Vida Toastmasters

“La comunicación es un círculo cerrado, donde la forma en que hablo afecta la forma en que escuchas, y la forma en que escuchas afecta la forma en que hablo.” Por Julian Treasure Revista Toastmasters, agosto 2019 https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2019/aug/the-link-between-listening-and-speaking Traducción personal de Jorge A. Rivera https://vidatoastmasters.blogspot.com/ En abril de este año, vimos las impresionantes imágenes de un agujero negro por primera vez, y la dinámica de ese asombroso sistema (y uso la palabra con cuidado) me recordó la verdadera naturaleza de la comunicación. Es un grave error pensar que la comunicación es lineal, en un solo sentido, como en: hablo, escuchas; Yo envío, tú recibes. De hecho, la comunicación es un círculo cerrado, en dos sentidos, donde la forma en que hablo afecta la forma en que escuchas, y la forma en que escuchas afecta la forma en que hablo. Del mismo modo que la esfera de materia sobrecalentada...

"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” - Anonymous We communicate at every moment with our co-workers, family, and friends, to almost everyone at any time. The way we transmit our emotions, opinions and wishes are using some means of communication, and it can be oral or written. But we do not always know how to correctly structure the message to be transmitted, which is why we sometimes unconsciously hinder our own message, by not being clear and precise or by not providing it with elements that clarify or enrich the message. Fortunately, we have the possibility to use rhetoric that can easily help in delivering a better message. Rhetoric is a discipline that provides the tools and techniques to express oneself in the best possible way, so that both language and message are sufficiently effective to delight, persuade or invite to action. The language is very rich in tools and allows us to accurately communicate the thoughts ...

Let’s take Pathways Challenge The Guadalupe-Reyes “ puente ” is over and we must not postpone anymore the moment of joining the Pathways program, which Toastmasters has brought us. A program that will allow us to enter more into a more comprehensive and modern skills development era. But it turns out that we have to start from the basics? Many people have been shocked to know that you have to start by presenting an icebreaker and register basic leadership activities. For advanced speakers who no longer present speeches so frequently, it has been difficult to decide to start again. It will be hard for us to start a trip at the same level as the newcomers and we must leave the pride aside to roll up the shirt and start doing work from basics. The advantage for experienced Toastmasters is that the cumulative stage hours can make the process fun, enriching and even therapeutic, since it will allow us to get out of a routine established more than 90 years ago to face a ne...

To infinity and beyond. One of the buzzwords today is to be resilient. Resilience 1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after  deformation  caused especially by compressive stress 2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to  misfortune  or change Merriam -webster dictionary Resilience has been defined by the ability of human beings to confront adversity and adapt to the bad results, failures, tragedies, traumas or stress that can generate us. Acting in a resilient way does not mean that we are insensitive or that we do not experience difficulties, knowing that at some point in our lives we have all felt sadness, uncertainty, discomfort or pain, whether physical or emotional; but despite all the obstacles and difficulties that arise, even so, most of us are able to overcome and adapt over time. In Toastmasters we consciously face situations that cause us nervousness and worry. We pr...

January 16th, 2017 How to overcome the fear of public speaking: Control your anxiety. One of the certain things in life I found is that we all will end up spending most of our time as a salesman. If you applying for a position as an employee you are selling yourself on that interview, you will try to convince the employer that you are the best option to hire. If you are an entrepreneur there is no option but becoming the salesman for your product or service. You might say that if you are a doctor, dentist or similar you are not a salesman, but the competition is tough and of course, you need to have the best technical preparation but also you need the confidence to present interesting proposals and if you use other supporting elements the probability of success will be higher. We are all whether you like it or not on sales.   One of the most common characteristics in humankind is that we have a condition identified as, Glossophobia (unusual fear or anxiety of speak...

The title at first glance seems not right, "improvisation" and "preparation." However, the idea of improvising that we handle in Toastmasters sessions gives the impression that ideas flow easily through the mind of the speaker in turn. There are even times that you might think that the speaker is only pretending to give an improvised talk. One of the sections that we like most in a Toastmasters session is the Tabletop Topics ™ or Improvised talks. The Toastmaster in charge invites some assistants to answer a question, which has no previous idea of what it will consist of. You will then have only a few seconds to analyze the question, structure the answer and deliver the speech in a time of 2 minutes. In everyday life, our casual conversations, the so-called elevator talks, are improvised topics. When we meet unexpectedly with someone, friend, client or supplier, we can ignore them or take advantage of the training we had and strengthen our relationship. We c...

The word “procrastinate” means; to defer action or decision about something. It is an action that falls on what is differed or postponed: a trip, or a speech, for example. It is a very common word that we can find a lot of places lately. The financial struggles we are living now are causing a lot of stress on everyone and our mind sometimes is not very clear on what to do first. When we face some task we do not want to do, either because we do not like it, or because of the fear of the unknown results that might come, it seems that we turn on pain zones in our brain. In an act of protection or justification, we seek unconsciously, the way to stop this negative feeling by directing attention to something else, (this is what we expect). The mechanisms to protect ourselves from these situations of insecurity and discomfort are very different, we are finding the way to avoid that pain doing something else. All around the internet we found a big number of so-called "gurus" t...

One of the activities we do every day is an exercise in communicating with others. Sometimes communication becomes a two-way street and it is a valuable and productive one, but sometimes, there is no communication at all, is an only one-way street. At this moment is just a lecture, conference or a one-man show. I was recently asked to be an evaluator of a speech and I was overwhelmed by the speaker's presentation, at the end I congratulated her for the interesting and well-delivered topic, to the point that at that moment I had many ideas to search and apply in my life. My friend was pleased with the reaction I had in the speech. Moments later, containing all sorts of regrets and trying to be very cautious, I approached her and said; "The truth is that in this case, I do not care what you said”, her reaction was of astonishment and annoyance, since minutes before she had heard comments in another sense. I know that when you are invited to evaluate a Toastmasters project...