TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

Toastmasters announces its list of the best speeches of 2015. So folks, you know, the best movies of the year, the best books, the best speeches. A lot of that is subjective, but the good folks at Toastmasters obviously have a passion for public speaking. They put a lot of thought into this. I want to share with you some of the speeches that the folks at Toastmasters thought were really the very best of 2015. They nominated about seven of these. The first one, Beck the musician in his acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards. I've linked to the story on this so you can actually see all the videos yourself and decide for yourself the next one. In February, J.K. simmons winning his best supporting Oscar award for his performance in Whiplash. And I do remember that. And commenting at the time that it was one of the best, that it was in fact the best acceptance speech at the awards. He said, I'm told there's like a billion people or so watching. Call your mom, call your dad. If you're lucky enough to have a parent or two alive on this planet. Don't text, don't email. Call them on the phone, call, tell them you love them, thank them and listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you. You know, it was emotional, it was positive. I like it also, in part because it's about speaking. With all the advances of technology and email, there is nothing like actually talking to someone. Good advice. He came across really well. Unfortunately I can't call a parent. Both of mine had passed away. But you may want to follow up on the advice yourself. The next nomination for Best speech of 2015 this is May 17th. This was a speech at George Washington University by Apple CEO Tim Cook and he said, pulling a sound bite from that graduates, your values matter. They are your North Star. Otherwise it's just a job and life is too short for that. Apple, of course, notable for not being afraid to take controversial positions on social issues, even if it alienates some of their customers in an intriguing and different position from what a lot of major corporations do. Next speech. David Letterman, May 30th. When he ended his late night show, he did get in a final quip. He said, in light of all this praise, merited or not, do me a favor and save a little for my funeral. So self effacing right to the end. The next nomination, Caitlyn Jenner giving or receiving an award at the Arthur Ashe Courage Award ceremonies. And here's what she said. If you want to call me names, make jokes, doubt my intentions, go ahead. Because the reality is I can take it. But for the thousands of kids out there who are coming to terms with being true to who they are, they shouldn't have to take it. A memorable speech. And it did something that all great speakers do, which is not just talk about themselves, me, me, me. But talk about a higher purpose. Whether you are a fan of Caitlyn Jenner or not, she certainly hit the note right on that one. Now, for one I did not see. This is a speech called the Power of Words. It's by the Saudi Arabian Mohammed Qahtani. He was crowned the Toastmasters speaker of the Year. He won the World Championship of Public Speaking. You can see that speech. It's listed on my blog@mediatrainingworldwide.com check it out for yourself. And finally, for an Emmy, Viola Davis gave a speech in September. It really stood out. She said the only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. Now, she obviously delivered it with great emotion in the way I can and didn't. But these are some of the top speeches according to Toastmasters. Who did you think gave the best speech of 2015? I would love to hear from you. So post your comments right here on the blog. If you're watching this on YouTube, Facebook, any venue, or if you want to send me a tweet. Tjworker by the way, this program is brought to you by mediatrainingworldwide.com for all of your media and presentation training needs. By the way, if you haven't yet signed up for our free online public speaking course, do so today. Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and you can get all the videos. This is a seven day course and you can get those right away. Now, in our body language segment of the day, I want to talk a little about Paul Ryan. He is the newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives. Now, he's a young guy, very physically fit. In fact, his exercise routine got a lot of attention in 2012 when he was the GOP vice presidential nominee. Well, recently, fairly recently, he's grown a full beard. Why am I talking about this in a body language segment? Because what you have on your head, your face is a part of your body. It does send a message. It wasn't that long ago where the act of growing a beard, especially by a politician, was a sign of I'm retiring. Go away. I don't have to deal with you people anymore. Famously, Al Gore grew a beard after his 2000 election debacle. But Here we have Paul Ryan growing a beard and showing a beard at the same time. He's ascending to the spotlight, ascending to the pinnacle of power. What does that mean? Well, part of what it means is styles change, times change. For most of my life, a man growing a beard was a sign of eccentricity, a sign of, well, I'm a college professor, I don't have to account to anyone, or I'm a mountain man, or I want to be an unemployed bum or I'm so rich, I don't care. That's what it meant. It doesn't mean that anymore. These days, having a beard in many circles is the epitome of fashion. And it's considered sort of weird and dorkish to be like me, clean shaven. Now, most politicians, most members of Congress, certainly all the presidential candidates are pretty clean shaven. I don't know if that's really going to change dramatically, but Stiles have changed. Now, also, in Paul Ryan's defense, I haven't seen many people even commenting on this. So the fact that he grew a beard keeps it groomed neatly. And so few people are commenting on it, to me is a sign that he did it the right way. It's not just completely unkempt and growing out to here. It is a neat and well groomed beard. The other part of it is he carries it all. Sorry to sound superficial, but body language and how you look is inherently a superficial topic, folks. But how it affects people who are trying to figure out what you're about and help you communicate isn't superficial. That is important. Paul Ryan is trying to show a contrast with Hillary Clinton and older politicians of another generation, that he's new, he's young, he's hip, he's fit. And having a beard I think does a great job of sending a message. This is a new generation of speaker. It's not Nancy Pelosi who is now north of 70. It's that Newt Gingrich with his shock of white hair and fat and blubbery, he is the new young, vibrant speaker. I think it is something that works for him. We're not getting into the politics here. Some of you may say, well, his message isn't new. His message is quite reactionary. That's a topic for another program and on another channel, frankly, as much as I would like to indulge in that. But overall I think it works. Part of it is Ryan is a good looking guy. His beard is good looking. He doesn't have giant holes here and patches here and gray patches here. I've had a beard when I was 15 actually, and I've had beards on and off, although I haven't had a beard in more than 30 years. Again, it just doesn't look good on me. The whole three day stubble thing doesn't look good. Makes me look like a bum. Beards don't really look good on me. So I go clean shaven. But that's me. So Paul Ryan, I think is helping himself with his body language with respect to having a beard. What do you think? Do you like Paul Ryan's beard? Do you even care? Post your comments. You can send it to@infoediatrainingworldwide.com or post a comment whether you're watching this on YouTube, Facebook or any other platform. In our behind the Scenes segment, other politicians Interesting comments from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently. He's been in office for more than 20 months now. He was being interviewed by one of the local TV stations, asked to reflect upon his time in office so far. Here's what jumped out at me. This is a quote from the mayor. I've got to do a better job of explaining the problem, communicating the solutions we're working on, and showing how we move forward. And I'm critical. Here's where he's critical of himself. I'm critical of myself whenever I feel that I haven't communicated well enough, that there's areas where I've gotten our vision across very effectively in areas where I haven't. And I have to say to myself every day, what are you not doing well enough? What can you do better? And interesting that he puts communication up there. Now obviously someone in my role as a communications coach thinks that communication is really the number one skill a politician needs in order to be successful. You look at the two most successful politicians of certainly my adult lifetime, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton. What do they have in common? Universally acclaimed as great communicators. So whether you're Bill de Blasio, a rising politician, someone running for City council the first time, or someone who wants to be president, look at the reflections people have. President Obama said this recently. He needs to communicate more effectively. You've got to refine and build your political skills. Now switching overseas. This caught me more attention from the palace in Great Britain. This is, according to National Enquirer, not usually a news source that I put a lot of credibility in. But for things like this, I do think they are in fact credible. It's a story about Kate Middleton and it quotes some insiders, some off not for attribution, insiders from the palace, here's what it said. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hit on the idea of hiring a professional talking about a public speaking coach after watching a DVD of their favorite movie, the King's Speech, over and over again. The 2010 Oscar winning flick details the battle of William's great grandfather, King George Virginia against a terrible stammer. Now, I love the movie. First of all, it was a great movie. Second of all, any movie that makes the public speaking coach the hero of a movie is a pretty good movie in my view. If you haven't seen the King's Speech, I would highly recommend it. But if you care at all about public speaking, whether you're a toastmaster or professional speaker, there's just something absolutely fascinating and tantalizing about the Duke and Duchess, the Prince and the Duchess, sitting around in a big castle watching the King's Speech. It's just something you would expect. And yet when you actually hear it happens, it's just a delicious concept. Now, here's the part that concerns me. According to this palace insider, the palace has decided to hire a voice coach and a speech coach for Kate. But according to this source, they're working with a well regarded stage actor. Oh, boy. In my experience, some of you have heard me say this before. The worst possible presentation coaches, speech coaches are actors and people from the acting background. Actors are simply different. They're wired differently from you and me. Actors want to sit around and let's talk about our feelings. That's not how most human beings really like to talk. So the problem is, actors are willing to spend, you know, days and days and days and days practicing and rehearsing a 20 second script moment for a movie or a speech or a play. Most human beings, certainly business people, people in public, like in this case, the Duchess, that's not really how they want to spend their time. And so in my experience, teaching people to act is teaching them to do something very much out of their comfort zone and to become something different. Whereas what I do and what I believe most great public speaking coaches do is we teach people like Kate to not act, to simply speak the way they do when they aren't relaxed and comfortable talking to a few friends. It's actually the opposite of acting. Part of what I do in all of my training is I secretly tape people during a day. When I turn the light off the camera, they don't realize they're being taped and, and I just capture them speaking naturally. Their hands are moving, their face is moving, their Voice goes up and down and 99% of the time they actually like that. They think, wow, if I could speak half as well as that person, I would be in great shape. And that's our role model for that person. The rest of the day it's how they talk when they are not acting scared. So that is my big concern for Kate, that you're hiring a professional actor that can actually make things worse. But I do wish her luck. Also in the news, this comes from Fortune. Interesting profile of Kevin Chow. He is the co founder and CEO of kavam. Talking about presentation skills, his own strengths and weaknesses, he says quote, and by the way, all the stories I'm referencing you can find on the website at media trainingworldwide for Today program. Like most introverts, I dislike public speaking, but employees expect their leaders to be inspirational speakers. And here's the part that really jumped out at me. This is a quote in Fortune from the CEO quote and no CEO can delegate this responsibility. Well said. That's why it's critical for anyone who is a CEO or who aspires to be a CEO that they actually learn how to be competent, good, strong public speakers. Because you can't delegate it. You can delegate accounting, you can delegate slide creation, you can delegate sales. Sometimes you cannot delegate speaking. So I'm glad that Kevin Chow has the awareness for that. Now here's the part that bothered me. To ease my nerves, I often ask organizers if I can do a fireside chat room rather than a straight up speech. Folks, that's lazy. To say I've got to have someone ask me questions in order to deliver interesting insights to the audience is downright laziness. If you're more interested answering questions, then when you're writing your speech, don't write it out and have a whole bunch of bullet points. Just write down 10 interesting questions that you think an audience member would want to hear and interview yourself. That will solve most of your problems. In the technology news and technology tip of the day did get a comment from one of the regular viewers of this program who told me that she saw Bill Nye the Science Guy speaking recently and that he used the technology of asking people to answer questions by cell phone. And presumably it is if you believe global warming is the biggest threat, push 1. If it's something like that. I didn't see the speech. Here was my question to the viewer. I said, if Bill Knight didn't use this technology, if he didn't have the cell phone interaction, would he have still delivered a great interesting fascinating, memorable speech. And she said, yes, he was great. He was funny, he was interesting, he was passionate, he was insightful. Folks, if you're going to use technology in your speech, that's what you want people to say. You want them to say, even if there had been no technology, it still would have been a fascinating, memorable speech. It was just an added enhancement. So I'm all in favor of what Bill Nye did with getting questions from people with their cell phones. What I'm not in favor of is people sort of standing up, still reading, going through bullet points, not having stories, not delivering passion and thinking that a gimmick with a cell phone is going to somehow rescue them. So please keep that in mind. Use technology. Make sure your speech stands on its own even if you had no technology whatsoever. In public speaking news, I do want to put a spotlight on something that happened in Decatur, Georgia. Not that far away from where I used to live. I used to live in North Florida. This was the Decatur County 4H. They had a fourth grade public speaking contest. This is a part of the 4H Cloverleaf Project achievement. And it was in Moultrie, Georgia, part of Decatur. And a special shout out to Ellie Goodwin Kelly came in first place. Fourth grade, folks, that's starting even earlier than I did fourth grade. I don't know if anyone had heard me say two words in my life other than mom, I want a cookie. So the fact that Ellie Goodwin is not only participating in public speaking contest in fourth grade, but winning, I think says a lot for her future. So congratulations, Ellie. Again, folks, if you have not yet stopped by the website mediatrainingworldwide.com to pick up your free free no obligation online public speaking course or media training course, please do so today. Just go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and sign up for the free no obligation online course. I'm TJ Walker. May all of your speaking opportunities in life be a huge success.