Accountability: The Fall and Rise of Speech 2

Hello!

Last night I delivered my second speech to my Toastmasters organisation. To say I ballsed it up would be an understatement.

The activity called for planning and organising a speech with a strong core throughline and multiple examples to illustrate my point ending with a strong powerful conclusion. The speech I delivered was not strong enough and the conclusion limped across as opposed to striking my audience.

So what happened?

I had over-planned and under prepared simultaneously. I had so many examples to illustrate my point, however I hadn't prepared how I was going to link them well enough. My speech was muddy and when my mind went blank as I approached the front of the audience I was in trouble. I started sweating profusely, I went red, my hair stuck to my brow, distracting me further. It was not a good speech.

Despite having a relatively strong opening I mumbled, stumbled and squandered the potential of what I had to say. When I finally sat down upon receiving the confirmation I had matched the time allocated for the speech I wanted to melt into the chair, through the floor and never darken the Toastmasters door again. This was compounded following two excellent speeches including an 'Icebreaker' which I had so eloquently completed in the previous session.

During the intermission I received feedback and spoke to my evaluator who had asked me what I thought he should comment on. Straight out the gate I told him I thought it went poorly but then I began to think. This was only my second speech, if I'm going to stumble, it should be at this point. I need to grow into this organically to be a great speaker.

I was given helpful tips by other Toastmaster members and although I felt downheartened about my performance I was determined to not let it keep me down. I volunteered for Table Topics and threw myself in to that, and would you look at that....

I won Table Topics this week. Even in my stressed and critical state I thought I had redeemed myself, ever so slightly.

I'll be giving Toastmasters a miss for the next few sessions, however I plan to return soon and improve.

Thanks for reading!
AT

Accountability: Toastmasters Speech 2 Planning

Hello!

I'm preparing for my second Toastmasters speech.

The second speech is entitled: Organise your Speech

Whilst the first speech was about breaking down the fear of standing in front of others, this speech is about conveying an idea and seeing it through to completion. Introducing a strong outline and continuing a narrative hook throughout, the speech must also include a strong opening and conclusion.

The speech must have a strong opening, outline clear points and then conclude strongly.

For the topic to cover I've decided to cover something I'm truly interested in and relates back to my university studies, politics and popular culture.








I've found a good resource breaking down the speech from Six Minutes:

When you speak, does your audience get it?

If your audience doesn’t grasp your message (even though your topic is one you know they are interested in), you need to rethink the way you present it. You need to organize your ideas to promote understanding.

The second Toastmasters speech project addresses organizing your speech. This article of the Toastmasters Speech Series examines the primary goals of this project, provides tips and techniques, and links to numerous sample speeches.

Why is This Speech Important?

There are four aims for this speech:

• Use an outline which aids understanding.
• Transition smoothly from one point to the next.
• Craft an effective speech opening.
• Craft an effective speech conclusion.

These are fundamental skills that you apply to every speech you’ll ever deliver, whether it is a 2 minute off-the-cuff speech, a 15 minute business proposal, or a 60 minute keynote.

Transitions are the Key

Of the four elements, appropriate transitions are most lacking in the majority of presentations that I have seen. Most speakers have an introduction and conclusion, with supporting material arranged in some form of outline. But, there is often little in the way of transition phrases that link the speech together in a cohesive unit.

• In a written piece (like this article), headings, bullets, and punctuation provide cues to the reader that help them understand the macro-organization.
• In a verbal speech, use pauses and transition phrases to achieve this effect so that the audience knows when one point ends, and the next begins. 

http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/toastmasters-speech-2-organize-your-speech/

Hopefully my speech will go well!

Thanks for reading!
AT

Accountability: Developing your Manifesto, 101 Questions to Ask Yourself

Hello!

One of the tasks on this sprint is to understand who I am and define a manifesto, but as there's no simple resource for this it may be a larger task than originally anticipated.

I've found a resource I believe will help me strengthen my convictions and improve my self perception. Whilst there is always room for improvement, I want to understand who I am and what I stand for in an almost objective way. How can I understand who I truly am?

I have found the following resource which gives 101 questions to ask yourself. In the future sprint I hope to answer all of them and understand who I am.

Find all the questions below and through the link: http://personalexcellence.co/blog/101-questions-to-ask-yourself/

1. Who are you?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. What are the achievements you are most proud of?
4. What are you most grateful for in life?
5. What are the most important things to you in life?
6. How would you describe yourself?
7. What are your values? What do you represent? What do you want to embody? 
8. Do you love yourself?
9. … Why or Why not?
10. How can you love yourself more today?
11. What is your ideal self? What does it mean to be your highest self?
12. Look at your life now. Are you living the life of your dreams?
13. If you have one year left to live, what would you do?
14. If you have one month left to live, what would you do?
15. If you have one week left to live, what would you do?
16. If you have one day left to live, what would you do?
17. If you have an hour left to live, what would you do?
18. If you have one minute left to live, what would you do?
19. What would you do today if there is no more tomorrow?
20. What are the biggest things you’ve learned in life to date?
21. What advice would you give to yourself 3 years ago?
22. If you are yourself 1 year from the future, how would you advise the you now? (On Day 22 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days Program, we travel to the future to give advice to the us today.)
23. Is there something you’re still holding on to? Is it time to let it go?
24. What are you busy with today? Will this matter 1 year from now? 3 years? 5 years?
25. What are your Quadrant 2 tasks?
26. What opportunities are you looking for?
27. How can you create these opportunities?
28. What are your biggest goals and dreams?
29. What’s stopping you from pursuing them? …Why? How can you overcome them?
30. If you are to do something for free for the rest of your life, what would you want to do?
31. What would you do if you cannot fail; if there are no limitations in money, resources, time or networks?
32. What do you want to achieve 1 year from now?
33. … 3 years?
34. … 5 years?
35. … 10 years?
36. How important are these goals to you?
37. What if these goals are doubled? Tripled? Magnified by 10? How would you feel? Would you prefer to achieve these or your previous goals?
38. Who are the people who have achieved similar goals? … What can you learn from them?
39. Are you putting any parts of your life on hold? … Why?
40. What’s the top priority in your life right now?
41. What are you doing about it?
42. If you were to die tomorrow, what would be your biggest regret? What can you do now to make sure that doesn’t happen?
43. For every experience you get: What are the biggest things you have learned?
44. How can you do this better the next time?
45. If you have 1 million dollars, what will you do with it?
46. Do you love your job?
47. What is your ideal career?
48. How can you start creating your ideal career starting today?
49. What is your ideal diet?
50. What do you need to do to achieve your ideal diet?
51. What is your ideal home like?
52. What do you need to do to achieve your ideal home?
53. What is your ideal physical look?
54. What do you need to do to achieve your ideal physical look?
55. What is your ideal life?
56. What can you do to start living your ideal life?
57. What would you want to say to yourself 1 year in the future?
58. … 3 years?
59. … 5 years?
60. … 10 years?
61. What do you fear most in life?
62. Is there anything you are running away from?
63. Are you settling for less than what you are worth? … Why?
64. What is your inner dialogue like? 
65. What limiting beliefs are you holding on to?
66. Are they helping you achieve your goals?
67. If not, is it time to let them go?
68. What empowering beliefs can you take on to help you achieve your goals?
69. What bad habits do you want to break?
70. What good habits do you want to cultivate?
71. What are the biggest actions you can take now to create the biggest results in your life?
72. Where are you living right now – the past, future or present?
73. Are you living your life to the fullest right now?
74. What is the meaning of life?
75. What is your purpose in life? Why do you exist? What is your mission?
76. How can you make your life more meaningful, starting today?
77. What drives you?
78. What are the times you are most inspired, most motivated, most charged up?
79. What did you do during those times? How can you do more of that starting today?
80. How can you change someone’s life for the better today?
81. Who are the 5 people you spend the most time with?
82. Are these people enabling you or holding you back?
83. What qualities do you want to embody? 
84. Who inspire you the most?
85. How can you be like them?
86. What is your ideal life partner like?
87. Where can you find him/her?
88. How can you get to know him/her?
89. Are you afraid of letting others get close to you?
90. … Why?
91. Who is/are the most important person(s) to you in the world?
92. Are you giving them the attention you want to give?
93. How can you spend more time with them starting today?
94. What kind of person do you enjoy spending time with?
95. How can you be this person to others?
96. Who do you want to be like in 1 year?
97. … 3 years?
98. … 5 years?
99. … 10 years?
100. Who are your mentors in life? (formal or informal)
101. What is one thing you’re going to do differently after reading this article?

So there we go, many questions with many answers to come, hopefully when I complete them I will have a greater idea who I am and a basis for a manifesto in place.

Thanks for reading!

AT

Sprint IV: A New Hope

Hello!

We're starting the fourth sprint in the agile personal development adventure. I'm slowly starting to slide into my groove with regards to practice and workload.

Let's look at the board!

And break them down bit by bit!

Business/Career/Studies
Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want to read one non-fiction book a month so that I become more knowledgeable on useful and interesting topics.	This two week sprint I plan to read one book on confidence building	I've not decided on the book as of yet however I want to read a book on how to increase and build on my confidence in a variety of ways
As an agile Timelord I want to read one fiction book a month so that I become more well-read and cultured.	This sprint I plan to read 'Shampoo Planet' by Douglas Coupland	I started this book last year but never finished it. I really love Coupland's work but sometimes take a little while to break into it. Hoping I can get into this book
As an agile Timelord I want to listen to 4 business podcasts a week so that I learn more about business culture and best practices.	This sprint I plan on continuing to listen to Entrepreneur on Fire, Entreleadership and Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts	Entreleadership is now weekly! Entrepreneur on Fire continues daily! 3 QDT podcasts a week, can I do them all?

Spiritual
Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want to feel calm and confident through meditation so that I am less stressed	I will attempt to find a new method of meditation to help with physical and mental health	Headspace didn't work but I need to meditate. I will attempt to find a method that works for me this sprint
As an agile Timelord I want to define my beliefs so that I feel comfortable in who I am	Developing a personal manifesto by beginning to answer the 101 questions	101 questions, I think it's realistic to attempt between 25-35 this week

Health
Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want to walk at least 10,000 steps each day so I set myself an active benchmark to lose weight.	I will track my steps using a Fitbit Charge HR tracking my progress using the app and dashboard. As such I will aim to have a weekly accumulative total of 70,000 steps	Continue using the FitBit and taking part in the GCC
As an agile Timelord I want to chart my progress and set a target of losing 2lb of weight a week so that I can reach my overall goal.	My current weight is 199lb, by weighing myself daily and keeping up with my more active lifestyle I will track my progress	Maintaining a (slightly more) active lifestyle

Personal growth
Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want to be able to feel confident in any situation so that I am comfortable	Deliver second speech to Toastmasters on the Competent Communicator path	Topic decided, now I just need to plan, deliver and build upon my speech
As an agile Timelord I want to write a personal speech so that I'm prepared for giving speeches in the future	Revise personal speech	Initial notes and infrastructure set up from the last sprint, I now need to build upon and improve my speech
As an agile Timelord I want to learn best practices of speakers so that I am a competent speaker myself	Watch 5 TED talks	This has been working so far, 5 more TED talks is an achievable and enjoyable task

Social/Community
Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want a growing blog so that I grow my writing skills	I will update the blog daily informing of my progress, experiences and future plans.	It's working, keeping me accountable and improving my writing technique
As an agile Timelord I want to take a role within the Charity Committee so that I can help the community whilst also developing my skills	The company charity committee is growing and I hope to be a significant part of it's development. I will organise, attend and drive meetings	Meeting next week! Hoping to be an active member of the team!

Well there's the board! Achievable tasks in big chunks. 

Agile Timelord, GO!

Thanks for reading!

Sprint 3: Retrospective

Hello!

A third sprint complete, reviewed and packed away. Time for the retrospective!

What went well?

• Audiobooks!
• Freaking awesome resource that I plan on investing in further. How do you slay a literary beast? Download it from Audible!
• Toastmasters
• Fantastic club that gives honest and open feedback
• I plan to dive deeper into the feedback the club gave me and play off it for future meetings
• Online resources!
• Many people have already tried what I'm doing, granted not the same methodology but there's so much good content out there
• Bulk writing posts
• Writing daily is a good habit to get into, however it's not always practical. Writing 2 or 3 posts at a time and saving them relieves some pressure of writing daily

What could have been improved?

• Headspace
• It's not them, it's me. It just didn't work out. That resource and tool is not producing the results needed.
• Workload
• I need to readdress what I can do
• Morning workouts
• These are not currently practical when I feel ill, they're off the board for now but will return

Actions?

• Readdress the boards
• Use more Audible resources
• Removal of the tasks but new ways of completing the stories to be developed

A pretty good sprint, good lessons learned and now I'm ready to take on the next sprint!

Thanks for reading!

AT

Sprint 3: Review

Hello!

Sprint 3 has drawn to a close and it's time to check in with the board!

Now at a glance, there is plenty of green for complete, blue in progress and two areas greyed out. Mixed results from this sprint, let's see how I did!

Business/Career/Studies

Stories	Tasks	Results
As an agile Timelord I want to read one non-fiction book a month so that I become more knowledgeable on useful and interesting topics.	This two week sprint I plan to read 'Happiness by Design' and act upon the advice given	Interesting and enlightening book, whilst it was not fully what I anticipated, nor have I quit my job like the cover said I would it offers practical deconstructions of happiness and how it can be achieved
As an agile Timelord I want to read one non-fiction book a month so that I become more knowledgeable on useful and interesting topics.	This two week sprint I plan to read 'The Wild Diet' and act upon the advice given	Whilst I have not read this book fully (as in not read every recipe) I understand the concept behind it, linking strongly to the pleasure and purpose outlined in 'Happiness by Design'. Very interested in learning more about the paleo diet and continued study of the book in the future.
As an agile Timelord I want to read one fiction book a month so that I become more well-read and cultured.	This sprint I plan to read 'Atlas Shrugged'	A beast of a book with a beast of a write up. This divisive book was an interesting and insightful read
As an agile Timelord I want to listen to 4 business podcasts a week so that I learn more about business culture and best practices.	This sprint I plan on continuing to listen to Entrepreneur on Fire, Entreleadership and Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts	Continued listening to the podcasts has been a positive experience and a good dose of business inspiration when needed. Even better is the fact that the Entreleadership podcast is going weekly.

Spiritual

Stories	Tasks	Results
As an agile Timelord I want to feel calm and confident through meditation so that I am less stressed	I will download the Headspace meditation app and work through the 10 day programme	I will not be doing this task however still wish to continue the story and develop a full meditation routine. This will be an important story/task in the next sprint.
As an agile Timelord I want to define my beliefs so that I feel comfortable in who I am	I will define a manifesto for myself consisting of my beliefs and a call to action with a vision of who I want to be	This is a much bigger story and task than I initially anticipated. It will require more time and greater resources to truly deliver a true personal manifesto. I have made progress on this task and will continue work on it in future sprints.

Health

Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want to work out at least 5 times a week so that I lose weight and tone my body.	I will use a fitness DVD in the mornings, waking up an hour earlier to do so	This task was severely impacted by my illness this sprint. I have decided to reprioritise it and drop it down the backlog.
As an agile Timelord I want to walk at least 10,000 steps each day so I set myself an active benchmark to lose weight.	I will track my steps using a Fitbit Charge HR tracking my progress using the app and dashboard. As such I will aim to have a weekly accumulative total of 70,000 steps	Achieved! Ongoing! Keep it up!
As an agile Timelord I want to chart my progress and set a target of losing 2lb of weight a week so that I can reach my overall goal.	My current weight is 199lb, by weighing myself daily and keeping up with my more active lifestyle I will track my progress	Continuing!

Personal Growth

Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want to be able to feel confident in any situation so that I am comfortable	Deliver first speech to Toastmasters on the Competent Communicator path	Delivered and I received a ribbon! Although I didn't win, the positive feedback will help inform future speeches
As an agile Timelord I want to write a personal speech so that I'm prepared for giving speeches in the future	Write first draft of speech	First draft achieved! Time to redraft soon
As an agile Timelord I want to learn best practices of speakers so that I am a competent speaker myself	Watch 5 TED talks	5 Life Hacks - Not as interesting as the previous 5 but still very enlightening

Social/Community

Stories	Tasks
As an agile Timelord I want a growing blog so that I grow my writing skills	I will update the blog daily informing of my progress, experiences and future plans.	Over 60 posts and still going strong! At times it has been difficult, but I've managed to update every day
As an agile Timelord I want to take a role within the Charity Committee so that I can help the community whilst also developing my skills	The company charity committee is growing and I hope to be a significant part of it's development. I will organise, attend and drive meetings	Rolling along, whilst not highest priority at the moment at work it is still rolling along

Overall despite the impediments I'd say it was a successful sprint with a lot of positives.

I'll critique it further in the retrospective!

Thanks for reading!

AT

Accountability: Happiness Part 2

Hello!

I've been reading Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life, by Paul Dolan.

This book was recommended to me by a coworker and has started some interesting questions for me, in essence; what is happiness? How can happiness be measured? How can I improve my own happiness over time?

Last time I had been reading the overall causes of happiness and the dichotomy between pleasure and purpose within happiness. The second section of the book concerns the process of cultivating happiness.

As established in the first section of the book, happiness is defined internally and can be seen as a choice.

There are no cookie cutter solutions to happiness, if there were, everyone would be constantly happy, however there are simple principles by which we can help to ensure we are generally happier.

To build happiness you must be active in your approach and to an extent methodical. Planning for happiness and cultivating a mix of pleasure and purpose is key. I have put too much on the purpose side of happiness so much so that it is no longer truly effective.

Essentially I need to relax.

Happiness is a state which needs to be planned and built. Similar to Nudge theory and Ricard's work on perception, happiness may be natural but it can be cultivated through positive environments.

Thanks for reading!
AT