Bill SituClub President "Lead by example" is an expression that I'm sure you've heard of at some point before. Leaders speak about this idea so extensively to the point where it has now become a cliché. Still, the meaning of this phrase remains an important ethos of leadership. Setting the ToneImmediate Past Club President Jody Barker-Leuthard takes the stage during a meeting Most people by default think of leaders as people who provide guidance and direction for followers. This is true without a doubt. However, there is another crucial aspect of leadership that involves setting the correct tone for the team. Being a club president myself, I can say very positively that this is of critical importance if you are in my club officer position. Every organization has a culture of some kind, meaning a set of beliefs and values that define the organization and that the members subscribe to. Organizational culture begins at the leadership level. Leaders, through the way that they conduct themselves, will directly influence the performance of the team. This is the very essence of the topic of this post, which is leading by example. As a club president, I want the club to be successful. For this to happen, I need to create a culture where the club members do their part and actively participate. In order to do this, I myself need to be actively participating so that my members will follow suit. The overall attitude of a leader, be it positive or negative, will ultimately manifest in the team as a whole. A committed and passionate leader will result in a team of a similar nature. Likewise, an apathetic leader will naturally make for an underperforming team. In a previous post, I alluded to Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's award-winning book, Extreme Ownership. In it, there's a quote — "There are no bad teams, only bad leaders." Being a leader requires you to be extra self-conscious about your own character, including your personal flaws and shortcomings. As such, taking on a leadership role really is a reality check. Remember at the end of the day that your team's performance is ultimately a reflection of how you conduct yourself. Setting ExpectationsThere is a well-known saying that goes as, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." What it basically means is don't criticize other peoples' faults that you yourself have. As it relates to this topic, you properly lead by example through setting expectations that you yourself can live up to.
If you can't to live up to a specific standard, then it is neither fair nor realistic to hold your followers to it. Even as a club president, I don't invest every bit of my time and energy into Toastmasters. Like anyone in the organization, I have a life outside of Toastmasters. Therefore, I can't reasonably expect that any of my club members make Toastmasters their absolutely top priority either. As a rule of thumb, if there's something that I can't do (or am unwilling to do), I won't expect anyone under my leadership to do it. Hypocrisy is an example of what I would term a "leadership sin". Teams thrive on the mutual respect and trust between members and leaders. Setting expectations that you can't live up to yourself only causes your followers to lose respect for you, which will erode the team's performance. It's now your turn to be the leader. What kind of example do you want to set for your followers? What do you expect of your team? Can you live up to such expectations yourself?
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Bill SituClub President Leadership is a form of interaction. For an interaction to be successful, it's often necessary to think from the perspective of the person(s) that you're interacting with. In this way of thinking, you're more likely to lead effectively when you can put yourself in your followers' shoes. From my experience, I would say that this is definitely one of the more challenging aspects of being a leader. This idea is commonly overlooked, but is essential nonetheless in successful leadership. Remember when you were a guest?Tom Jones, DTM, was a guest speaker at our club's open house event last October. Even as a seasoned Toastmaster, he started as a guest. Leaders were all followers at the beginning. Over time, they rise to leadership positions as they accumulate knowledge and experience in their organization. Nobody will deny that gaining knowledge and experience is invaluable. However, a side effect of this is that we gradually become disconnected from the state that we were in at the beginning. Understanding the position that you were in when you started your journey is more crucial than you might think. The people that we lead come from the same place that we used to be in ourselves. It goes without saying that in order to provide effective guidance for our followers, we need to be able to relate to them. As a Toastmaster, you encounter guests at your club on a fairly regular basis. Truth is, Toastmasters continually thrives and grows in its membership because of these guests. It is here that they get their first interaction with current Toastmasters and learn about the organization. A good practice for club members is to actively build rapport with guests, and this involves understanding yourself when you made your first club visit. No matter how seasoned of a Toastmaster you are currently, you were a guest at the beginning. Chances are, there was a fair amount that you didn't know about Toastmasters at the time, and this is the very boat that guests are in when they visit your club. When you understand this, then you are more able to effectively build rapport with club visitors. Being Thorough With InstructionsNavigating the Pathways Base Camp is challenging, so I looked for ways to streamline this process for members as a VP Ed. As you probably may have guessed by this point, followers have knowledge gaps when compared to the leader. This means that in practice, the act of putting yourself in your follower's shoes will involve being thorough and clear when giving instructions.
As a case in point, during my two terms as VP Education, I familiarized many new members with the Pathways education program. I did this by emailing members step-by-step instructions almost like what you'd see in a user's manual. The reason I did this was because I distinctly remembered the challenges that I had when I first navigated the Pathways Base Camp. Therefore, as a VP Ed, one of my goals was to streamline this process for future members. After all, navigating a new website and making sense of it can be overwhelming, and even frustrating at times! Speaking of instructions, I have a quick, but handy suggestion for you: Written instructions are much easier to reference and follow compared to verbal ones, so aim to use the former over the latter when communicating instructions to others. At the end of the day, a person's ability to understand a follower's state of knowledge is vital to successful leadership. One of your essential jobs as a leader is to make sure that you are communicating in a way that followers will understand you. When your followers understand, then you know you've done your part correctly! Bill SituClub President There are many words that you can easily associate with the leadership. "Guidance", "direction", and "organization" are among few of many. However, in my experience, I feel that "responsibility" probably has the closest association. If you're a fan of Spiderman, then you've definitely heard the saying, "With great power comes great responsibility". "Responsibility" in itself is very broad in meaning, and being a leader requires a sense of responsibility in every sense of the word. While there's a lot that I realistically can say about this, for the purpose of this post, I'll be talking about the importance of staying on top of things. Sure enough, responsibility and authority go hand-in-hand as a club officer! Organization Skills Come Into PlayEvery club officer position entails specific responsibilities on top of showing up to meetings and taking on roles. For example, if you're sergeant-at-arms, you need to arrive to meetings early to set-up and ensure that all the club's physical property is serviceable. As the VP Public Relations, you're most likely the one handling the social media channels if your club uses them. If you're a VP Membership, you're actively working to convert guests to members. No matter which club officer position you hold, you will in some capacity be committing time to your club outside of regular meetings. Keeping on top of things might seem easy in theory, but is much more difficult in practice. Like any Toastmaster, you have a life outside of the club, to include work, school, family, etc. As such, your organization skills become especially necessary when you hold a club officer position. Things I've Had to Keep On Top OfKeeping track of member progress was an essential part of my job as VP Education. Here I awarded Ke Xu (current club VP Public Relations) with his certificate of level 1 completion. As somebody who has done the VP Education role twice in the past, I think it's fitting for this post to talk more specifically about what my job entailed. If you happen to be going for this club officer position, then this may give you some insight about the nature of the job too.
The VP Ed position comes with a number of responsibilities. Among these include planning the weekly meeting agendas, keeping track of members' progress in the education program, and orienting new members with Toastmasters. Planning meeting agendas meant that during every meeting, I had to make sure that all roles for the upcoming meeting were filled. Prior to the next meeting, I had to input the roles on Free Toast Host (our club switched to Easy-Speak at the start of this year). From there, I had to email out the agenda to club members. Finally, I had to print out enough copies of the agendas and bring them to the club meetings. A more challenging task of the VP Ed role was keeping track of the members' progress. This meant having a consistently clear picture of what the club's distinguished performance report looked like (I wrote in a previous post about the various club goals that it outlines). To help the club reach the necessary goals, I regularly checked to see where individual members were at with the education program and had to remember to submit level completions on Club Central whenever someone completed a level. Last but not least, I had to familiarize new members with the Toastmasters education program. Anytime that the club got a new member, I had to remember to give them instructions on how to access Pathways and do the projects. In short, there were a number of things that I had to be responsible for as a VP Ed. Still, keeping on top of things is the name of the game for club officers and by extension, leaders in general. This is why I say that being a club officer is perhaps the most valuable leadership experience you can get out of Toastmasters. Learning, practicing, and mastering the art of staying on top of things will definitely serve you well in your leadership endeavours! Bill SituClub President The need for leaders to be knowledgeable isn't a contemporary idea — in fact, such an understanding has origins from a time period as far back as in Ancient Greece. Plato, a renowned philosopher from that civilization, even once famously wrote about this subject. The Philosopher KingIn 375 BC, Plato authored a publication known as Republic, which continues to be widely read and studied to this day. In fact, this was a text on the reading list in a political science course that I did during university. Like many of Plato's works, Republic was written in the form of a Socratic dialogue, where Socrates has discussions with others on a particular subject. This particular work centres around the subject of a utopian state, and covers topics related to governance. "Philosopher king" is an important term that Plato coins in this dialogue. In essence, a philosopher king is a ruler who possesses a love for wisdom and knowledge. Plato further describes the philosopher king as the person fit to captain a "Ship of State". Leader = ExpertImmediate Past District 21 Director Shawn Gold running a club officer training session for Richmond Friendly in August 2018 The "Ship of State" analogy that Plato described in his text suggests that an effective leader (of any organization) is somebody who is knowledgeable. After all, a captain who doesn't have the proper knowledge and skill in navigation can't properly steer a ship. Another way to understand Plato's idea is that leaders are experts in whatever they may be leading their followers in accomplishing. Leaders are the ones that followers will by default go to if they ever have questions, problems, or concerns. As such, an effective leader is someone who readily has answers and solutions available. It is for this very reason that club officers need to attend accredited training sessions upon election into their position. For club officers who have previously held an appointment in their current position, attending training is a way to upgrade knowledge. Learning From the Ground UpHolding online meetings was something I had to put in the time to learn recently You may recall reading in a previous post that my first term as a club officer was in July 2018 as VP Education. Taking on this club officer role really required me to learn from the ground up.
My first term as VP Education was also when the Pathways education program came out. One of the biggest challenges that I had to figure out was how the program even worked. I had to learn from square one about how to navigate Pathways as a member and how to be a Basecamp Manager. Because Pathways was a brand new program at the time, there weren't many Toastmasters who were particularly knowledgeable about it, which made it fairly difficult for me to get ready assistance. Still, I was the club VP Education. I was the one responsible for keeping track of my club members' progress. This meant that I had to become familiar with how Pathways worked. My fellow club members were counting on me to answer questions about Pathways. As such, I took it upon myself to make sense of Pathways. It was challenging without a doubt and I definitely made mistakes along the way, but I eventually pieced together how the program worked. Since then, I have oriented a number of new Toastmasters with the Pathways program and have even instructed other VP Eds in how to be a Basecamp Manager. A more recent example of me learning from the ground up was figuring out how to hold online meetings. The transition to online meetings definitely caught me off guard, as it probably did for many other Toastmasters. As the club president, I had to figure out the specifics of online meetings. Having never used Zoom in the past, I had to learn that as the first step! Despite the initial challenges, our club has been successfully holding online meetings since. In closing, being a leader may often mean that you have plenty to learn, and learning isn't always fun to do. I won't lie — I personally found this to be tedious at times. Still, being knowledgeable is a must if you're a leader. Of course, no one expects you to know absolutely everything, but this doesn't give you an excuse for not making the effort to learn. Bill SituClub President If you play on a sports team (or have formerly played on one), you're probably familiar with the term, "team player". However, being a team player is a concept that applies broadly to any kind of team setting. It is also an important act of leadership. Machine AnalogyLast year's Thanksgiving open-house event was one of many tasks that required collaboration and team effort. There's a saying that any team is only as strong as the weakest member. This statement can't be more true. An easy way to understand this would be to see how machines work. Machines of all kinds, from the most basic to the most complex, consist of components working in coordination to make the machine function. A defect in any one of the components will in some way impact the overall functionality of the machine. Of course, the degree to which the defect will affect the machine's operation can vary, but it still goes without saying that if there's a problem with one component, then there's a problem with the machine as a whole. A team works fundamentally in much the same way. When one person falls short, it'll drag down the overall performance of the team. That being said, you don't want to be the one who drags everyone else down by not doing your part or doing poorly at it. Having Team's Interests at HeartDefinition of "organization" on dictionary.com According to dictionary.com (I am an English major, so I absolutely LOVE this website XD), an organization is "a group of persons organized for some end or work". The part of this definition to emphasize here is "for some end or work". This means that every organization has a strategic set of objectives that the members strive to accomplish. Toastmasters clubs are no exception. In a previous post, I mentioned about club awards (Distinguished, Select Distinguished, and President's Distinguished) and how clubs need to meet specific goals in order to qualify for them. Qualifying for club awards is just one of many tangible achievements that members work toward realizing every year. It goes without saying that this requires all members of the club to be on board and do their part to contribute. It's also worthy noting that although Toastmasters is a fairly low-stakes environment, we cannot ignore the fact that every member has a firm obligation to contribute to the club's success, as is specifically stated in the new member's affirmation: "I ________________, IN THE PRESENCE OF MY FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE _____________ TOASTMASTERS CLUB, MAKE THIS FIRM OBLIGATION...TO ATTEND MEETINGS REGULARLY AND PREPARE FULLY FOR EACH ASSIGNMENT... TO APPLY MYSELF TO THE PROJECTS OUTLINED IN THE TOASTMASTERS EDUCATION PROGRAM...TO PARTICIPATE ACTIVELY IN CLUB ACTIVITIES...TO EVALUATE OTHERS IN A POSITIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE MANNER...TO BUILD OPEN, FRIENDLY RELATIONSHIPS WITH MY FELLOW MEMBERS ...AND TO BRING OTHER NEW MEMBERS INTO THE CLUB SO THAT THEY CAN ALSO GAIN THE BENEFITS OF TOASTMASTERS." When you commit to the above statement, then it is clear that you have the club's interests at heart. Stepping Up"Where Leaders Are Made" appears on the very front page of the Toastmasters website. The motto of the Toastmasters organization is, "Where Leaders Are Made". Sure enough, leadership is one of the central skills that the Toastmasters organization aims to teach members. For Toastmasters who are in club officer positions or higher (e.g. area, division, and district-level officers), it's fairly obvious as to how leadership come into play. However, every Toastmaster realistically has the opportunity to practice and exercise leadership even if they are just a club member.
Let's take a look at one of the most rudimentary tasks of every Toastmasters club — determining roles for weekly meetings. In every meeting, there are various roles that need to be filled, including chair, timer, grammarian, etc. Voluntarily taking on roles in itself is a form of leadership in that it shows willingness to contribute to the success of meetings. This also aligns with the statement in the new member induction about "participat[ing] actively in club activities". Anytime that a task needs to be done, those who willingly contribute are actively demonstrating leadership. Of course, taking on meeting roles is just one of several ways. The key word here is initiative. One of many things that leaders do is stepping up to make things work for the team. Not doing so simply puts the burden on other team members, which needless to say, is never conducive to team success. In short, so long as you're a Toastmaster, you have ample opportunity to practice and develop your leadership skills, even if you don't hold any designated leadership position. Being an effective team player is the first step, where the end result will be a win-win-situation for you and your club. Bill SituClub President As there are those of you may be thinking about becoming a club officer at this time, I've decided to create this series of posts titled "Leadership Lessons". In this series, I will speak about essential aspects of successful leadership based on my knowledge and experience. Welcome to the first instalment! A SEAL's TaleRamadi, Iraq. 2006. A US Navy SEAL team found itself locked in an intense firefight in what was then the epicentre of the Iraqi insurgency. When the firing ceased, Lieutenant Commander Jocko Willink, the officer-in-charge, realized that his team had made a fatal error. The people that they had just been shooting at were not enemy forces, but rather friendly ones. To make matters worse, there were three injured and one dead during the exchange of gunfire. LCDR Willink was in utter shock, and so were his troops. Still, things weren't about to get better. Upon returning to base, Willink's superiors were expecting an explanation — How did such a tragedy happen? Who was responsible? LCDR Willink had the answer, and it wasn't one that any ordinary person could easily give. The moment of truth came. The superiors wanted an answer. Several SEALs stepped up to claim responsibility. However, each time a SEAL spoke out, LCDR Willink reassured him that he wasn't to blame. Finally, LCDR Willink stepped up and gave a definitive answer — he himself was the one at fault for what had happened. This could have costed LCDR Willink severely, but it didn't. You're not perfect, but nobody isAmazon Kindle version of Jocko Willink's Extreme Ownership (co-authored with fellow retired SEAL LT Leif Babin) LCDR Willink and the SEALs under his command were without question respectable individuals in their own rights. They all had to survive some of the most intense and rigorous combat training in the world to earn the coveted title of SEAL. LCDR Willink was also a very seasoned and decorated officer. Still, needless to say, none of them were perfect at their job (If they were, the mission wouldn't have gone awry the way that it did). Truth is, nobody is perfect. Everyone has shortcomings, and this includes even the world's best leaders. This is an unfortunate, but true fact that every leader needs to come to terms with. When you are in a leadership position of any kind, you will inevitably make mistakes, and truthfully, many of them too. However, every reasonable person will be understanding if you mess up, so it really shouldn't hurt to admit mistakes. Even if it does, it'll hurt much more if you try to hide mistakes. LCDR Willink and his SEALs for a fact never lost credibility when they opened up about their faults for the incident. In fact, doing so (as LCDR Willink himself agreed with) had the direct opposite effect — it made their superiors trust them even more. The same will happen to you. A time when I fell short as a club officerRichmond Friendly Club Contest I have many stories that I could realistically share about the mistakes that I've made as an officer for my club, but there is one that I feel is worth sharing in particular.
Just a few months ago during the Toastmasters contest season, I was in charge of putting together the club contest. Despite being in my fourth term as a club officer, there was clearly a lot that I didn't know when it came to planning, because I had little to no experience with organizing contests. As I had envisioned, problems definitely did come up. For one, I didn't provide the correct agenda/script for the contest chair (who had no prior experience doing this role). There was also some confusion among certain club members over when to arrive. Simply put, it didn't run smoothly. Still, thanks to the efforts of fellow club members (and Toastmasters outside the club who helped out), we did manage to run the contest in the end. It wasn't anywhere near perfect, but the best thing for me to do was to accept it for what it was. By the end of all of it, I took it as a lesson for me (and my fellow club members) on how to run a contest in the future. To summarize, recognizing that you are not perfect is a necessary mentality to have as a leader, and it will make your leadership journey that much more positive of an experience. On a side note, Jocko Willink does have a podcast on YouTube and a book that covers various relevant topics on leadership, which he co-authored with fellow retired SEAL, Leif Babin. They are absolutely amazing and informative, and the book was a New York Times bestseller too! Check them out! Bill SituClub President ACOT session from August 2019 Club officer terms in Toastmasters may be annual or semiannual. At our club, the terms are semiannual, so they go from January to June and then July to December. As such, our club, along with many others, hold elections at around this time of year. If you're a member of a club where officer terms are semiannual, then you may be thinking about running for one of the seven club officer positions available. If this is you, then I commend you for choosing to step up and I wish you the best! Or maybe you just want to pass this time because you don't think you're quite ready yet. If this is you, then here are maybe a few things for you to consider: No Specific Experience Is NecessaryOne thing that I can reassure you about is that there is no required level of Toastmasters experience to become a club officer. So long as you are a paid member of your club, you are eligible to go for any officer position. As for myself, my first term as a club officer was in July 2018 as the club VP Education. At that time, I had only been a Toastmaster for about five months, which wasn't a very long time at all. Believe it or not, I personally know of Toastmasters who became club officers as soon as one month into their membership! They performed outstandingly in their club officer positions too. Such a person could very well be you! You'll Get TrainedClub Officer Assignment page on Toastmaster International's Club Central Not entirely sure about the specific duties of the club officer position you're going for? Not a problem! There was actually quite a lot that I didn't know when I started my first term as a club officer, especially since Pathways just came out as a new education program at the time. Even now, having done two terms as VP Ed and two as president, I still can't claim that I know everything about how to run a Toastmasters club. For this very reason, every year from June to August and from November to February, there are accredited club officer training sessions (ACOT), usually organized by districts and divisions. ACOT is basically when you learn about your job from experienced Toastmasters. In other words, nobody expects you to be an expert when you start your club officer term. There are others who will help get you up to speed! You're Never AloneDivison E Director Jiadong Kang and District 21 Director Michael Bown at an ACOT event in 2019 This builds on my previous point.
It's true that there is a lot of on-the-job learning once you've received your club officer training. Still, if you ever come across any challenges during your club officer term, you can always count on others for help. Members of your club who have previously been club officers are often more than happy to mentor and guide you. You also have area, division, and even district officials that you can get in touch with if you ever need support. Basically, what I'm trying to get across is that you're never alone as a club officer. There are many people that can give you a hand where you need it, be it big or small. To answer the question in the title of this post, I would most certainly encourage you to run for club officer when you get the chance. At the end of the day, being a club officer is one of the best opportunities that Toastmasters offers you to learn and master your leadership skills. It's definitely an experience that will boost your resumé, so take full advantage of it! Bill SituClub President Certificates of Level 1 completion for club members Scott Feng and Allen Tang Over the past two weeks, five of our club's members successfully completed the first level of their chosen paths. What's more is that these members have been Toastmasters for no longer than five months! Needless to say, I can't be more proud of the effort and dedication that these club members have put in. I joined Toastmasters a little over two years ago, and by far, this has been the most number of education awards that I've seen in such a short time span. These Toastmasters may be early on in their journeys, but they certainly are in the groove and should set a positive example for you to follow. Getting the Ball RollingI am not a physics major — in fact, I actually haven't done any courses in physics since grade 11! Still, I'm going to try to impress my Physics 11 teacher by explaining how momentum works :) When an object's at rest, it stays at rest. It won't move until you apply force to it. Similarly, once an object's in motion, it stays in motion until there is a force of some kind to stop it. A ball is not able to roll by itself. You need to do something to get it rolling (I mean it in a literal sense this time). Hopefully that was a satisfactory enough explanation :) But what has this got to do with the topic of this post? Certificates of Level 1 completion for club secretary Betty Kwok, member Sharon Xu, and club treasurer Shoko Ueno The beauty of the Toastmasters education program is that you can go at a pace that is suitable for you, but this definitely can be a double-edged sword. When you're in the groove of getting ahead on your projects, you are in a motivated state to progress. However, the moment that you decide to hold off for an extended amount of time on your projects, your motivation will begin to dwindle, and sooner or later, your progress can literally come to a dead stop. In other words, unless you actively pace yourself and do your projects, you won't get where you want to in your Toastmasters journey. Contributing to Club SuccessYou've probably heard the expression before that "the whole is more than the sum of its parts". This statement does hold true in many circumstances. However, in Toastmasters clubs, there is one way in which the whole is actually directly equal to the sum of its parts. Enter the Distinguished Performance Report (DPR). If you're not already familiar with this, the DPR provides statistics on how well on track the club is to achieving club awards (Distinguished, Select Distinguished, and President's Distinguished designations). For each award, there is a select number of goals that a club needs to meet in order to qualify. A number of these requirements are sufficed through education awards. When a certain number of members in a club complete Level 1 of Pathways, then that checks one goal off the list. The same applies for the other Pathways levels. As a side note, the traditional Toastmasters education program will be phasing out rather soon, so Pathways levels will soon be the only measure of club education goals.
To put this another way, when you're progressing with your projects and completing levels, you're actually making an important contribution to your club. You're adding to your club's total number of educational awards, which gets your club another step closer to qualifying for Distinguished/Select/President's. With all of this in mind, when you get ahead with your Toastmasters education, you do big favours for both yourself and for your club, so get going! Bill SituClub President You've made up your mind to join Toastmasters. You've made your payment and have chosen your path. If there's any advice that I can give you from here, it would be to get the ball rolling ASAP with the Toastmasters education program. Yes, you read this correctly — ASAP. In the two terms that I served as VP Education, I was responsible for creating agendas for the weekly meetings. This meant I had to coordinate the speakers for each meeting. A common practice of mine when planning meeting agendas was prioritizing speech spots for the newest members so that they could do the Ice Breaker (the first project for all of the paths). Many rookie Toastmasters that I have worked with in the past were very eager to start. However, I have also come across those who say that they would prefer to start another time because they don't feel they are ready. If you're one of those individuals who has qualms about doing your first project, I can totally understand you. Speaking in front of audience can without question be intimidating. Still, reality is, the earlier you start, the less daunting it will be. There is actual research behind this. Doing a Toastmasters speech is a textbook example of a stressor (any kind of activity that naturally stimulates a stress response in us). Naturally, the way that a stress response works is whenever you overcome it the first time you experience it, it will diminish every subsequent time that you experience it. However, what is also important to know is that every time you choose to avoid a stressor, it will be more intense the next time you experience it. Explanation on how the stress response works begins at 4:55. In other words, it is much more beneficial to get over your Ice Breaker speech sooner rather than later. The more you hold off on it, the more daunting it's going to be when it comes time to do it. Naturally, the more daunting something feels, the more reluctant you will be to do it. In essence, the choice to avoid will create a continuous feedback loop that inhibits you further and further.
If this way of thinking doesn't help you, then consider looking at it this way: Toastmasters is a low-stakes environment with little to lose. Even the most experienced and polished Toastmasters are consistently learning, so as a starter, it is perfectly okay to make mistakes. As cliché as it sounds, making mistakes is an important part of the learning process. In fact, everyone will applaud you whenever you do a project, as this shows that you are putting in the effort to learn and progress. As the renowned NBA player Michael Jordan once put it, "I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something, but I can't accept not trying." To put this another way, it is much better to have tried and do abysmally than to not try at all. Not trying is the biggest mistake that you can make. Bill SituClub President This website is now up and running! YAY!!! Honestly, I couldn't be more excited. I've been thinking about creating this website for a while now and it's finally come to fruition! This website will now serve as another platform that will increase our club's online presence and outreach. Now that this website is live, I find it fitting to make this first blog post on the topic of courage. Courage, according to dictionary.com, is "the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without fear". Most of the time, we associate the term courage with individuals who put themselves in harm's way to save lives and protect others, to include military personnel, police officers, firefighters, and medical first responders. Speaking of which, I should take a moment to thank our essential workers for their continual efforts to keep our society functioning amid the current situation. However, having courage doesn't mean we necessarily have to save a life nor do anything dangerous. Truth is, every important decision that we make requires a level of courage, be it applying for a job, taking up a new hobby, or presenting a new initiative to name a few. Anytime that we need to make a critical decision, we will undoubtedly be confronted with a certain degree of uncertainty about the outcome. More often than not, these uncertain feelings become a hindrance to our ability to put thoughts to action. Dr. Jordan Peterson, a prominent Canadian psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto, once delivered a TEDxTalk where he defined the essence of reality as being the dichotomy between chaos and order. He described chaos as "the unknown, the unexpected, the anomalous". Contrary to chaos is, logically, order. In a state of order, "everything is working properly". Based on Dr. Peterson's explanations, it would make sense for me to say that I was in a state of "chaos" when I first had the thought of creating this website. I'll admit that I'm not a terribly tech-savvy person — creating websites isn't in any way my area of specialty. I really didn't have the slightest idea how this website was going to turn out when I first thought about it. As I expected, I did encounter some technical difficulty along the way. Moreover, how this website turns out in the future still to be remains to be seen, so in this sense, this "chaos" really hasn't come to an end yet.
Now this is where courage, the centrepiece of this post, comes into play. It is in a state of uncertainty that we need to take the necessary action to make matters certain, but this is not anywhere near as easy as it sounds in practice because this requires courage. Earlier in the post, I provided a definition for the term "courage". However, the part of the definition that I would not entirely agree with is the part about being fearless. Truth is, everybody has fears — it is an emotion inherent in all human beings. With this idea in mind, what sets apart a courageous individual from an uncourageous individual is the ability to overcome fear(s) in order to realize an objective. Had I not overcome my any uncertain feelings I initially had, creation of this website likely still wouldn't have broken ground by now. So what does this all mean for you reading this post? I can say with certainty that at some point in your life thus far, you've probably had to muster the courage in order to make a critical decision. In fact, you've probably done this innumerable times already. If it weren't for these critical decisions that you had to make, you likely wouldn't be where you are right now. This is living proof that courage does exist within you, and so next time that you need it, know that do have it. As the Japanese proverb goes, "Action without vision is a nightmare. Vision without action is a daydream." There can't be more truth to this statement. |
AuthorSBill Situ Archives
August 2020
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