Flexibility

Flexibility is something we strive for. I am a fan of gymnastics, especially watching the Olympic competition. I marvel at the moves, strength, and flexibility that those athletes have. Age and lack of practice diminish the ability to be physically flexible and my bones and muscles ache just watching the gymnasts perform. Some say that yoga can rebuild some of that stretching ability, so I may have to try that. But there is one area that we can all practice stretching.

The craft of a wordsmith is stretching. Learning and practicing the powerful and effective use of words is a craft that any can attempt. Being able to go beyond simple talks to inspiring, encouraging, challenging speeches is something that we should aspire to. The better we can communicate the more impact we can have for good in this world.

In Toastmasters we begin with eliminating filler words  - the 'ahs', 'ums', and 'so's' that can litter our speaking and be as annoying as physical trash on the street. We call out bad grammar and praise good use of grammar. We plant words of the day to increase our vocabulary and give recognition to 'colorful words and phrases', as we call them - when speakers incorporate elevated descriptions into their presentations. 

Recently we have been taking that work to another level - competition. One of our veterans recently commended speakers at a Division contest for 'stretching' themselves in their speeches. Taking them beyond the ordinary and with continual practice become more precise and descriptive and inspiring.

There were definitely some 'wow' speeches. It has definitely inspired me.

And if you want to hear some truly inspiring speakers you will again be able to listen to the best of the best at the World Championship of Public Speaking put on by Toastmasters International for free on Zoom this coming August. 

The 3 E's

 When I first joined Toastmasters my first speech, as is for all new members, was my icebreaker. An icebreaker is where you introduce yourself to the club and share how you would like to be remembered. In some ways it is the easiest speech and the toughest speech, all at the same time. It is the easiest because the topic is you and you are the expert - easy to remember and uncontroversial because it is all about you

But in some ways it is also the hardest. How do you define yourself, how do you narrow down the details of your life to fit 4-6 minutes. Don't sweat, there will be other icebreakers as you navigate the paths of TM. But I believe the first answer that comes to mind usually is best. So the answer to that first question - who are you? - is what comes to mind first.

That's how I came up with my "3 E's" speech. Explore, Experiment, Express. Those are the three words that define me most. I love to explore - both physical space and mental and experiential knowledge.  I love to experiment - try new things (food and otherwise) , do things a different way, and combine elements (chemistry and food mainly) to find out what happens. And I am a expressive person, even for an introvert. I enjoy expressing to others what I am thinking or what is going on with me, through music and/or words, in order to help people grow, feel accepted, and challenged.

Musing on those 3 leads me to articulate what I see as the purpose for this blog. I want to help you expand your mind and your horizons. I want to inspire you to explore without fear. To experiment with abandon And I want you to be able to express who you are, help others to see that, and to affirm yourself and your self worth. All of us have stories to tell, you need to tell them, and the world needs to hear them.

And hopefully I can use this blog and the comments to do inspire you. Don't let anyone tell you what you can or can't do. Be yourself and be proud of it.

It's okay to be different - even weird

 Have you ever been called "different"? Did you every suspect that they were really thinking "you're weird"?  There can be pressure today, not just in our teen years, to conform, to stick to the mainstream and "fit in ".  But if you look around at nature you see all sorts of differences, even within types of flora and fauna. When I go on my morning walks I see and hear all sorts of creatures. I am often greeted with a chorus of frogs, unseen but clearly heard. I see scampering squirrels and hopping wild rabbits. It gets me in a good mood for the day. 

And then there are the birds. In essence they are the same creature - two-footed beaked flying things. But we know that there is so much variety, in every way. They look different, they sound different, they behave and fly differently. The little chickadees and quail flit swiftly from place to place, darting for crumbs and then away again. The ducks furiously quack like they hate to fly, while the geese honk as they head onward in formation across the sky. The herons lift off gracefully as they launch themselves into the sky, while the crows play chicken with cars, zipping off quickly at the last second.  And then there are the Stellar Jays who mimic others birds with their voices and are known among vacationers as campground thieves. 

So why should we be afraid of being different, or sticking out? Sometimes it is because we don't have company. We have normal stamped into us all by those, at home, at school, in society, who fear that we will be hurt if we stick out. Yes, some feel threatened by us being different, but I think a lot of well-meaning people, both parents and not, are afraid we will be rejected if we appear different. Sometimes we are restrained by words - that we don't want to apply to us.

I encountered one of those words in my life - weird. Nobody wants to be called weird. It has strong negative connotations - a bad label. I had a particular unusual food combination choice that I liked but many considered weird. I had a coworker who repeatedly used that word to describe it. Frankly one day I had had enough, so I said "okay, so I'm weird, somebody has to be, might as well be me". After that she never used the word again - I had neutralized its sting. It didn't hurt me since I had accepted it.

What labels have you had? What potentially keeps you from being you? Next time someone tries to limit you (even if it's just in your mind) by using a label like 'different', or 'weird', think of the birds and take pride in your 'difference'. Try to imagine how you can turn their words against them, or better yet how you can use that word to motivate yourself to be different. It can be a great challenge, but I believe you are up to it. And you have plenty of company if you just look around. If we were all quacking ducks afraid to fly, how far would that get us and how boring it would be.:)

End of the week thoughts

It has been a good week, much quicker going by than last week, even though I had 2 days off last week and just finished my usual 5 day stretch today. It was also a successful week at work which makes things go smoother. I am in the middle of Toastmaster contest season, with 3 Division contests completed, and 4 more to go, plus the District contest next month. I just found out that I now have 4 judges recruited for that contest, needing 5 more and one tie-breaker. It has been a successful and satisfying stretch as District Chief Judge, but I am eager to get going on preparations for my next gig - Division B Director for the 2021-2022 TM year.

The struggle with club growth continues - with our Edmonds club trying to rebuild and attract new members - next up is an open house on June 4th. And we did a reboot on our Marysville club - renaming it Pacific Storytellers, with a focus on storytelling. I am hoping that I will learn things through those experiences and clubs with membership issues in Division B that will help prepare me for a second run at Club Growth Director.

So far I have done 14 days blogging, including my first day April 3rd. I plan to keep on blogging on a daily basis in order to establish a habit, similar to my daily walks, and also to hopefully attract an audience. I don't know where exactly this will lead, but is an effort that I want to do and hopefully encourage and educated others. 

More to come

Think around corners

Think outside of the box - how many times have you used that phrase and wished you had a fresh new way to encourage people to be creative? Cliches are true phrases that have gotten beaten into the ground through overuse. I always wanted to find a better phrase and now I have. My most recent reading on leadership used the phrase "he was known for thinking around corners. I had never heard that before but I was hooked. It was such a fresh, novel way of putting it. I googled it and found that this is an up and coming phrase for creativity. I found several articles detailing the process.

My initial reaction was that it didn't say see around the corners, but rather think around the corners. I also noted that even though you can't physically see around a corner you can use other senses to give clues about what is around the corner. You can hear sounds from around the corner, you can smell something around the corner, and you can feel vibrations around the corner. So much like a blind person relies on there other senses when deprived of sight, you can use other senses to make up for the lack of sight around that corner.

But then there were other concepts that I was introduced to that amplified the concept. One person wrote about how a strategically placed mirror could help you see around the corner. They said that we all have times that we can't see around the corner and we need to have  different perspective and the mirror could be used to represent that. If you were able to create characters quite differently than yourself you could put the questions to them and get responses and perhaps get help to "see" around that 'corner'.

They suggested creating 3 characters to be that mirror - to give you options.

The other view involved an ongoing practice of asking 'what if?", using several methods including a heavy dose of curiosity to assemble options based on  what might happen, so as to be prepared for what is around the corner. This is both a hedge against bad things that might happen, but also a preparation for what good things might happen We often treat surprises with suspicion, thinking worst case scenario, fearful of carefully laid plans that get foiled. But we also need to anticipate that things might turn out much better than planned and be prepared to take advantage of them. 

There is much more to learn about this and I will be incorporating this into my leadership planning. And I would encourage you to be curious and try to think around the corner.

Curiosity

They say that curiosity killed the cat. But don't believe that. Cats always land on their feet. They don't fear curiosity and neither should we. In these days of pandemic alteration of life there is much need for change and the best change happens when we step off the cliff of the normal and soar into the unknown seeking to cause transformational change. We need imagination and inspiration to produce that lasting impact - to be not passively reactive but proactively reaching forward. 

I admit I am a bit biased. I was born curious, as are we all, but I maintained it through the rigors of school, traditional church, and in general a society based on set ways. I grew up in the 60's, a time of great change and was raised in a country neighborhood with plenty of space to explore. I had parents who encouraged my thirst for knowledge and allowed me to experiment. 

Not all of my experiments turned out well. I created a fire in my bedroom through a chemistry experiment gone awry.  I drained the household supply of either vinegar or baking soda with an experimental rocket. And I royally failed at my first baking attempt. Later on in college I spooked a chemistry lab assistant when I dropped a rootbeer lifesaver in a beaker of nitric acid just to see what would happen. The thick brown cloud in the beaker got swiftly sucked up under the safety vent. 

Nowadays I experiment with food and words, much safer than chemicals. But I am still very committed to staying curious, continually learning. And these words will never cross my lips (except in sarcasm) "we've never done it that way before"

Lessons from the lumberyard

I have learned a lot of patience in my working years, none more than when I worked at a lumberyard in Phoenix. Not only was there plenty of heat, dust, sawdust, noise, but ornery people, most of all my boss, Wes. Looking back not only was stubborn, loud, unpredictable, but he was abusive. Somehow I made it through 5 plus years there and in the process learned good word-working skills but also some general practical lessons. I'd like to share three with you.

The first one I learned the various machine saws that were used to trim the rough wood done to the size, smoothness and shape to be sold. When feeding boards into the machines you had to walk a fine line and had to not be afraid of the machine. If you held the board too lightly it would skew and get mangled. If you held it too tight would jam the machine. You had to guide it in and let the machine take it the rest of the way. 

The second lesson was on the molding machine. We made all sorts of wood molds, from chair and bar rails, to door jams, to floor and ceiling molding. Look around when you are in a restaurant or bar and you will see examples of what we made in the edges of walls and doors. I did a lot of work at the 'business end' of the machine - where the finished product came out. I was armed with a Skill Saw and my job was to trim any bad ends and then bundled the molding for storage and sale. I had a table underneath where the molding exited the machine and I learned, especially with reminders from my partner, Ernie, that if I hesitated to trim first the pile of molding would build up quickly requiring a time out to clear it. His constant mantra was 'when it's in your hand trim it, don't put it down until you have fixed it".  Deal with it right away and you won't have to deal with it again - keeps me going today.

And the third lesson was from observing a young coworker temp we had working for us for a short time. When feeding the  molding machine it is best to keep a constant flow of lumber pieces going in. If the piece in the machine did not have another piece being pulled in after it it would stall and the board would burn from the rollers trying to pull it along. On the other hand you wanted to trim off any rough ends before putting a piece in the machine. So there was a trim saw on a tripod behind the machine so you could trim any bad ends. Of course over time a pile of cut ends would build up behind the saw and you had to keep that down so the saw could do it's work. To make a long story short one day this kid saw the pile behind the saw building up, quickly tried to clear it, saw the last piece feeding into the machine and in a hurry put his hand down on the tripod to get back to the machine and his hand went into the blade. He pulled it back out quickly so he didn't get seriously hurt, but he did have a cut and required bandaging. He never got that hurried again  and we put a saw guide over most of the blade.

So, guide things along - don't try to force it. Deal with problems right away before they build up. And be mindful of your surroundings and don't rush. Lessons from the lumberyard.