used both to launch the first IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference, arguing that sometimes you take the leap and build the wings on the way down. She also names the Toastmasters feedback that changed her most: that she assumes too much and jumps straight to the answer. And she explains why technical leaders labeled direct or difficult are usually being read as too focused on the detail.   If you have ever had a good idea die on the way up, this episode is about the trip. 00:00 Meet Nita Patel, VP of Engineering at Otis 01:17 What Chess Teaches About Anticipating the Other Side 02:11 Know the Rules So the Unexpected Move Does Not Derail You 02:58 How to Make a Fair Call When the Rulebook Runs Out 03:56 Where Confidence Comes From in a Gray-Area Decision 04:35 Rules, Experience, Fallbacks: The Three Sources of Confidence 06:15 When Following the Process Costs You the Objective 07:30 Why the Analytically Best Move Is Not Always the Right One 09:02 How to Translate an Idea So Each Stakeholder Cares 10:25 Breaking a Big Idea Down So Others Can Act on It 10:47 Pitch Before It Is Perfect: Build the Wings on the Way Down 13:09 Hold the Why, Stay Flexible on the How 14:03 How to Challenge Your Boss Without It Feeling Like a Challenge 16:39 The Questions That Actually Change a Leader's Mind 19:39 Why "Too Direct" Usually Means "Too Detailed" 22:13 Find the Real Problem Before You Solve the Wrong One 25:56 The Feedback That Changed How She Briefs Executives 30:57 Why 30 to 40% of a VP's Week Goes to Translation 32:13 Nita's Closing Advice: Everyone Has Influence to Use

In this episode of The Effortless Attraction Podcast, I'm joined by the remarkable James Finnegan , a husband, father, grandfather, storyteller, performer, speaker and man who has lived a truly extraordinary life.James grew up in London above the pub his Irish parents owned, describing it as his “university of life”. Eventually, love brought him back to Ireland, where he has spent years giving his time and energy to charities, including DEBRA Ireland and Tralee Irish Soup Kitchen. His journey has also taken him into the worlds of UEFA and FIFA, Toastmasters — where he is currently Uk and Ireland (District 71 ) Toastmaster of the Year. He is also the Co-Curator of TEDxTralee.But James's greatest story is perhaps the one he is living right now.After years of physical challenges, including a ruptured Achilles tendon, multiple operations and embolisms affecting his heart and lungs, James began experiencing multiple mini-strokes in 2024. In 2025, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.Yet his response is powerful:“I have Parkinson's. Parkinson's doesn't have me.”James refuses to allow a diagnosis to define who he is or what he can still achieve. After his diagnosis, he completed an abseil from Croke Park and has walked for 1,000 days to raise money for charity from January 2021 to 2023.This is a conversation about resilience, courage, purpose, giving back and choosing how we respond when life changes in ways we never expected.James will also be speaking at TEDxBangor in County Down this year.Connect with James:Facebook: James FinneganInstagram: James Finnegan TraleeTEDxBangor tickets:www.tedxbangor.comAnd from me, Evelyn, a heartfelt thank you to every single person who listens, shares and supports The Effortless Attraction Podcast. At the release of this episode, we have just celebrated three years of the podcast, and I am incredibly grateful to all of my paid subscribers whose support helps this channel continue.If you would like to become a paid subscriber, simply follow the link and join us, your support really does make a difference. Https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/evelynmcaleer/subscribeTo find out more about me, my speaking events, retreats and mentoring, visit:www.evelynmcaleer.com

If the thought of speaking in public makes you nervous, or you'd simply like to become a more confident communicator, Ennis Toastmasters could be worth a look.  The club is about to begin its 53rd season, with the first meeting taking place next Tuesday evening (September 8th, at 7.30pm) in the Maria Assumpta Parish Hall on Station Road. There's a new meeting time this season, but the same welcoming venue.  Joining Alan Morrissey to tell us more about Toastmasters, what happens at the meetings and how people can get involved were Club President Bríd Brady and Vice President of Public Relations, Declan Joyce. Photo (c) Clare FM

Behind every credible award entry and engaging acceptance speech is someone who has learned how to communicate with impact. In this episode, Helen von Dadelszen shows us how. Helen is founder of Present Potential and author of 'Courageous Action', the ideal book for helping people communicate more confidently. She tells Debbie why nerves are normal, sharing practical tips on reading the brief carefully, respecting time limits, and bringing genuine personality rather than a rehearsed script. Additionally, she discusses the growing use of video entries, how to make a pitch memorable within a strict time limit, and the breathing and grounding techniques that help manage nerves. Helen and Debbie also compare approaches to acceptance speeches, and why fear of public speaking should never stop someone entering an award. Her tips could be the catalyst for entering your business into awards. Don't miss it! About Helen Helen von Dadelszen helps smart, thoughtful professionals turn their ideas into clear, confident and impactful communication. She believes confidence is built through action, and that everyone has a unique communication style that can be strengthened and shared. As founder of Present Potential Sàrl, Helen provides practical training and coaching in public speaking, presentation skills, vocal presence and confident communication, working across technical, scientific, academic and humanitarian fields. She is also the author of 'Courageous Action: Your Playbook for Communicating Confidently One Step at a Time', a hands-on guide to building communication confidence. Her work is strongly influenced by improvisational theatre, helping clients become more present and comfortable with uncertainty. An active Toastmasters member and European speech contest winner, Helen is originally from New Zealand. Now based in Switzerland, she brings an international, human-centred approach to communication coaching.   {2:08} Helen's background and her journey to Present Potential. {4:08} Helen's typical clients. {6:02} How to prepare for an awards presentation. {12:08} The importance of planning your pitch. {14:51} Helen's book 'Courageous Action'. {17:30} How to give a good acceptance speech. {24:23} Connecting with an audience. {26:49} Helen's future plans.     Connect with Debbie at: https://thebusinessawardsshow.co.uk                                         https://bestsmeawards.co.uk/                                        Connect with Helen:  https://academy.presentpotential.ch/ LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-von-dadelszen/                 https://www.linkedin.com/company/present-potential/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/present_potential  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_2NMosqJQBBiv5ux3mYHg Helen's book 'Courageous Action': https://courageousaction.ch/

What if the thing you've spent years trying to hide is also connected to strengths you haven't fully recognized?Raja Vaidya knows what it means to have other people make assumptions about what you can do.Raja is a scientist turned keynote speaker, Grandmaster Black Belt, author and TEDx speaker who has lived with a stutter throughout his life. For years, speaking could be exhausting. Singing was different. So was martial arts. Both became places where Raja discovered ways to communicate, perform and lead without allowing his speech to define what he could accomplish.In this episode of MOJO: The Meaning of Life and Business, Jennifer R. Glass talks with Raja about invisible disabilities, fear, workplace inclusion and what happens when someone else's perception of your abilities begins affecting your opportunities.Raja shares what happened during his career in cancer research when colleagues routinely presented his work because meetings didn't accommodate the additional time he sometimes needed to speak. Those colleagues received visibility and promotions while Raja's own contributions became less visible. Eventually, one colleague left his name off a presentation altogether.That experience helped force a change.Raja began developing his speaking skills, joined Toastmasters and increasingly confronted the fear that had shaped many of his decisions. He eventually stepped onto the TEDx stage, not because his stutter disappeared, but because what he wanted to say became more important than his fear of saying it.Jennifer and Raja also discuss:• Why singing can change the experience of someone who stutters• The difference between a limitation and someone else's perception of one• How workplaces can unintentionally silence talented employees• What leaders may overlook about employees with invisible disabilities• How martial arts helped Raja develop a different approach to communication• Why fear can protect us while also preventing us from pursuing opportunities• The opportunity Raja gave up because he feared being interviewed on television• What TEDx taught him about speaking when speaking itself is difficult• Why Raja says, “Don't fake it till you make it. Believe it and become it.”The conversation is ultimately about more than stuttering.It's about recognizing how easily a perceived weakness can become a box, whether that box is created by other people or by ourselves, and what can happen when we begin challenging it.Connect with Raja Vaidya and learn more about his speaking, coaching and work through the links below.Disclosure: Jennifer R. Glass and Raja Vaidya participated in a reciprocal speaking arrangement in which each provided a speaking appearance for the other's platform. No payment was made by Raja Vaidya for this podcast interview.Raja's LinkedInRaja's InstagramRaja's YouTubeRaja's website

On this episode of the I Love Being Sober podcast, recorded live in front of a client audience at Camelback Recovery's outpatient treatment center in Scottsdale, Arizona, host Tim Westbrook sits down with master life coach, speaker, and labyrinth designer Elaine Glass, author of the bestselling book Get Quiet: 7 Simple Paths to the Truth of Who You Are, published by Hay House and endorsed by Dr. Mark Hyman and Stanford behavioral scientist BJ Fogg.Elaine spent three decades as a dental hygienist, sitting one-on-one with more than 40,000 patients, while living what looked from the outside like a perfect life: a house in Paradise Valley, a surgeon husband, two sons in private school. Inside, she was waking up alone and afraid, getting physically sick, and, in her words, becoming a shell of a human being. She describes the moment she finally asked for a divorce, what it cost, and how she rebuilt from nothing.The turning point came from a stranger at a Phoenix coffee shop, a man in addiction recovery who told her to visit the Franciscan Renewal Center. There, in the desert behind the property, she found a labyrinth: a 4,000-year-old meditative walking path with one way in and one way out. She almost turned around at the gate. What she heard when she finally walked it changed the direction of her life.Elaine is clear that she never had a substance addiction. What she had was a behavioral addiction to looking away from the truth of her own life, a pattern she calls close to universal. The conversation digs into why we are so afraid to sit alone in a quiet room, what rushes in to fill the space when a substance is finally gone, how to tell the calm voice of the soul from the racing voice of fear, and why she believes abandoning yourself is a slow death of the soul. She also shares the twelve-month experiment that rebuilt her confidence after her divorce, starting with a single Toastmasters meeting, and walks the room through her seven paths and the body-centered energy points behind them.For anyone in Phoenix, Scottsdale, or beyond who is navigating addiction recovery, sobriety, grief, burnout, or the quiet work of finding out who you are without the noise, this episode is a practical and deeply human roadmap to getting quiet.Camelback Recovery is a leading sober living and outpatient addiction treatment provider serving Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona.

[33:03] Meet Distinguished Toastmaster Stefano S. McGhee, the 2026–2027 Toastmasters International President from Weymouth, Massachusetts. A senior IT executive and Toastmaster since 2005, Stefano is also an aviation enthusiast, motorcyclist, and yacht club leader who readily admits that becoming International President was never part of his original plan.On today's episode, we explore Stefano's journey from reluctant guest to International President and the experiences that shaped his approach to communication and leadership. He shares how tagging along to his wife's club eventually led him to join, although one fellow member apparently predicted where he was headed long before he did. He also reflects on the confidence he gained through Toastmasters and why continually asking "why" has become central to how he leads.He also talks about the impact we can have when we see potential in others before they see it themselves, and why giving someone our time and confidence can be one of the most valuable gifts we offer.Listeners will also hear...His approach to making complex, data-heavy information understandable and relatable.Why asking "why" can be such a powerful leadership tool.How helping someone move from "I can't" to "I can" can change a life.Why he believes the future of Toastmasters rests in its clubs.His challenge to clubs to support every member in achieving excellence.Laura Amann's profile, "Meet Stefano McGhee, DTM, 2026–2027 International President: Doesn't Sit Still," can be found in the September 2026 issue of Toastmaster magazine.About Stefano McGheeStefano S. McGhee, DTM, has been a Toastmaster since 2005. His home club is Network Voice Toastmasters in Weymouth, Massachusetts. A senior IT executive, he holds a master's degree in Military Operational Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a yacht club leader, and an avid motorcycle enthusiast.Born in Italy, Stefano lives in Weymouth, Massachusetts, USA with his wife, Jennifer. They have a son, Tucker who attends the University of New Hampshire, and a beagle named Trevor.Stefano can be reached at smcghee@toastmasters.org.

This week we chat to Nicole Attias.  Nicole is a B2B cold-calling specialist and author who runs outbound lead-generation and sales consulting for manufacturing, industrial and other B2B sales teams. She got into this work through years of hands-on prospecting and corporate training in her 20s; early hustling included walking office towers, talking to receptionists, and refining live cold-call techniques. Toastmasters helped develop her presentation skills, a stint in commercial real estate exposed her to corporate sales cycles, and those experiences led her to focus full-time on phone-based prospecting and training.

In this episode, Tiff and Nikki talk about a critical piece under the marketing umbrella: networking with people in your community across different "genres" of expertise. They discuss knowing your demographic, building a two-way street of referrals, leaning on your hobbies, and a ton more ways to get your business out there and being talked about. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Tiffanie (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are excited to be here. I say it every single time and we truly, truly mean it. I think you guys believe me and know that by now Nikki is here with me today. Nikki, thank you so much for being here. this is our podcasting morning and we block out the a morning, we do a couple hours and make sure that we get the best content we possibly can out to everyone. I'm actually really excited about this one. We just talked through it. for those of you who don't know, our marketing company, they   comb the internet and they comb our calls, they look through all of the data and information they possibly can and look for the best topics they can help us think of, and then they deliver those topics over to us. So for all of you out there, if there's a topic, subject that you've loved you want more of, please let us know. If there's a topic that you're like, gosh, I wish these ladies would just talk about this or dive into this more, let us know. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com   you can tag any one of us in there. Doug is our podcast guru in the background today. and of course we're the ones recording them. So if you've got ideas, we love ideas. We love nothing more than to bring you the stuff that you guys actually need. So Nikki, how are you this morning? Thank you for being here. We were talking earlier about our random Arizona summer storm, which I think it's gone and it's like just hot and humid now, and here we are. So anyways, how are you today?   Nikki Mack (01:23) so good. I know recovering all the damage, you know, the flipped over chairs, the lawn furniture. Nothing flew out of the yard this storm. So always a win, but I'll take it. The hot is worth it because the storms are beautiful. And   Tiffanie (01:37) They are.   Nikki Mack (01:37) in a couple months it's gonna be amazing. We're gonna be really, really happy. Maybe we podcast outside. Just kidding. That's crazy. But   Tiffanie (01:44) you would be so happy.   Nikki Mack (01:45) happy to be here this morning inside in my AC in the aftermath of the storm for sure.   Tiffanie (01:52) Same. Kiera and I did podcast because I think we've done it twice. We've done we've podcasted from South Mountain here in Arizona. Yeah. And   Nikki Mack (01:59) Amazing.   Tiffanie (02:00) that was when that was I mean that was gosh, we were just starting. That was a long time ago. And then we've podcasted from a mountain across the street from her house in Nevada. So and that was our I think that was our birthday podcast last year or the year before. So you never know. We might end up outside. I do love being outside as an Arizona native.   as I'm sure you do as well when it's not 115 or humid. Yeah. Arizona   Nikki Mack (02:25) When it's one hundred and fifteen.   Tiffanie (02:28) doesn't do well with humidity. Like it's been a little humid this summer, and I'm like by a little I mean like there's been like five to ten percent humidity out there, and you feel every ounce of it. So I'm ready for just good weather. so with that, thinking about outside, thinking about outside of ourselves, I love   marketing. It's one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. Like to me, I think communication is marketing. Like I'm constantly marketing myself, right? Who I am, how I show up, and like how I speak to people is marketing. I I just think marketing is showing up in a certain way to get the result that you want. And people overextend it, they overcomplicate it and they think that they have to do it a very certain way. And the reason marketing is   It's a an amazing tool, but the reason it sucks is because it's really hard to like guarantee results, right? So there isn't a certain way. There are multiple stabs in the dark that we take to get different results. And luckily, our blessing is that we get to see a lot of those different ways. We have a lot of practices. We've worked in a lot of practices. We've taken shots in the dark and   really figured out and narrowed in some things that work. And today I really wanted to talk about like strategic community networking and becoming partners with different people in the in the community, different networks in the community and just different genres outside of dentistry. And I think it's really important for dental practices and dental practice owners, business owners in general to do this. I know Toastmasters used to be like this massive thing. It's still here. Like I know someone who does Toastmasters and   She's like the shyest, like most internal person. She's like, I will learn how to talk to people. And so like Toastmasters is still a thing, but the best thing about Toastmasters is wasn't hasn't always been that you learn how to speak in public. It's the community that you build and those referrals, right? And you know, my fiance is a business professional and   Within his profession, he goes to networking events a lot. He's not a good, like he he's a very internal person as well. But he goes and he does these networking events because then he can refer his own clients or his friends. We've used people to, you know, by referral. And building that network totally changes the game because it's a bit like it's a forward and backwards. Like I refer to you, you refer to me, we know each other.   We help each other, all of those different pieces. So I wanted to talk a ton today about how to strategically build that community as a small business owner and a dental practice owner, you know, in any town. And Nikki to your point earlier and maybe speak to this a little bit, you were saying the reason that we and the reason marketing isn't super cookie cutter.   is because we all live in different demographics. But I do think we have some great ideas that could work anywhere. But Nikki, take us through some of what you were talking about there. Like why does it make a difference that where we live?   Nikki Mack (05:42) Absolutely.   Also, quick nerd alert. Five years in Toastmasters back in the day. So a hundred percent.   Tiffanie (05:47) There you go, I knew it. I should have known that.   Nikki Mack (05:52) yeah, I think when we talk about, you know, things not being cookie cutter and knowing your demographic marketing, especially, especially if we're talking community outreach, is a huge place to be in. you know your demographic. This isn't even where I'm like, okay, doctor, sit down and like think about your patients. You know your patience, your team knows your patients.   What is important in your area? What are the things that people post about, go to, talk about? And then being able to lean into that opportunity. Do you have if you're a pediatric office, right? We were just talking about this one. are you right in the middle of a bunch of school districts or a lot of school areas? Do the school nurses have your office information, right? do you participate in teacher appreciation week?   Like what does your outreach look like in those areas? Because not just for the teachers who deserve the world, of course, but also that's when they talk to parents, right? Or the parents that come and see who's taking care of their teachers as well, you're building that not just relationship, but that reputation. And that's what really drives those referrals, that culture, that everything we talk about. Now, maybe if you're a very specialized, I don't know, periodist.   sponsoring teacher appreciation day might not yield the same results, right? So this is where I say, like, know your area, know your demographic. every city has a chamber of commerce, right? the action level and what you kind of get for that membership varies everywhere. But if you look into it and it responds well with your culture and what you're driven, especially if you're very community focused and they do have a lot of those opportunities.   Reach out, right? You know, sign up, try it out for a year. Usually it's an annual membership or so, because the relationships you're gonna build to Tiff's point with those other business owners in the community too are going to be very impactful and possibly spread that reach even further than you would have thought of. And a network who's also trying to actively market and grow their business, what a resource. Because we may not all   Tiffanie (08:02) I see.   Nikki Mack (08:02) be dental, but we can share best practices.   share opportunities and even partner on certain things sometimes. So knowing your demographic, knowing what's really key and crucial, so important. If you're a downtown people commute in, you're right by all the businesses, well, the community pieces might look a little different for you. And so maybe you find out that who did what who did we use Wells Fargo, right?   Tiffanie (08:29) Mm-hmm.   Nikki Mack (08:30) Wells Fargo corporate building is a block from your office.   Does that HR lady know your name, right? Are you guys in network or do you file out of network for them? Knowing your audience is a great way to start before we just cause marketing when it doesn't work is exhausting. So let's be strategic to start and and get some really good results.   Tiffanie (08:54) Yeah, I love all of that. All of that. There are a few pieces there I wanna point out. You said referrals, right? Well, you said periodonist that might not yield the same results and it made me think, Okay, well, how much work are we doing to build the relationship back with those referring practices? I know when I was in that or in office I used to ha have a gosh, get my words together, an orthodontist.   that was really had a really close relationship with our doctor because of a community networking group that they were a part of outside of the dental practice and they routinely sent us families because families found them without a GP dentist because they knew their kid, their teenager needed braces, right? So they'd go to the orthodontist but need a GP dentist so they'd refer him over. Same with periodonists, you know, people look up implant, they end up at an oral surgeon or or a periodontist and they don't have a GP. You guys need them.   To have a GP, so you send them over. So making sure we're building that two-way street of referrals is huge. The Chamber of Commerce, I love this Chamber of Commerce situation and I've seen it really spike up recently with a few practices that we're working with. And I I have one that comes to mind and he'll know exactly who he is. he joined the Chamber of Commerce a few years ago. He's one of the business owners, but he's also the the like practice manager. He manages the business manager, right?   He joined the Chamber of Commerce for their practice when they relocated into a bigger building and he did it in order to really get to know the community. They lived outside of their community, about an hour outside the community that they worked in for a long time. Then they decided to move to that area, and now they're about five minutes down the road from the practice, which is super convenient. But they didn't feel like they knew the community. They felt like they were outsiders and they wanted to be more invested and involved. So they joined the Chamber of Commerce.   And they really started showing up at different events. They started doing, he did a leadership course through the Chamber of Commerce and through the the City Community College there. He knows everyone in that town. Like they have so many connections and so many amazing businesses that support them and vice versa, they support. And something that I don't think people really understand about the Chamber of Commerce is that it's like just that networking piece, the emails that say, hey,   We've got a ribbon cutting event coming up. Like, cool, there's a ribbon cutting event for a small business. Let me go show face and shake hands and say hello to the new owner and welcome them to business ownership. If there's anything that you come across, by all means, I've been through a lot. I might not know it all, but I might have something to offer and just be a neighbor, like be a friendly neighbor. Those community networking pieces could go so far.   And something else you made me think of. I don't remember why I thought of it, but I thought I think you said knowing your demographics, and you said like what what plays to them, right? And then I thought, Nikki, I've never thought of this before, and I think it might be gold mine. I'm not sure. What   Nikki Mack (11:55) Yeah.   Tiffanie (11:56) are your hobbies? Right? What do you love to do? So I'm thinking we're in Phoenix, so we have a lot of foodies, right? We've got a million restaurants here. So what if a dentist who is a foodie who loves food or a team member   Who is a foodie and loves food, and they go and they try all these restaurants, and you're out there, right? I have we have a restaurant in downtown Buckeye, Arizona. It's phenomenal, best Mexican food I've ever had in my life. And I have grown up in Arizona. Best food. Okay. I tell everyone about this place. What what if your dental practice that's like, hey, these are our monthly newsletters, and also let me highlight our restaurant this month.   what restaurant did we go to and we love in our community or in thirty minutes from here? Because now it's become something that's not just brush your teeth, floss. Like people don't I'm not gonna lie, most people are not reading those. Like they're not they're not. They're just not, right? But if you catch their attention with something like the best hike I've taken since I've lived in Arizona, best hike of the month, best restaurant, best ice cream. I have a doctor who loves popcorn. Like where are you getting your best popcorn? What's your   popcorn flavor this month. Like spice it up a little bit with something that's different. Because as I was as you were speaking earlier and I thought of that, I thought, how cool would it be to be like, you're going to that restaurant? I've actually heard of that. And I'm like, where did you hear about it? It's so obscure. And they're like, actually my dentist. Who's your dentist? Because now you've just created a new conversation topic that you can insert yourself into in a network of people across your whole city.   Nikki Mack (13:37) Yeah, absolutely. It makes me think of do you know how sometimes coffee shops or like little bakeries or cafes will have like the question of the day and you   Tiffanie (13:46) Mm-hmm.   Nikki Mack (13:47) answer when you come in? I've seen some dental practices do that, right? Like they have   Tiffanie (13:51) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (13:52) their question of the week or you know, question of the month. and it's just that fun little connection, like you said, and especially if it's something community driven, like what's your favorite Mexican place around here? What's your favorite restaurant? Who's your favorite coffee shop?   to drive kind of that conversation and connection because yeah, then if someone goes and tries it, it's like, how did you hear about us? And you're like, my dentist, actually.   Tiffanie (14:13) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (14:14) it's such a like full circle moment, especially if it's someone that you have partnered with in the past, whether it's meeting each other at a ribbon cutting or you know being at some other event, or they just maybe they're a patient too, right? Like there's always those small world connections and finding ways to close those little links there.   it's always such a neat and unique opportunity because this is why we talk about referrals are the best source for patients because you're it's patients you love referring people they love, right? To come into your practice and they know who you are and like what your culture is. And so when you build those relationships with our networking sources or referral sources and opportunities, it's that same type of environment where they're gonna be referring people   that   fit like what you're looking for and kind of fit that mold. so you just you put so many opportunities out there by by making those connections. I I love that. Also after the cast, I'll need that restaurant. we'll check it out. Okay. Yeah.   Tiffanie (15:14) Totally. Yeah, I will. I will. I'll send it to you. It's so good. It's so   good. and also I was thinking you said, if you've partnered with that person or if they're patients, like why not host we do Invisalign days all the time, right? Or ortho days, Clearliner days, Candid Pro days, whatever you're calling them. and you also do study clubs. Like study clubs are   Nikki Mack (15:38) Mm-hmm.   Tiffanie (15:39) cool because you need the CE. But study clubs are not like you're not   generating a lot of referrals because it's a bunch of other dentists, right? Why not host a networking like day, right? Or or a couple hours and a networking group in your dental practice on a Friday morning from like eight to ten AM. You can have muffins and donuts and coffee and orange juice and water and invite your patients that have businesses, real estate agents, insurance brokers, financial advisors, they're all in your patient base, I promise you.   Doesn't mean you have to use them. It means, hey, I know that there's a community of people here who need a networking group. I would love to do a once a month networking group or once a quarter network networking group for two hours. Invite your patients and invite your patients to invite their friends.   Nikki Mack (16:29) Mm-hmm.   Tiffanie (16:29) Everyone knows somebody. So bring a buddy, maybe every third one. I mean, I would do everyone, but I would do bring a buddy. Like bring a buddy and get a free ticket.   you know, to enter to win the blackstone. I don't know. Do something, but if you were to host something like that for your patients and for local businesses nearby, bam, more. And you're just the whole point in this is marketing is is hard. Marketing is difficult. And we rely on outside sources to do a lot. And I love nothing more Nikki than to look at what can I do? What can I control?   And building a strategic community network, all all it does is start self-promoting your business. Be a good person, know good people. People talk about you. So this whole thing is not only fun, I think, and some doctors might say, like, yeah, you're crazy, you like people. Cool, have your office manager   Nikki Mack (17:26) Yeah.   Tiffanie (17:27) do it. Like, I don't know, ask somebody in your practice is gonna want to do something like this. But what it's doing is it's building your patient base with   out paying for new patients. It's it's a outside the box, out of the normal way of expanding your reach into your community to bring in new patients to your practice to grow your dental practice that's just completely outside the box. And I think in 2026 and whatever year moving forward, you're listening to this, outside the box is what we have to do. The norm just isn't cutting it anymore. You can't just place Google ads   And expect the floodgates to open. You can't just send postcards to your neighbors and expect the floodgates to open. You've got to do something different that gets attention. And building that community and that networking group not only helps you, but it helps all of those other people. And that's when those floodgates open, in my opinion.   Nikki Mack (18:28) I   agree. And I think to your point with when you think outside the box and you come up with an idea, right? Or your team comes up with an idea because it's maybe something they saw or heard or read about, or maybe an idea shared on the Discord that another doctor in a different state   Tiffanie (18:42) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (18:43) used, right? And you're like, I want to do that. Here's what I feel like happens a lot. I want to do that, but I know I don't have time. And so I shelve   Tiffanie (18:50) Mm.   Nikki Mack (18:50) it. Right. Or like, I don't have the bandwidth. Like I absolutely love the network hosting idea.   I don't have the bandwidth to organize that. Well, guess what? There's probably a local group already out there that is doing these things or looking for places to meet. I know in my neighborhood area in Phoenix, we have this huge Facebook group that they do a lot for networking. There's a couple people who run it. They host networking events. They host like open table nights for the neighborhood for people to come and meet each other. And one of the things that they're always looking for is places.   to host. So   Tiffanie (19:27) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (19:28) maybe you don't have the bandwidth currently to create a networking group, right? And host them and do all of the the kind of legwork. Absolutely. But if you like that idea and you have the space, if you have a beautiful break room, right? Or a beautiful lobby, reach out. I bet you or someone on the team knows a local group. Do a quick little local search, right? Reach out.   make sure that they fit, you know, it's the right type of group, their their kind of vision or what they're searching out to do is what you align with. But I'll tell you what, I've been that person trying to find locations and organize groups and where to meet. And when somebody comes out like, hey, you can use my space, here's what it would look like, right? Here's how we could make it work. my gosh, like game changing. And then now you have just solidified your piece like in this network.   And now that's going to create so much opportunity because we all know once they come in the office and experience you and your team, game changer, right? And they have that   Tiffanie (20:28) Yeah, I agree.   Nikki Mack (20:29) opportunity to do it. So any idea, it doesn't just have to be the network hosting. But if you hear something or see something or think of something and your first thought is, I don't have the bandwidth, don't drop it. How do we pivot? What can we do? How do we adjust it? How do we tweak it so that it is something we could fit in, at least in some companies.   Capacity. And that's where your consultants come in, right? I love those messages, Nikki. I had a great idea. I'm like, yes, lay it on me. Let's talk about it. So you're not alone. You don't have to figure out how to make it work. If it's a great idea, let's work it out. Let's talk it through and see how we can make it work for your practice. You have a network. you have consultants, you have the other doctors with the Dental A Team. There's being out of the box means all hands on deck sometimes. So   Tiffanie (21:18) I agree. one last idea, you were talking bandwidth and I I agree. And I thought, like, okay, you can you said earlier, teacher appreciation, right? Make sponsoring that could also sponsor the mommies and muffins and muffins and mom, like whatever it is, like those types of things as well. But also you could go to the donut shop or the kofi coffee shop or whatever like local small business is near you and say, Hey, here's two hundred dollars.   the next two hundred dollars worth of purchases is on me. So when somebody comes and they order their coffee, all I ask is that you let them know that we purchased it for them and we want them to have a great day. Write a little like motivational like have a great day. You are loved, you are seen, you are whatever on a little card. Give that to the desk and let the let $200 worth of money be your marketing for the morning for that coffee shop. Something   that's just different and people are like, wow, that was so unheard of. Okay, that was my last idea. Listen to this. There's a ton of ideas in here, you guys. And the biggest piece is strategically build your community. Your network, what does Kiera say? There's a there's Kiera doesn't it's not her saying, but it's someone's right. But your net worth is directly correlated to your network. And so the people that you know, the people who are help building you up, the people who are   referring back and forth, the the people that you call when business sucks and even though they're not indental, they can relate to you because they own a business. That's your network, right? So build your net worth by reaching out and building your community network. See what you can do to help other people. Nikki, this was really fun. Thank you for taking the journey with me. I know I made a lot of stops and pivots and turns, but that's what marketing is. So thank you and thank you for your time this morning that you blocked out for me.   Nikki Mack (23:13) Always, thanks for having me. Love talking marketing. Always happy to work through stuff. So I'm really excited to see what some of our listeners come up with.   Tiffanie (23:23) I agree. I agree. And with that, go brainstorm. Drop us a five-star review below and let us know what you did, whether it was something we suggested or something you thought of on your own. Let us know what you thought of. We want to share all of these with the community. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We are here to help you to work through it, to brainstorm, to do all of the fun pieces. So let us know how we can best support you. And with that, we will catch you next time.  

Talking about a Manager Tools concept called “Don’t put out the trash can fires” and how it shed some light on how I see Toastmasters policy regarding conflict resolution.

Learn how Toastmasters truly is an International organization from Distinguished Toastmaster Dr Sherri Raftery.

There was a time when a very young Stan Hustad climbed onto the kitchen counter and peered behind the family radio. His mother asked what he was doing. He was looking for the people in the radio. He could hear their voices. Surely they had to be in there somewhere. Decades later, Hustad became one of them. That childhood story opens this edition of Inconvenient Ideas, but the program is not really about nostalgia. It is about the future - and an inconvenient proposition: In an AI world, perhaps more people need to learn how to be "radio people." Not necessarily professional broadcasters, but people who can tell a story, communicate an idea, speak into a microphone, look into a camera, create an audience and make themselves heard. RADIO'S SECRET WEAPON Hustad's fascination with radio began in childhood, grew through shortwave and amateur radio, and eventually helped change his career. After more than a decade as a teacher, he went to broadcasting school at night and began a journey through international radio, television, the BBC and podcasting. That experience produced a useful career lesson: when considering a major change, investigate your early loves. Childhood curiosity sometimes leaves clues. Radio also has a secret weapon: the human voice. Hearing a story brings tone, timing, emotion, humor and personality into the message. Technology changes. The human hunger for stories does not. RADIO DIDN'T DISAPPEAR - IT MULTIPLIED Radio became television. Television became digital. Digital became mobile. Today the device in your pocket streams audio and video, records programs and can broadcast to a global audience. Now AI is beginning another transformation. For generations, ambitious people were told to learn public speaking. Dale Carnegie and Toastmasters understood that communication mattered. Hustad believes the assignment has expanded. Today we need to communicate through media - in front of the camera and behind the microphone. CREATE YOUR OWN PERSONAL ECONOMY AI is changing careers, businesses and the value of many traditional skills. Education still matters, but perhaps it should prepare people not only to ask, "How do I get a job?" but also: How do I create value? How do I build something? How do I communicate what I know? How do I build an audience? How do I create my own opportunities? And perhaps most importantly: How do I create my own personal economy? That is why Hustad argues that entrepreneurship and modern communication should become basic educational skills. DON'T JUST LEARN TO SCROLL A physician communicates. A teacher communicates. An entrepreneur communicates. So do salespeople, pastors, consultants, coaches and business owners. Increasingly they do it through microphones, cameras, podcasts, videos and digital presentations. The question is no longer simply, "Should I start a podcast?" The better question is: "Am I capable of communicating effectively in a media-driven world?" Hustad's challenge is direct: Don't merely watch. Produce. Don't merely scroll. Speak. Don't merely follow audiences. Learn how audiences are built. Don't merely consume ideas. Develop ideas worth communicating. Good broadcasting is a craft. So are interviewing, storytelling and listening. THINGS TO KNOW, LEARN AND DO Know that radio is now much bigger than traditional radio. Communication is increasingly an economic skill, story remains powerful, and AI may make distinctly human communication more valuable rather than less. Learn to tell a good story, speak clearly, interview and listen, understand microphones and cameras, use AI as an assistant rather than a substitute, and make your message memorable. Then practice. Record a three-minute story. Turn on your phone camera and explain one idea you know well. Interview someone. Listen back. Notice your voice, pace and clarity. Then do it again. The objective is not becoming famous. The objective is becoming communicatively capable. ONE FINAL INCONVENIENT IDEA Perhaps the little boy looking behind the kitchen radio was asking a better question than anyone realized: Where are the people in the radio? Today they're everywhere - on podcasts, YouTube, Zoom and whatever comes next. They're teaching, building companies, telling stories, creating audiences, using AI and building their own personal economies. So perhaps National Radio Day should not merely remember radio's past. Perhaps it should be a day to think about your future. The next important voice coming through the radio, podcast, smartphone, computer or television might need to be yours. The people are still in the radio. Perhaps it's time to join them. INCONVENIENT IDEAS & UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS Ideas that may rattle us, shake us up and make us think - and perhaps help us make our mark in life and business.

[34:44] We've all heard the old cliché about first impressions. But what if the biggest lesson isn't about making a better first impression at all? In this episode, Accredited Speaker Lauren Parsons challenges us to think differently about those first 30 seconds, explaining why they're really about building trust, creating connection, and focusing on your audience rather than yourself.Drawing on her years of professional speaking and presentation experience, Lauren shares practical strategies for preparing with purpose while remaining authentic in the moment. Greg also explores what goes through a speaker's mind during those opening moments, leading to an honest discussion about self-consciousness, nerves, and why shifting our attention from ourselves to the audience changes everything.Lauren also shares why audiences are generally far more supportive than we often imagine when things go awry. Whether you're delivering a speech, leading a meeting, interviewing for a job, or simply introducing yourself, you'll come away with practical ideas to help you connect more authentically when those first moments matter most.Listeners will also hear...Why the first 30 seconds actually begin before you speak.What many speakers are thinking during those opening moments, and how to shift that mindset.Lauren's TEDx experience and what it taught her about authentic presence.How to prepare thoroughly without sounding rehearsed.Practical techniques for calming nerves before stepping on stage.What to do when technology or unexpected challenges threaten your presentation.Why audiences are usually cheering for you, not judging you.Lauren's four-question framework for preparing presentations that connect.How these same principles apply to meetings, job interviews, networking, and everyday conversations.Lauren Parsons' article, "Make the First 30 Seconds Count: First Impressions Matter... Be Sure You're Making a Positive One," can be found in the July 2026 issue of the Toastmaster magazine.About the GuestLauren Parsons, DTM, became an Accredited Speaker in 2024 and has been a Toastmaster since 2014. She is a speaker and wellbeing specialist with more than 20 years of experience and was named New Zealand Keynote Speaker of the Year. Lauren is also a Certified Speaking Professional, TEDx speaker, author, and host of the Thrive TV Show & Podcast. She is passionate about helping people thrive while inspiring leaders to create healthier, more resilient workplaces.Lauren lives near on her lifestyle farm just north of Wellington, New Zealand, where she lives with her husband, three daughters, and a menagerie of animals and can be reached through LinkedIn, or through her website, Lauren Parsons Wellbeing.com, where you can find hundreds of articles and her podcast, The Thrive TV Show.Other Resources MentionedToastmasters Podcast #266: Meet Lauren Parsons, Toastmasters' 2024 Newest Accredited SpeakerLauren's, Ted Talk, Toastmasters Podcast: #250 Nick Bendel - 500 Lunches with Strangers, Toastmasters Podcast: #294 Nick Bendel – Beyond 500 Lunches - Lessons on Achieving Anything. .

Most people who want to speak on stage have no idea how the first step actually happens. JD Miller does. He is the CEO of the James Duane Group and SVP at CyberRisk Alliance, he runs events across the country, and he decides who gets a microphone and who does not. In this conversation, Sean Barnes and JD break down the real progression from nobody to keynote speaker. It starts with a phone and a tripod in your living room. It moves to a panel seat, then a fireside chat, then a short session, then the keynote. JD explains what he checks on LinkedIn before he books anyone, why he intentionally gives first-time speakers a slot, and why the ask should never come in the first conversation. They also get into why copying another speaker sets you up to fail, how one recorded conversation turns into a dozen assets, and why picking one platform beats being everywhere. Sean shares the six years he spoke for free and the mistake he made telling organizers he could talk about anything. JD shares the night he literally fell off the back of a stage and why it helped him. If you are an executive who wants a bigger voice and does not know where to start, this is the roadmap.   Key Moments 0:09 - How Sean and JD first met, and why the connection stuck 1:05 - JD's path: church announcements, sports anchor, thousands of broadcasts, hundreds of podcasts 2:21 - Sean's story: extreme introvert to keynote speaker, and why people do not believe it 2:51 - You can be a public speaker no matter where you land on the introvert scale 3:36 - Toastmasters, improv, and practicing into a microphone with nobody listening 4:19 - Why short-form clips train you to land the plane 5:39 - The worst thing you can do is compare yourself to someone with 30 years in 6:33 - Sean on speaking free for almost six years to get the reps 8:20 - The mistake of telling an organizer you can talk about anything 9:07 - Do not be the Cheesecake Factory of topics. Keep it small and specific 9:57 - How to actually get on a panel: build the network first 11:07 - Why JD books first-time speakers on purpose, and where he places them 12:27 - Build the relationship before you make the ask 13:14 - The QR code badge trick that removes friction 14:07 - Getting comfortable being uncomfortable 15:59 - Stage skills carry straight into the boardroom 16:14 - The extrovert's hardest lesson: let silence breathe 17:03 - Eye contact as a signal, on a panel and in a meeting 18:18 - How JD opens a room and gets an audience leaning forward 20:16 - Do not copy your mentor. Borrow traits and make them yours 22:32 - Document everything and build social proof 23:41 - What JD checks before he agrees to book someone 24:20 - One piece of content is really 12 pieces of content 26:08 - Know where your audience lives and stop trying to be everywhere 27:50 - The 4-1-1 approach to posting 29:11 - Be patient, and find a mentor who has done it 30:17 - Failure stories, including the time JD fell off the stage 31:31 - When you fumble, keep moving and never apologize 32:43 - The full path, start to keynote, in one recap 33:13 - Where to find JD   Key Takeaways Start smaller than you think you should. A phone on a tripod, a panel seat in the corner, four people in a room. Reps come before pay, and for Sean that meant roughly six years of speaking for free. Own one topic, not every topic. Telling an organizer you can speak on anything pushes the work onto them and cheapens your brand. A narrow, specific topic makes you easy to book. Build the relationship before the ask. Organizers check your LinkedIn for a voice and a track record before anything else. Show up, connect, create content, then ask next year.   Podcast Show Notes – Episode 294 | 08.11.2026 Episode Title: From Panels to Keynotes: The Real Path to Becoming a Speaker | JD Miller & Sean Barnes   Guest: JD Miller CEO, James Duane Group SVP, CyberRisk Alliance LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdwaynemiller/ Website: https://www.jamesdwayne.com/   Host: Sean Barnes Wolf Executives, Houston, TX   Website: https://www.wolfexecutives.com   https://www.seanbarnes.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanbarnes/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/wolfexecutives https://www.linkedin.com/company/thewayofthewolf/ LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7284600567593684993/   Twitter: https://x.com/seanbarnes https://x.com/wolfexecutives   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_seanbarnes https://www.instagram.com/wolfexecutives   TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_seanbarnes   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theseanbarnes

Three finalists for the 2026 Nebula Awards—Amy Chu, Somto Ihezue, and Annalee Newitz—discuss their craft, why they write, and the state of speculative fiction today. Moderated by Tananarive Due, Toastmaster of the 2026 Nebula Awards, which are given annually by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. Featured writers and their 2026 Nebula Award nominations [...]

En esta edición de Chequia en 30':  Conversamos con Felipe Toro, traductor al español de El canciller, obra de teatro inspirada en el diplomático checo Jan Masaryk | Roxana Velasco nos presenta Ahorita Toastmasters, una iniciativa en español para perder el miedo a hablar en público.

You did the bold thing. You went through with it. It even went well. So why isn't the doubt gone? Why does the next meeting, the next date, the next big moment still produce the same anxiety? In this episode, Dr. Aziz unpacks why get out of your comfort zone and face your fears is incomplete advice that's been failing high-functioning people for years. The exposures aren't the problem. What's missing is what's supposed to happen during the exposures, and most people are running so hard at the surface task they never get to it. He shares a story about a Toastmasters client who did fifteen polished speeches without ever updating her actual fear, and a moment from his own training where he taught a group of college students about test anxiety by being the most visibly anxious person in the room. This episode covers: Why exposure-alone keeps high-functioning professionals stuck in endurance mode for decades The thing your nervous system actually needs to learn from each exposure (and what most people accidentally prevent) The hyper-prepared, polished version of you that's been blocking the real update The toggle from endurance mode to enjoyment mode, and what changes when you flip it Discover your approval type. Take the 2-minute quiz at https://www.draziz.com Watch episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrAzizGazipura Work with Dr. Aziz directly: The Unstoppable Confidence Mastermind is a year-long program for people ready to unwire this pattern at the nervous system level. Application at https://www.socialconfidencecenter.com/ucmv3. Connect: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drazizconfidencecoach LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drazizgazipura

What if confidence isn't about having all the answers? In this insightful episode of The Healing You Method Podcast, hosts Gloria and Gail Donohue sit down with Dipti Kothari Jain, an impromptu speaking coach who helps children, teens, and adults build confidence by learning how to respond in uncertain situations. Together, they explore why true confidence isn't built through perfect preparation, but through developing the ability to stay present when life doesn't go according to plan. From public speaking and presentations to everyday challenges, Dipti shares practical strategies for overcoming fear, managing anxiety, and trusting yourself in unexpected moments. In this episode, you'll discover: ✅ Why confidence is a skill, not a personality trait ✅ The difference between preparation and genuine self-trust ✅ How fear and anxiety affect your nervous system ✅ The powerful PSR Framework: Pause, Structure, Respond ✅ Why uncertainty is the key to personal growth ✅ How children and adults can train confidence through experience ✅ Practical tools to think on your feet and communicate effectively Dipti Kothari Jain is an award-winning public speaking coach and impromptu speaking expert with over a decade of experience. She helps children, teens, and adults think on their feet, respond confidently, and express with clarity in real time. As Co-founder of Speaking Ninjas Academy and a TEDx Youth Coach, Dipti designs programs that build confidence through unscripted moments—preparing learners not just for presentations, but for real-life situations. A Toastmasters award-winner, she believes True confidence is built in "Unscripted Moments of Life" You can connect with her through following credentials:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dipti-kot...    / @diptik4742   Whether you're a parent, educator, entrepreneur, public speaker, or someone working through self-doubt, this conversation offers valuable insights into building resilience and navigating life's unpredictable moments with greater confidence.

Everyone tells you the studio's going great. Meanwhile you've been rehearsing one conversation with one staff member in the shower for three weeks. If that's you, this episode was made for you.

[29:10] Sometimes all it takes is one invitation. In this episode, Greg Gazin talks with 16-year-old Runfeng Bruce Yu, whose first Toastmasters experience inspired him to help other young people discover the confidence and encouragement that changed his own life. What began with a single club visit soon grew into a remarkable leadership journey. Bruce went on to charter the Sea Dragons Gavel Club, creating a supportive environment where students could grow as communicators and leaders. Along the way, he discovered that creating a welcoming community was every bit as important as helping members become better speakers.Bruce also shares the unexpected challenges of launching a student-led Gavel Club, the creative ways he earned credibility and attracted support, and the leadership lessons he learned along the way. Whether you're looking to strengthen your own club, encourage younger members, or simply enjoy hearing how one person can make a difference, Bruce's story is an inspiring reminder that leadership often begins with a single invitation.Listeners will also hear...Why Bruce believes creating a sense of community comes before building communication skills.How storytelling helped students understand what makes Toastmasters different from traditional speech and debate.What Bruce did when some adult Toastmasters questioned whether his Gavel Club was real, including reaching out to Past International President Richard E. Peck and World Champion Mark Brown for help.How partnerships with Rotary created new leadership and service opportunities for students.Why volunteers from around the world now help support the Sea Dragons Gavel Club.Bruce's advice for Toastmasters clubs hoping to attract more young people.How one invitation ultimately inspired Bruce to create the same life-changing experience for others.Bruce Yu's article, "From Inspiration to Action: Discovering Toastmasters launched my student journey into the program, “ can be found in the August 2026 issue of Toastmaster magazine.About Bruce YuBruce Runfeng Yu is a high school student and Charter President of the Sea Dragons Gavel Club, a student-led Gavel Club in China with an international reach. He serves on the Youth Advisory Board at Erika's Lighthouse, contributing to youth mental health initiatives, and advocates for youth participation through the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth. Passionate about expanding educational opportunities, Bruce is committed to helping young people develop the confidence and leadership skills to make a positive impact in their communities.Bruce lives in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China and can be reached through his club's website: https://seadragonsgavel.org/ or his personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/runfengbruceyu/ or Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/runfengbruceyu/Find out more about Gavel Clubs.References: Supplied by Bruce YuOur club's:Website: https://seadragonsgavel.org/Volunteer opportunities page (Idealist.org): seadragonsgavel.org/volunteerSpeech contests: https://seadragonsgavel.org/contests/Online educational session page: https://seadragonsgavel.org/resources/educational-sessions/History: https://seadragonsgavel.org/about-us/history/Causes: https://seadragonsgavel.org/about-us/causes/Linktree: seadragonsgavel.org/connectPromotional video by Richard E. Peck: https://youtu.be/RkZrbhReG1E?si=sE3ysww3mewETroXPromotional video by Mark Brown: https://youtu.be/e4tlpWN1Vzs?si=XexqUngMSjFnKbMY

What can global business, backpacking through unpredictable conditions, and a lifelong faith journey teach us about navigating life?In this episode of I Am Refocused Radio, Shemaiah Reed welcomes David Savage, a global energy executive with 31 years of sales and leadership experience. David shares memorable stories from international business, outdoor adventures, and moments that required him to adapt, solve problems, and accept circumstances beyond his control.With a background in Toastmasters, a natural gift for storytelling, and a sharp sense of humor, David brings practical wisdom to conversations about resilience, leadership, relationships, faith, and personal growth. He also reflects on the powerful lessons he has gathered from guests on his own podcast and how those stories continue to shape his perspective.This conversation is an honest and uplifting reminder that wisdom is often discovered through pressure, uncertainty, laughter, and the courage to keep moving forward.https://thesavagepath.com/

[28:45] Some of life's best lessons come from the most unexpected places, even an animated fish. In this episode, Suneet Singh shares how an unlikely source of inspiration, Pixar's Finding Nemo, helped transform his club's approach to growth. Together, we explore the story behind the journey, the lessons learned along the way, and how one unexpected idea led to remarkable results.The conversation goes well beyond membership growth. Suneet shares how curiosity, fresh thinking, and a willingness to challenge assumptions helped shape the club's culture and create an experience that people wanted to return to. Whether you're looking to strengthen your club, inspire your members, or simply see your club through a different lens, you'll come away with ideas worth exploring.Listeners will also hear...Why Finding Nemo became an unlikely blueprint for club growth.The one question that changed everything for the club.How one courageous Table Topics speaker inspired Suneet's own Toastmasters journey.Why asking better questions often leads to better learning.A simple networking idea Suneet calls the "multiplier effect."What every club can learn about finding its own identity.Be sure to read Suneet's accompanying Toastmaster magazine article, How Nemo Inspired Us to Grow Our Membership, or, if you're reading the PDF edition, A Wave of Success: How Our Club Doubled Its Membership, in the July 2026 issue.About SuneetSuneet Singh, CPA, MBA, is a finance and accounting leader with more than a decade of experience across the financial services and software industries. A Toastmaster for five years, he is the Immediate Past President of ART Advanced Royal Toastmasters, an online club based in Toronto, and has also served as a Toastmasters Area Director. He continues to develop as a communicator and leader.Suneet lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and can be reached at sp1.suneet@gmail.com.For more information about ART Advanced Royal Toastmasters (ART), or to arrange a club visit, email arttoastmasters@gmail.com. (Meetings: Wednesdays 12:00-1 Eastern)If you haven't already done so, watch or rewatch Pixar's Finding Nemo. You may find yourself seeing it through a whole new lens.

It's the start of the month and I'm excited to share July's Big Three with you.  I'm ready to shake things up, try something new, and ramp up my creative energy.  I'm sharing how June went out with a bang and how Toastmasters inspired the card of the week.  You don't want to miss this episode!

In 1988, Mark Dorrity went for a run on a 35-degree day in regional New South Wales. He was leading the race when severe heat stroke caused his body to shut down.Mark spent 70 days unconscious in intensive care. He lost most of the muscle in his body, underwent a high-level leg amputation and was given little certainty about what life after hospital could look like.But this is not simply a story about survival.In this episode of ListenABLE, Mark joins Dylan Alcott and Angus O'Loughlin to share how he rebuilt his life from the ground up. From learning to stand again, returning to full-time work and confronting inaccessible public spaces, to retraining his brain through Toastmasters decades later, Mark's story is a powerful lesson in resilience, neuroplasticity and choosing to keep moving forward.Mark also reflects on how far disability access and inclusion have come in Australia since the late 1980s, why accessible parking matters far more than people realise, and why he refuses to live with regret.What happened when Mark collapsed from severe heat stroke during an eight-kilometre raceWaking up in intensive care 70 days laterThe moment Mark learned his leg had been amputatedRebuilding strength after losing most of his muscle massReturning to work after a life-changing injuryLiving with a high-level amputation and why a prosthesis was not sustainable for MarkHow disability access and inclusion have changed since the late 1980sThe reality behind accessible parking and public spacesNeuroplasticity, Toastmasters and retraining the brain later in lifeWhy resilience is not about avoiding difficulty, but choosing to keep showing up00:00 The moment Mark's life changed01:31 A race, extreme heat and collapsing near the finish line04:35 Waking up 70 days later in intensive care07:14 The decision to amputate or let Mark die09:48 Accepting a new reality immediately11:10 Learning how to live again after intensive care13:06 Seeing his story on the front page of the newspaper14:55 Why a wheelchair was not practical for Mark16:39 The first time using a walking frame in public18:11 Where Mark's resilience came from19:02 What disability access was like in Australia in the late 1980s21:42 How Mark views disability today24:59 Prosthetics, pain and adapting to life without one27:05 Returning to full-time work27:46 Cognitive recovery, speech and Toastmasters30:20 Neuroplasticity and retraining the brain32:08 Seeing his body after amputation33:25 Would Mark warn himself before the race?34:50 Mark's message on risk, resilience and living fullyMark Dorrity, heat stroke survivor, amputation recovery, high-level amputation, disability podcast Australia, disability inclusion, accessibility Australia, neuroplasticity, resilience story, life after amputation, Dylan Alcott podcast, ListenABLE podcast, disability advocacy, rehabilitation journey, Toastmasters recovery

[27:53] Sometimes the opportunities that shape our lives arrive when we least expect them. In this special episode of ToastCaster, I share a recording of the opening keynote I delivered at the Toastmasters District 99 year-end leadership celebration. While the audience that day was made up of Toastmasters leaders, the message reaches far beyond Toastmasters. It's a story about unexpected opportunities, personal growth, and how a single decision can change the direction of your life. Looking back, I never set out to become a leader. In fact, if someone had told me years ago that I'd one day lead a Toastmasters district, host podcasts, write books, or emcee a TEDx event, I would have laughed. None of it was part of a grand plan. It all began with what I call a series of "accidents"—unexpected conversations, invitations, and opportunities that encouraged me to say "yes." In this keynote, I reflect on those moments, the people who influenced my journey, and the lessons I learned along the way. More importantly, I explore how leadership isn't always about titles or positions. Often, it's about being willing to step forward when opportunity knocks and helping others succeed along the way. Whether you're leading a team, volunteering in your community, building a business, or simply wondering what your next chapter might hold, I hope this story encourages you to recognize the unexpected opportunities that may already be waiting for you. In this episode you'll discover: Why I describe myself as an "accidental leader." How one unexpected invitation changed the course of my life. The surprising opportunities that grew from simply saying "yes." The leadership lessons I learned through both success and adversity. Why asking for help became one of my greatest strengths. How my podcasting journey began as a High Performance Leadership project. Why leadership is ultimately about helping others shine. A challenge to reflect on the opportunities that may be shaping your own future. Thank you for listening to ToastCaster. If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear about one unexpected opportunity that helped shape your own journey. Toastmasters Podcast #300: Reflecting Back on 300 Episodes and the Power of Conversation Reflecting Back: How a Simple Podcasting Project Developed into an Incredible Journey (Toastmaster magazine, June 2026) Toastmasters Podcast #302: Your Club's Secret Ingredient – The Immediate Past President The Neighbour Who Helped Build the Paralympic Movement 

[31:52] What happens after the gavel changes hands? In this episode Greg Gazin speaks with Distinguished Toastmaster António Mendes about one of Toastmasters' most overlooked leadership roles: the Immediate Past President (IPP). Drawing on his experience serving as club president and Immediate Past President four times, António shares why this role may continue to influence a club long after a leadership transition.António shares how what began as a search for stronger business pitches eventually became a 12-year Toastmasters journey that continues today.You'll also hear how encouraging newer Toastmaster Ana Natário to step into leadership helped shape António's thinking about the IPP role. Watching her grow as club president and later continue supporting the club as Immediate Past President showed him how leadership continuity, encouragement, and a strong club culture can create lasting impact long after a term ends. That experience became one of the strongest examples behind his belief in the value of an engaged IPP.Listeners will also hear:• Why António believes leadership does not end when a presidency ends• Why he compares the IPP to an airbag• What it means to be a bridge between past and future leadership• How supporting newer Toastmaster Ana Natário helped reinforce his view of the role• Why a formal handover meeting can help set new officers up for success• How clubs can preserve traditions while remaining open to changeYou can read António's article, The Unsung Hero of Toastmasters: Discover the Value the Immediate Past President Can Provide a Club in the July 2026 issue of Toastmaster magazine.About António MendesAntónio Mendes, DTM, has been a Toastmaster for 12 years and currently serves as Immediate Past President of Setúbal Toastmasters Club in Portugal. Over a 46-year career in technology, he worked as an IT manager, consultant, entrepreneur, and business leader and now advises organizations on cloud, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. He has served in multiple club and district leadership roles and helped establish and revive clubs while sharing ideas to help clubs grow and strengthen member engagement.António Mendes lives in Setúbal, Portugal and can be reached via e-mail: mendes.ajs [at] gmail [dot] com, Instagram: @mendes.ajs, Facebook: mendes.ajsLinkedIn: ajsmendes.

In our 53rd episode, we talk with  Peter Swan of Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA, formerly of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.  Peter has been in Toastmasters since 2015 and has completed the Presentation Mastery and Dynamic Leadership Paths and is currently working in two Paths, Motivational Strategies and Effective Coaching.In this episode, we discuss:Pathfinder AwardLeadershipCommunication and Leadership ConferencePeter Swan can be contacted via Email ~ Pswan175@gmail.comThis podcast episode is sponsored by our 2024-2026 Calendar Year Sponsor District 31 Toastmasters ~ serving Rhode Island, Eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine,  in the USA, and the Canadian Maritime Provinces in Canada.  District 31 (“D31”) helps toastmasters become better Communicators, and Leaders.  Learn how D31 Toastmasters can help you become a more powerful speaker and impactful leader by visiting district31.org/talkingtoastmasters.

In this episode, I sit down with Dominique "Dom" Brightmon, distinguished Toastmaster, certified Maxwell Leadership trainer, bestselling author, and host of the Going North Podcast. Dom shares his inspiring journey from discovering his voice as a teenager in church to becoming a respected speaker, author, and podcast host with more than 1,000 episodes under his belt. Along the way, he reveals how mentorship, personal growth, and a commitment to serving others helped shape his path.    In this episode, we discuss: How Dom discovered his purpose through public speaking and service The role Toastmasters played in developing his confidence and leadership skills Why self-leadership is the foundation for leading others effectively The Three E's of self-leadership: Examination, Execution, and Energy How personal setbacks can become catalysts for growth and transformation The importance of surrounding yourself with people who inspire and challenge you Why encouraging others can help you reconnect with your own sense of purpose   No matter where you are on your journey, remember that your purpose is not something you have to chase. It is something you can uncover by leading yourself well, staying open to growth, and taking the next step forward with courage.    About Dom: Dominique “Dom” Brightmon, DTM, is a certified trainer with the Maxwell Leadership Team, bestselling author, and host of the Going North Podcast, a podcast committed to featuring authors from around the world to promote the power of the written word and inspire listeners to publish books of their own. His mantra is Advance others to advance yourself. https://www.dombrightmon.com/ ----- Connect with Candice Snyder! Website: https://www.podpage.com/passion-purpose-and-possibilities-1/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/candicebsnyder?_rdr Passion, Purpose, and Possibilities Community Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passionpurposeandpossibilitiescommunity/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passionpurposepossibilities/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candicesnyder/ Shop For A Cause With Gifts That Give Back to Nonprofits: https://thekindnesscause.com/ Go to FusionaryFormulas.com and use code PASSION at checkout for 15% off your first order.  Fall In Love With Artists And Experience Joy And Calm: https://www.youtube.com/@movenartrelaxation

[18:39] The countdown is on for the 2026 Toastmasters International Convention taking place August 19 to 22, 2026, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In this annual convention preview episode, Greg Gazin speaks with Convention Host Co-Chairs Carole Murphy and Tom Jones for an early look at what attendees can expect and to learn more about the volunteers and leaders helping bring Toastmasters' largest event to life.You'll get to know Carole and Tom as they share how they unexpectedly received the invitation to serve, what their role as co-chairs involves, and how their different personalities and leadership styles complement one another and what they've learned along the way. You'll also hear why Vancouver, often called Hollywood North, continues to be a favourite convention destination and the meaning behind this year's convention theme: Wide Open Communication.Highlights this year include keynote speaker Jody Carrington and 2026 Golden Gavel honouree Jennifer Moss presenting Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants.You'll also hear about some of the convention activities, including:• Traditional opening ceremonies and the Parade of Flags• Semifinals and finals of the World Championship of Public Speaking• Accredited Speaker presentation and business meeting• First-timers activities and networking opportunities• Smedley Harbour Cruise and Smedley Fun Bingo evening events• Education sessions and Toastmasters Journey workshops including a new AI-focused session designed to help attract prospective members...and more!About:Carole Murphy, DTM, has been a Toastmaster for 31 years and serves as Convention Co-Chair for the 2026 Toastmasters International Convention.Tom Jones, DTM, is a Past International Director, entrepreneur, management consultant, and Convention Co-Chair for the 2026 Toastmasters International Convention.REGISTER NOWConvention details, agenda, volunteer opportunities, and Dear Boss resources.You can also read:1. Five Questions with Carole Murphy DTM and Tom Jones DTM: Behind the Scenes with the 2026 Convention Co-Chairs2. Wide-Open Communication: 2026 Convention: Head to Vancouver, Canada, for inspiration, education, and connection.Both articles appear in the June 2026 issue of Toastmaster Magazine.Related Episode:Episode #299: Championing Workplace Well-Being — Meet the 2026 Golden Gavel Recipient Jennifer Moss

Jessica talks with Chris Lele, an AI educator, learning strategist, writer, musician, and lifelong collector of difficult skills. He spent 20 years in test prep, creating thousands of SAT, GRE, and GMAT questions, publishing a bestselling vocabulary book, and reaching millions of students through YouTube. Today, he teaches professionals how to use generative AI without losing their originality, judgment, or voice. Chris is also a classical pianist, composer, Toastmasters speech competitor, fitness enthusiast, and occasional restaurant and bar performer. Whether teaching AI, playing Chopin, writing speeches, or explaining a brutal math problem, Chris is drawn to the art of making complexity come alive.Follow Chris:IG: @chris_on_the_keysYouTube: Ab-peggiosSpotify: The Tide BeneathApple Music: The Tide Beneath~About The Ampersand Manifesto:What happens when you refuse to choose just one path? On The Ampersand Manifesto, host Jessica Wan sits down with “the most interesting people at the dinner party” – those who have made their mark in two or more seemingly different worlds. Through candid conversations, we explore what it takes to navigate multiple callings, find the connection points between them, and redefine success on our own terms. Together, we're co-creating The Ampersand Manifesto: principles for leading a multi-passionate life.~About your host, Jessica Wan:Executive Coach | Classical Singer | Former Marketing Leader & Tech ExecutiveJessica helps founders and leaders make the invisible visible. With 20+ years of experience scaling brands like Apple, Smule, and the San Francisco Opera, and as an ICF-certified executive coach, she provides the clarity and strategy needed to lead bravely and find fulfillment in a multi-passionate life.Work with Jessica: Book a Free Intro CallJoin The Cohort: An Ampersand Community for Dual-Career ProfessionalsFollow the Journey: @ampersandmanifestoConnect: Jessica's LinkedInListen: Singing Excerpts~CreditsCo-produced and hosted by ⁠Jessica Wan⁠Co-produced, edited, sound design, and original music by ⁠Carlos Schmitt

In episode 251 of the Transition Drill Podcast, explores identity, resilience, and rebuilding after public scrutiny for veterans and first responders navigating career disruption, reputation loss, and life after service. You'll hear Kwesi Millington on what happens when one moment changes everything, and what it takes to rebuild purpose, identity, and a future when the career you expected disappears.Former RCMP officer and now resilience keynote speaker Kwesi Millington shares a story that starts far before policing and goes far beyond the incident that made international headlines.Raised in Toronto by a single mother after emigrating from Trinidad and Tobago, Kwesi describes a childhood that was ordinary by his standards. No clear career calling. No lifelong dream of becoming a police officer. He moved through school, completed a Bachelor of Commerce with a focus in finance, worked office and government jobs, and felt disconnected from the life he imagined for himself. Then one moment changed direction. Watching a police officer while walking a strike line, he realized he wanted work that put him outside, serving people and doing something that felt meaningful.That decision led him into the RCMP. He trained in Regina, Saskatchewan, entered frontline policing in British Columbia, and expected to build a long career. Instead, only a few years into service, a call at Vancouver International Airport became the defining event of his life. Kwesi walks through that night, the death that followed, the public reaction, the viral footage, internal conflict, investigations, public inquiry, and the long legal aftermath that eventually ended his policing career.But this conversation doesn't stop there.Kwesi talks openly about moral injury, accountability, identity collapse, incarceration, and the reality of trying to re-enter society carrying a criminal record and public history. He reflects on the jobs that never called back, rebuilding through personal training, and discovering that growth sometimes starts where status ends.What emerged next wasn't a return to who he was. Through fitness, Toastmasters, communication, and years of rebuilding, Kwesi found a different mission. Today he speaks to audiences on resilience, mindset, accountability, and navigating life after adversity.CONNECT WITH THE PODCAST:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulpantani/WEBSITE: https://www.transitiondrillpodcast.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpantani/SIGN-UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER:https://transitiondrillpodcast.com/home#aboutQUESTIONS OR COMMENTS:paul@transitiondrillpodcast.comSPONSORS:GRND Collective: Premium, veteran-owned sportswear built for those who show up, outwork the excuses, and give 100%. Score 15% off your order at thegrndcollective.com using promo code TRANSITION15 at checkoutBlue Line Roasting: Premium, law-enforcement-owned coffee roasted to fuel the shift. A portion of every order directly supports law enforcement families facing line-of-duty injury or loss. Save 10% at bluelineroasting.com with promo code Transition10Frontline Optics: Premium eyewear founded by a firefighter and built to withstand the job. Every single purchase helps support the First Responders Children's Foundation, serving families who've paid the ultimate price. Save 10% off your pair at frontlineoptics.com using promo code Transition10

FILM FEST TIX: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905 FULL EPISODE: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast Long Summary Dave welcomes Heart Attack Doug back to Dopey Tuesday on his birthday, though he's not exactly feeling celebratory after waking up groggy from NyQuil and discovering that his daughter forgot it was his birthday. Doug immediately notices Dave's low energy, launching a conversation about birthday expectations and disappointments. The bulk of the opening centers around a heated debate about the season finale of Euphoria. Dave argues that the show abandoned its core characters and became an entirely different series, while Doug enthusiastically defends it and praises the acting. The two argue over Nate's storyline, Rue's fate, Ali's character arc, and whether the show has any future after its finale. The conversation shifts into prison talk when Montana's latest letter arrives from a Texas prison. Montana shares updates about college classes, Toastmasters, prison job training officers, losing his dog, and staying sober. This leads Doug to speculate about how Dave would survive prison, suggesting he'd either join a gang or become part of a strange collection of intellectuals, misfits, and recovery people. Dave insists he'd survive through entertainment value and his connection to recovery. Dave also reflects on a recent doctor's appointment and how grateful he is not to be regularly drug tested anymore. The conversation spirals into stories about fake urine, the Wizinator, and the absurd lengths addicts go to avoid failing drug tests. The guys read Patreon and Spotify comments, discuss the upcoming Dopey Short Film Festival, promote Patreon, and eventually prepare to reveal the results of the Dopey Sticker Contest. JOIN PATREON FOR THE CONTEST! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session with Dakshana scholars at the JNV Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India on December 25, 2025.                        (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:00:31) - Charlie Munger's mental models (00:05:40) - The Karam Yogi model; Mukesh Ambani & Jio (00:09:45) - Books: Time travel for entrepreneurs (00:12:01) - The Founders Podcast (00:16:01) - Giving back through Dakshana (00:20:29) - Upanishads: Your deepest desire is your destiny (00:24:13) - Building Dakshana: Cloned from the Super 30 model (00:33:32) - Follow your passion, success follows naturally (00:35:10) - With hard work think smart (00:36:42) - Clone smartly, compete confidently (00:39:05) - Technology is overrated, follow your passion (00:42:48) - Growth begins outside comfort zone; Toastmasters (00:46:25) - Cloning Dakshana from Super 30; Anand Kumar (00:50:36) - Human reciprocation mental model (00:57:28) - Execution and determination make the idea successful (01:00:29) - Life's reverses; Charlie's No self-pity mode The contents of this audio are for educational and entertainment purposes only, and do not purport to be, and are not intended to be financial, legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice. Investments or strategies that are discussed may not be suitable for you, do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation, or needs, and are not intended to provide investment advice or recommendations appropriate for you. Before making any investment or trade, consider whether it is suitable for you and consider seeking advice from your own financial or investment adviser.

This episode of The Kash & Dash Show — Unscripted with Ted Kaasch and Owen Dashner is a little bit real estate, a little bit family life, and a whole lot of “this is why business is never as clean as people make it look online.”Ted and Owen talk Mother's Day, Father's Day traditions, dad memories, old business cards, garage sale chaos, Goodwill debates, and the random things that make you realize life moves way too fast.They also get into the real stuff: insurance sticker shock, commercial property expenses, car wash surprises, water heater costs, and the brutal reality that owning real estate is not always passive income. Sometimes it is just expensive problems wearing a cute little “investment property” hat.The Golden Nugget in this episode is simple: don't fake the rehab number. If you are an agent bringing a deal to an investor, your job is not to guess construction costs. Bring the ARV, bring the comps, bring what you can visibly see the property needs — but don't say it needs $20,000 in repairs when it is really a $50,000 problem. Bad numbers kill credibility and can blow up a deal fast. Ted and Owen also talk about public speaking, Toastmasters, improving as a presenter, and what it looks like when a speaker truly moves a room. Ted shares a personal moment about the passing of Kyle Loftus from 1320Video and the impact Kyle had on Omaha and beyond.If you enjoy the episode, subscribe, leave a review, and check out The Kash and Dash Show on YouTube. You can Join the Omaha REIA - https://omahareia.com/join-todayOmaha REIA on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/OmahaREIACheck out the National REIA - https://nationalreia.org/ Find Ted Kaasch at www.tedkaasch.com Owen Dashner on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/owen.dashner Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/odawg2424/ Red Ladder Property Solutions - www.sellmyhouseinomahafast.com Liquid Lending Solutions - www.liquidlendingsolutions.com Owen's Blogs - www.otowninvestor.com www.reiquicktips.com Propstream - https://trial.propstreampro.com/reianebraska/Timber Creek Virtual - https://timbercreekvirtual.com/services/MagicDoor - https://magicdoor.com/reia/...

The NORAPONG gives an inspirational speech as he accepts the 2026 Toastmaster of the Year for the Hawaii District.

In this solo episode, I talk about my experience with Toastmasters and how it shaped how I view public speaking. For technical professionals who speak to decision makers, this episode was made with you in mind. __TEACH THE GEEK (http://teachthegeek.com)Prefer video? Visit http://youtube.teachthegeek.comFollow @teachthegeek (Twitter) and @_teachthegeek_ (IG)Get Public Speaking Tips for STEM Professionals at http://teachthegeek.com/tips

Today is a super day - Dzisiaj jest super dzień Why - Dlaczego Today is Monday - Dziś jest poniedziałek Do you know the days of the week? - Czy znasz dni tygodnia? Monday - poniedziałek Tuesday - wtorek Wednesday - środa Thursday - czwartek Friday - piątek Saturday - sobota Sunday - niedziela Roy what do you do on Monday - Roy, co robisz w poniedziałek On Monday I study - W poniedziałek studiuję Polish language /Economics / Medicine - Język polski / ekonomia / medycyna On Tuesday I go to the Gym - We wtorek idę na siłownię On Wednesday I go to a Toastmasters meeting - W środę idę na spotkanie Toastmasters On Thursday I work - W czwartek pracuję On Friday I am with my son and we play - W piątek jestem z synem i gramy I go to the park on Saturday - Idę do parku w sobotę Lazy day on Sunday - Leniwy dzień w niedzielę I do nothing - ja nic nie robię Kamila what do you do on Monday - Kamila, co robisz w poniedziałek I have Polish lessons on Monday - Mam lekcje polskiego w poniedziałek I have yoga lessons on Tuesday - Mam lekcje jogi we wtorek I meditate on Wednesday(http://meditationpodcast.org/) - Medytuję w środę  On Thursday I walk in the park - W czwartek chodzę po parku On Friday I listen to relaxing music - W piątek słucham relaksującej muzyki On Saturday I shop in the supermarket - W sobotę robię zakupy w supermarkecie I rest on Sunday - Odpoczywam w niedzielę And what do you do on Sunday? - A co robisz w niedzielę? We wait for your comments - Czekamy na Twoje komentarze  Thank you very much - Dziękuję Ci bardzo   

It's not unusual for presenters to 'move on' from past presentations. Toastmasters is a good example. Today, Darren and Mark encourage you to 'go back to the well' and revisit old presentations. They may hold new value today.   SNIPPETS: • Maintain a story folder; an old story may have new significance • Don't discard/delete 'old' material   • "Unearth the old, uncover the GOLD" – Mark Brown   • Revisit old presentations   • Look for new value in old presentations   • Review, revise, rework, reinvent   • Enlist your list to learn what has resonated over time   • New experiences can enhance old material   • Apply newly gained wisdom, insight, and perspective to older presentations     Work with Mark and Darren: https://www.stagetimeuniversity.com/get-a-speaking-coach/   Check Out Stage Time University: https://www.stagetimeuniversity.com