Toasting

Speaking Fearlessly with Holiday Cheer.

I hope you find an occasion to provide a toast for and to your fellow holiday revelers.

This months Toastmaster Magazine has an article Tips on Toasting Well.

“The purpose of a toast is to shine a gentle spotlight and pay tribute to the honored guest or event. Toasts typically proffer well wishes, good fortune, long life, health, happiness, sage advice or other positive thoughts. …Begin by introducing yourself, state first and last name….explain how you’re related to the guest of honor then present the toast….Be brief, be bold, be done.”

Be Brief-“No toast should last longer than 60 seconds was Mark Twain's golden rule.”

Be Bold-“Stand proud and speak loud. Ensure that everyone sitting in the room…can hear your tasteful toast.”

Be Done-“Smile, nod, and accept any applause…then refocus the spotlight on the guest of honor.”
…”speakers can add a humorous story about the guest of honor after they explain how they know the honoree and before the actual toast.”
Why is it called a ‘toast’?
From Shipley’s Dictionary of Word Origins “in the middle ages, drinks often had sopped in them a piece of spiced and toasted bread….The Tattler #24 June 4, 1709 tells that the use of the word (toast) arose when a celebrated beauty of the time of Charles II was in Cross Bath; one of her admirers took a glass of the water in which she stood, and drank her health to the company. Another present said he liked not the liquor, but would have had the toast(i.e. the lady sopped in it. Thereafter, when men drank to the one they delighted to honor, it was called a toast.”
A Master of Ceremonies in formal terms is called the Toastmaster.
I learned of the "Toast to the Idiots" from my Gurdjieff teacher in 1971.

Annie Lou Stavely, Gurdjieff Group Leader




A true "idiot" is one who knows that he does not know, a ‘conscious incompetent.’



The toasts were given at the end of a meal, usually with Armagnac or Calvados, high alcohol content Cognac’s. The group gathered to do ‘the work’, the Magnus Opus and the toasts were celebrating and honoring that we knew we were mechanical slaves, sleep walking through our lives and were will to work to awaken. Without Gurdjieffs’ help, and he died in 1949, no one got past idiot # 6.


1 ordinary idiot-Here is to the ordinary idiot, those who sit at this table.
2 super idiot-Here is to the super idiot who thinks the most.
3 arch idiot-Here is to the arch idiot, who would have us all follow him/her.
4 hopeless idiot-Here is to the hopeless idiot who gave up too soon.
5 compassionate idiot-Here is to the compassionate idiot, who sees us all in the same soup.
6 squirming idiot-Here is to the squirming idiot, the idiot who wants out.
7 square idiot
8 round idiot
9 zigzag idiot
10 enlightened idiot
11 doubting idiot
12 swaggering idiot
13 born idiot
14 patented idiot
15 psychopathic idiot
16 polyhedral idiot
Idiots 17-21 constituted a spiritual hierarchy, reflecting progressive gradations of objective reason
Idiot 18 presented the highest development which a human being could reach, but in order to attain it, he had first voluntarily to descend again from 17 to 1, the ordinary idiot.
Idiots 19 and 21 were reserved for the sons of God.
21 - Unique Idiot (God himself being the Unique idiot)

Happy Holidays
Gary C Smith
Blogging Idiot

It's Your Ideas not the Words.

You may forget the words, but the ideas are still there.
If it is poetry, a song, or someone else’s work, use their words. Be diligent and respect their work, however you have permission to use your ideas in public speaking fearlessly.

It is YOUR IDEAS that have stirred you into a presentation. It is your task to hold those ideas and flow with them with stories and keypoints like waterfalls into pools.

Present an idea, a sacred point that leads to a story, a pool of imagination that the audience can take a cool dip or a refreshing swim or shocking plunge into the next pool, the next point, next story.

Then add the next idea, this falls drops us into a new way of seeing, a new vista to assess our position and see if that will support our fall into the next pool of multiple ideas or a pool where the one right decision can be made.
As you soak in that pool prepare for the next plunge over the edge of limits and safety into the next new pool of unlimited ideas or the current that brings your raft into the port of prosperity, happiness, and to the next stage of your journey.

Remember it is your ideas, clearly formed you are presenting. It’s your showboat of who you are. Know your self and your ideas will flow and carry your audience with them.

An Attitude of Gratitude

The title of this blog is Public Speaking Fearlessly, and I hope you have moved past the fear and into the essences of life, the interests, empathy, joy, enthusiasm and gratitude.

The appreciation of the amazing fact of being alive.

The wonders of the senses.

The magic of the imagination.

The enjoyment of each other, of how we differ and how we are the same.

The delight to feel the interest for others, of life with an audience.

It’s the start of the Holy-Day experiences.

Take the time to Check Inn with yourself and find what and who you appreciate.

My Hope exploded on November 4th with the election of Barrack Obama.

His acceptance speech had me in tears.

His family, the crowd, the respect he was shown by his opponent transmitted a message of the American ideals and placed them at the forefront of our minds.

He has raised the standard of Public Speaking.

With all his new responsibilities and great formiable challenges he uses his meaningful pauses, and appreciation of his family, as a bench mark, a ground of being for a strong message of take the time to not only smell the roses, but share the appreciation with those in the Rose Garden, Adopt an Attitude of Gratitude and let Thanksgiving begin with you.

Time for a Colorful Metaphor

"Just come out and say it."

"But I don't, know what it is ? Its too big, or too small or just too hard to say."

"Well what's it like?

"It's like the first day at school. Being excited, scared, and lost all at the same time."

The first day of school, an event all readers have had, different but with more sameness than difference.

The first day of preschool is different than the first day of grad school, but it resonates with the emotional center of the brain, Limbic something or other, that connects us all, and that's what a colorful metaphor can do, connect the speaker to the audience.

Even connect the speaker to the inner world of meaningful moments, synchronicity, epiphanies.

Finding how This can be like That energizes the brain to find more connection, more of the rapport speakers are working toward.

Knowing we are all climbing that mountain searching for the treasure of insights, joy, wonder and good questions that only a metaphor can solve.

A good metaphor open doors to rooms we didn't know existed.

A powerful metaphor changes life's.

A metaphor can sound like something we have 'met before', familiar and new all at once.

Speaking metaphorically creates space for the listener imagination to create, to become like the palette upon which Disney's' artist awaken us with Sleeping Beauty.

Make a house fly with Dumbo, and Hippo's dance in Fantasia.

What's a useful metaphor for your life, your love your adventures?

Namaste

Gary

LIghten up & Laugh

Angel fly because they take themselves lightly.
Laughter heals, and healers laugh.

Being successful in front of a group requires a lightness of being. As in, “he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.” He, being the audience.

I remember in 1968 when ‘heavy metal music’ made an impact. Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk Road, Led Zeppelin, as in ‘lead,’ a heavy metal. It was followed up in 1969 with the sound of mellow. Country rock from the Byrd’s, CSN, Pentangle * the English troubadour bands.

But it is the lightness, the non-fixated attention that the lifts us above the average, above the norm to float, as if by magic, because it is the magic of lightness that holds an audiences attention.

The psychology of laughter runs a gauntlet from the physiology of the chuckle to the incongruity of the slapstick physical humor of the slip, slap and painful fall as the clown or anyone, accidentally, gets hurt and I twitch into the ‘nervous reaction’ of the inappropriate laugh.

“I just can’t help from laughing.”

“Ouch, that’s gotta hurt,” Seinfield mutters, as Kramer smashes into the door.

Does the humor come from a mind that needs to react?

Do we laugh to release the incongruity, I mean someone has hurt himself or herself and I am laughing. It doesn’t make sense. AHA, nonsense (No sense), an occasionally laughable subject.

Am I an inconsiderate sadist asshole?

Does it give me pleasure to see others pain?

It does give me fits of laughter when Chevy Chase takes a fall, the Stooges whack each other, Wiley Coyote goes off the cliff or when the Bart & Lisa Simpson favorite characters Itchy & Scratchy perform diabolical deeds of destruction on each other.

Cartoons may set the laughter gauge from a young age, but to laugh at the pain of another continues into old age. Perhaps the laughing at another’s pain is a lesson for us to learn how to handle our own pain. Taking it all lightly maybe a key to entering heaven.

The reasons for the slapstick laugh is not what a speaker is after, but the fact that it triggers one of speakers favorite responses is a curiosity worthy of a speaker’s attention.

Understanding the physiology of how breathing changes, the shortening and gasping of breath, the blood rushing to certain extremities, belly bouncing even in the leanest. It is a fact that that the physiology of laughter creates the stimulus for the laughter. You can experience humor and laugh or equally successfully you can laugh and create humor.

Ask the Masters in Laughing Yoga classes. If you don’t know how to spontaneously laugh it time to learn. To stop the reading of this serious tome and begin the tee hees, haha, hee-haws, belly rocking, snorting, head nodding, eye closed, belly shaking laughing. Its healthy, stress releasing and adds another tool to your speakers tool box.

To be able to laugh on cue, to lead an audience to laugh where you want them, is part of the magic of Oratory Lessons.

Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.
Speakers laugh because they know how.

Learn to laugh, especially with your-selves in duet-

Gary C Smith Public Speaking & Trainings

510-722-3212

The Power of Exaggeration

Putting lipstick on the pig.
Eye shadow on the crow.
Metaphors of exaggeration.

Exaggeration can be a tool that relieves sensitivity and expands possibilities.
Exaggeration builds the imagination muscle.

I can hear Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live, saying “Well excuse me!”
He powered down the threat, powered up his own creativity, and got a laugh.
If you can laugh, make others laugh, or see the humor you are speaking fearlessly.

Many memory tools are based on exaggeration, I wonder how many people remembered me with a beard as hairy Gary?

Now there is a exaggeration safety net for those who worry by asking-
'What’s the worse that could happen?’
Or my favorite question I attribute to Voltaire, “In the best of all worlds, how would it be?"

Want to have an adventure into the Land of Exaggeration,
How bad could the economy go?
How deep the depression?
BUT REMEMBER that to delve to the depths of depression the Laws of Consciousness require the sane (those who remember being source) to ascend to the best of all worlds.
How prosperous can the economy be?

To speak fearlessly one needs to have a sense of the extremes, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Being prepared for The Audiences of Withhold. The stern clapless.
The Audiences of Appreciation. The enthusiastic clappers.
The Audience of Vegetable Tossers.

Exaggeration can move us out our comfort zone into areas of possibilities.

Exaggerate emotionally usually flattens sensitive feelings.

Exaggeration of thoughts often stops them entirely and leaves moments of clarity and room for feedback.

Physical exaggeration can create humorous new movements, and improved self-confidence and self esteem.

Exaggeration as a speaking tool builds gestures, improves postures, grows metaphors, excites beginnings, expands the body of a presentation and captures an audience.

Don’t worry about being extreme, if you can stay at the extremes you’ll probably become famous look from Voltaire to Steve Martin.

It take a coach to get past our fear of embarrassment to get to the Land of Exaggeration, call Gary C Smith for help. 510-722-3212

Get the Fear out.

Fear is in one place-inside you!

No one is 'laying fear on you.'

You are not a victim of the audience.

You fear exists because you put it there, inside yourself & continue to pay attention to the fear.

Fear is exciting.

Beats the hell out of boredom.

Drives us, creates changes, magical moments, unforgettable times, can send so much adrenalin through our body it unclogs arteries, leaps us to new heights or stops us from breathing, and can leave a speaker in a stupor of idiocy.

Save your speech.
Move your attention to the audience.
Put your attention out!

Be concerned that if we put our attention on the audience, our old friend, often a best friend, our fear, will demand our attention.

How to Save our Speech?

Practice.

Can you remember a time when all your attention was identified with a person or a task.


A time you got lost in a book, a job, or what someone else was saying?
That was your attention,out there, on something other than your self.

There are disciplines that split your attention between inside and outside.
The Gurdjieff works calls it Self -Remembering.

Firesign Theater had a phrase that I remember went something like "How can you be here and there when you are now where at all?"

In public speaking, how can you be in your program and with the audience, when your scared?

You can't!

You can be in your presentation, & with your audience but speaking fearlessl.

For techniques and exercises to master the fear within:

Gary C Smith Public Speaking & Trainings.
510-722-3212

Namaste
gary

Hands exercise

Public Speaking fear is made up of a number of elements.

Not all public speaking trepidations are fear driven. Some like the hands discomforts add to the insecurity ledger, and become a symptom that leads from discomfort to upset and is generalized as fear.

Hands, what to do with them?

Not every word needs a gesture.


Hands are about security and its evil twin insecurity.

Hands are useful for creating comfort and sending a natural message.

Here is an exercise designed to move past discomfort to being comfortable with your hands.

The exercise works best with a buddi, a full length mirror and a stop watch timer.

Set the timer for one minute, stand in front of the mirror, and let the hands dangle at your side for one minute. Your buddi can help you stay focused.

Practice while waiting in lines, while networking and especially at times when you find yourself with arms and legs crossed.

This exercise also builds the nothing muscle, the muscle that knows how to use the meaningful pause.

Public Speaking fearlessly is about being comfortable, in your body, any and all times.

For more cues, clues and exercises contact Gary C Smith Public Speaking & Trainings. 510-722-3212.

Categorize the #1 fear?

If Public Speaking fear is the number 1 fear, what type of fear is it?

Is it possible to categorize the fear, label it? f

Is it the same fear for everyone?

For some it is related to Embarrassment.

Some it’s Peer Pressure,

Some it’s Fear of Strangers,

Some have Fear of being Judged.

Others have taken the event into a Fear of Failure

Many label body reactions-shortness of breath, nausea, shaking as Fear.

It’s only the Butterflies needing to be put in Formation.

The Real Fear:
Fear of Nothing-

The pause that refreshes and heals.

“Ya gotta stop!"

Acknowledge what you are experiencing.

Label it

Own it,

It's your brand of fear

What's its purpose?

NOW-

Let it go!

If the fears too big, get a coach,

Gary C Smith Public Speaking & Trainings

Speaking Coach

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

It's back to school time for lifetime educators and permanent students.
School clothes, school supplies, old friends, new friends, homework it all begins day after Labor Day.
It's Show and Tell Time: What I Did On My Summer Vacation
This may have been your first public presentation.
This is probably where your ground-of-being for Public Speaking began.
It was time to recall & remember what happened. To find the fun from summer.

This is where the self-judgments began.

You may have found it's fun to share.

You may have found nothing to share.

You may have been too scared to share.

You forgot, stuttered, lisped, talked too fast, held your breath, found a spot on the back wall to stare at, became embarrassed, looked at the floor, fidgeted, hated it and hoped you'd never have to do that again!

OR

From an early age you were treated with respect.

You were acknowledged for sharing your truth and stories.

The dinner table was where everyone shared their day.

Holidays were where the family shared values.

You sang some, knew a couple of nursery rhymes, and read aloud to mom & dad.

BUT

If like most of us, you were traumatized by SHOW and TELL, there is a cure.

That was way back then, and here and now Gary C Smith Public Speaking & Trainings can guide the erasers of fear to your blackboard.

And

begin a new chapter on a clean slate of Public Speaking Fearlessly.

What Did You Do On Your Summer Vacation-
"Boy did I have fun.
I swan,
played ball,
planted a garden,
ate lots of fruits,
made a cherry pie,
visited my relatives,
got bigger,
stronger and learned some new jokes.
"Let me tell you one...."

Namaste
Gary

Basics of Public Speaking Breathing

Public Speaking Fearlessly does not mean there is no fear.

We are no longer plagued with saber tooth tigers, but there are enough areas of doubt, uncertainty and traffic in the world to keep from tossing fear entirely. With Public Speaking how can the Adrenalin rush, the fight or flight syndrome or get them before they get me attitude create positive results in the world of Public Speaking. (Try saying that paragraph in one breath)

Its all about the breathing. Any fear lessens when breathed into.

Our life is totally governed by our breath and so too success in speaking is governed by our breath. As with any exercise regime we must learn when to take the in breath to prep for the exertion and the out breath to complete and relax. To accumulate the power to say it, and the exhale to be heard.

So in speaking before learning the subties of abdominal breath, circular breathing or throat singing, get a coach to help with the basics to add the pauses that refresh speaker and the audience.

Hands Free

There was Cool Hand Luke, Slow Hands Eric Clapton, the Pointer Sisters were looking for a man with Slow Hand, in Public Speaking one of the biggest challenges is what to do with the hands.

Pockets are unacceptable. Rattles keys & change &....

The behind the back grip works in ice skatting but not as a speaker.

Hands clinched in prayer (the usual prayer is "I wish this was over") doens't work outside of church.

Clinched fists may scare the audience.

Constant gesturing wears out an audience.

Hanging loose, relaxed at the side with your attention out on the audience is a sign of a professional speaker.

Try this exercise:
Stand in front of a full length mirror, set a timer for one minute (almost an eternity for the hand holders & wringers) and relax. Breathe into your hands, your feet and your diaphram. Take a break, shake hands, make a fist, say a prayer and then up the time to 2 minutes. Besides training your hands, it also is training in being comfortable while being uncomfortable.

For help with this exercise and other tools & training on Public Speaking call 510-722-3212 Gary C Smith Public Speaking & Trainings.

Dreaming is Free

Dreaming is Free-Practice Visualizing; the only cost is in making a decision to dream. Give yourself permission (pure mission) to be., do, and have, what you want, it’s free, its your dream.

This moment is exactly where you wanted to be, use your wisdom that made the decision, to be in this moment, and dream where, what, how and why you wanted it to be. The process is simple, decide to dream, dream big, small or both and then remember that dream.

To find out how to remember to remember to remember-call:
510-722-3212 510-914-0279 cell
garysmith142@comcast.net
www.garycsmith.net

Paying Attention is the only investment that is recession free, inflation free, costs nothing and is only a decision away.

Namaste Gary

I Said What?

How do I know what I am thinking, till I hear what I say?

Ever wonder where your words come from?

Are you a depository of all things,

Or

a living Theme Park?

Can you, have you, will you,

tap into the

Akashic Records?

Would it be karma,

skill, or luck,

that tunes into words of the Masters?

Can Public Speaking

be a doorway into

higher consciousness?

What skills does it take to

become a channel?

Gary C. Smith Public Speaking & Trainings offers lessons in Channelling

The Number One Fear-PUBLIC SPEAKING

Are you ready to be scared? Really really really scared?

Are you ready to feel more alive than you ever have?“

"Still I continue to pretend, my life will never end….” Simon & Garfinkel

Time to Treat each moment as your last-it is!

Time to press the emergency button, life is no longer a test, it is an emergency!

Time to present your story.Your up, so speak up loud and clear.

Time to Inspire your team, your family, the boss, yourself!

"Inspiration is awakening a viewpoint that realizes that something that seemed impossible can actually be done." Harry Palmer

If you knew today was your last day on earth what would you do?

Our biggest limiting belief is that we believe we have time.

If you knew that your death awaits, do you have the time to wait?

Gary C. Smith Public Speaking & Trainings offers lessons in handling our biggest fear: Public Speaking.***

***It's really a fear of nothing.***