I recently visited a St. Louis organization whose sole purpose is to help people who are out of work. It’s called Businesspersons Between Jobs. www.bbj.org. I went there to to let them know about Toastmasters and how it might help people with their jobs interviews. I passed out a flier about our clubs upcoming Open House and briefly told them of the benefits of Toastmasters. I handed out 35 fliers. I also sent the same information to two people I know who are out of work.
Of the 37 people who knew about the meeting, only one showed up.
Guy Kawasaki talks about the need to go from Evolutionary to Revolutionary.
Unforunately, there’s a category before Evolutionary. I call it Rutionary.
These are people in a rut and either too lazy or too scared to get out of their rut.
That probably describes 90% of the population and in this case 36 out of 37 people.
The coach of the Missouri football team, Gary Pinkel, made some great philosophical comments which apply not only to football, but life in general. He said, “You’re never built. It’s a never-ending process. So, to this point, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, but there’s a lot left out there.”
That pretty much says it all about life.
We are all never finished, never done, never at the end of the journey.
We can always learn and grow and improve.
I remember talking to a friend one day about whether she was exercising. She replied that no she wasn’t, she just wanted to stay the same. Unfortunately, there is no just staying the same. We’re either getting better or getting worse. Doing nothing is tantamount to losing ground and getting worse.
What are you doing to improve, to get better, to get the most out of your journey?
Every once in a while, I get an email which tells me about some problem with one of my websites – either a link isn’t working or a page doesn’t load correctly. I always thank the person profusely and make the corrections ASAP.
Yet – it’s always amazing to me the people and organizations which I offer to help, but who don’t respond.
Just in the last week, I offered to help a speaker with his presentation for no charge, yet I never heard back from him. I also offered an organization some free tech help and they never got back with me either. Are these people just lazy or stupid? Probably the former. People realize they need to change, yet aren’t willing to do the work to make the changes.
It’s aggravating, but I’m used to it by now.
One of the great things we do in Toastmasters is provide feedback to everyone who speaks. As a speaker you will get an oral evaluation and 20 other written evaluations to help you with your next speech.
I encourage you to ask for feedback and take action when you do receive it.
