EP 92: Transforming Lives with Stories: Greg Gazin's Toastmaster Odyssey.

Join us for an insightful interview with Greg Gazin, a distinguished Toastmaster and host of both the Toastcaster and The Official Toastmasters Podcast, recently named a Top 25 Higher Education Podcast by AcademicInfluence.com. In 2009, Greg received the Toastmasters International Presidential Citation for his innovative use of technology to benefit the Toastmasters community. This prerecorded session was live from PodMasters Advanced Toastmasters and is hosted by Michael Dugan, a storyteller, career, and podcast coach. They explore Greg's 23-year journey with Toastmasters, his evolution from a shy introvert to a global podcasting leader, and his creative approach to both storytelling and podcasting. Greg provides invaluable advice for Toastmaster podcasters, shares tips on honing your craft, and highlights the critical role Toastmasters played in his podcasting success. Learn from Greg's memorable experiences and gain practical tips to elevate your own Toastmaster podcast.

01:20 Introducing the Special Guest: Greg Gazin
03:51 Greg Gazen's Pizza Obsession
05:41 Greg's Journey into Podcasting
08:26 The Toastmasters Podcast Explained
10:22 Memorable Podcast Episodes
19:06 Podcasting Challenges and Funny Moments
28:04 Advice for Aspiring Podcasters
29:23 Toastmasters for Chefs
30:53 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Contact Greg: 

https://gadgetgreg.com 

https://toastmasterspodcast.com 

https://instagram.com/gadgetgreg

Join our club:

Advanced Podmasters Toastmasters: podmasterstoastmasters@gmail.com

Season2

Welcome Chef Steven Leung as our new cohost.

IG: themindfulwok

Transcript

Michael Dugan: 0:52

Please join us today for a special interview. This is a prerecorded session from Pod Masters Advanced Toastmasters. It was a live interview with Greg Gazen and is dedicated to Toastmasters and podcasters around the world who wanna share their message through storytelling.

Fred Bergeron: 1:13

So now on to our podcasting portion of the meeting where I introduce our interviewer, Michael Dugan, and he is a storyteller career and podcast coach, distinguished Toastmaster pod master and recipient of the 20 17 20 18 District Toastmaster of the year. Award. He is also the host of the Voice Worship Podcast, a global platform that amplifies the voices of culinary professionals by sharing their stories, passions, and journeys. His podcast has reached listeners in over 90 countries and more than 800 cities worldwide. Through podcasting, Michael helps people connect, lead, and create with confidence. Today, he's thrilled to introduce a guest who embodies those same values. Our special guest is Greg Gazen, distinguished Toastmaster writer, speaker, and the official host of the Toastmasters podcast. Please welcome to the virtual lectern, Michael Dugan. Thank you, Mr. Host, master Toastmaster. Before I get started, I just want to tell you a really quick story. A couple months ago, it was midnight and I was inviting people to a celebration, a four year celebration of the Voice for Chefs podcast, and we decided to have it right here in Pod Masters. So I decided why not? So I texted. Greg and I said, would you be open to coming? And he was like, I'm busy right now, but I'll try. And sure enough, he showed up and he brought this amazing energy, like I can't even describe it. Just this incredible feeling of connection around the world. And so now I'm so excited to introduce Greg. So today's guest is Greg Gazen. He's a proud Toastmaster for 23 years. Six time distinguished Toastmaster past district 42 director, known as Gadget Greg. He's a serial entrepreneur, a syndicated columnist, a speaker and author of Qua Outsmarts, the Butterflies, helping readers Build confidence and Communication Skills. Since 2006, Greg has produced the award-Winning Toastcaster podcast. Is the voice of the official Toastmaster International Podcast. Recently named a Top 25 Higher education podcast from a shy introvert hiding behind his keyboard to a global podcasting leader, Greg Credits, Toastmasters, and mentors for opening doors he never imagined. Please welcome VTM Greg Gazen.

Greg Gazin: 4:24

Thank you, Michael. I am thrilled just like everyone else that you're here. It is very special to have you here at our open house. It's my honor. I thought we'd kick it off with something that we talked about together. Can you tell us. And I understand you have almost like an obsession with a certain food. Can you tell us about that? I'm almost sorry I mentioned it to you, Michael,'cause you're a chef. I, I love pizza and of course, as you are aware, there's so many different types of pizzas, but also the commercial pizza is quite often very salty or maybe too spicy. And I always have all kinds of leftovers in the house. So I decided that I will attempt to make pizza with whatever leftovers I have, and I typically take pictures of them and I put some on Instagram and some on Facebook, and I know you had mentioned to me something to mention, something unique. Sometimes you get tired of the same old sauces on top of a pizza, but I'm a person who loves to consume hummus. I love barbecue sauce, so I will use hummus. I will use barbecue sauce. I will use. Greek yogurt, mix it with all different kinds of spices to to make a base and whatever bread I have. And in fact, there is a local bakery called the Happy Camel, and they show their wares at the local farmer's market. And they had this neat little, I guess you would call it a little pita, about six inches. It's caramelized onions and spinach flavor, and I showed him some pizzas I had made from it, and he was so impressed. He was absolutely amazing. Can you please send me those pictures so that I could post it? So yeah, I make pizza just about out of everything. Maybe not to the caliber and finess as to what you can create, but it's food. That's wonderful. Now I know. Like me, you've been a Toastmaster for a long time. I've been Toastmaster since 2009 and absolutely have loved the journey and I think I'm gonna be a lifer. There's just no question about it. But can you tell us a little bit about, if we take you back, how did you first start getting to podcasting, but also did you have a passion for radio when you were growing up, or is it just something that just happened and you said. I'm gonna jump into podcasting. Well, if we go back far back, yeah. I guess as a kid I did have a passion for radio. I think every kid wants to be a dj introducing music and songs. Oh yeah. Or be a sports broadcaster. Now you can see my voice is now deep. When I was young, it was much higher. Think of the Bee Gees, just Tale Alive, or Hi, Kermit The Frog. Something really high pitch. So I guess it really wasn't in the cards. I was a very quiet and shy introvert, so when I had a school project to do, instead of getting up in front of an audience, I made audio visual. And for those of you who are little long in the tooth, and remember the reel to reel tape, I used to cut tape with a razor blade and I'd mix all those things together. Didn't have technology back then. And so I would do that when I can as far as podcasting goes. My background is as a gadget guide technology, individual writer, speaker, and when I. First started, I thought when podcasting came around, I thought I would really love to do a tech podcast. And you, how many of us say we wanna do podcast, we wanna write a book, we wanna do this, we wanna mow the lawn. But one of those things that we never get to. And then when it came time to do my HPL project, which is the High Performance Leadership Project, now I believe it's part of level five in Pathways, I thought, why not do a podcast? And I thought, who better to in, to interview than our district governor? And her name was Mona Cooley. And I said, Mona. And I was a, what was, what my, what was I at? What was I at that time? I think I was a division governor. Now they call it director. Okay. So I approached Mona. I said, Mona, I'm doing my HPL and I want to interview for a podcast. She says, great, Greg, what's a podcast? So I explained to her what a podcast was. I did the first podcast, I called a podcast Toastcaster, a podcast for Toastmasters. And what started off as one episode is now I think about 180 or 190, and I started that back in 2006. So that was like 19 years ago when there were maybe seven or eight. A thousand podcasts as time went on, the district was no longer interested in the podcast, so I rebranded it as toastcaster Communication, leadership and Learning Lab. Not necessarily Toastmaster specific, but it continues to be complimentary to the Toastmasters podcast. Uh, that's amazing. And can you tell us about. What is the Toastmaster podcast all about and what is the relationship with the Toastmaster magazine? That's a really good question, Michael, because I get so many requests that, Hey, I really wanna be in your podcast, Toastmasters podcast. And this is of course, very important. Anyone who has a podcast, you need at some point to have a why. What's the raison detra? Why is it there? You don't necessarily need it when you're starting, but if you are gonna have a long lasting. Podcast that's gonna resonate with people. You need a why Now, what many of you may not be aware of is the why of the Toastmasters podcast is to amplify the words, the stories, and the pictures. Of the Toastmaster magazine. So we will interview people who have written articles. They may have be, they might be a subject matter expert who was quoted in an article, or we also interview every year the accredited speakers, the incoming international president, the world champion of public speaking. And of course they're all tied somehow to, to articles. So that's our goal because when you have a magazine article, there's limited space. And quite often when you read an article, you go. I'd love to know a little bit more. Can you tell me more? So what we do is we're able to dig a little deeper, but also we're able to put a voice to those words, especially if it's an article that's written by the author. Oh, that's fantastic. I love the relationship and I'm a big fan grad. I've been a big fan for a while and listened to probably 15 to 20 episodes. And what I've noticed and what I love. You call back to other episodes, but you also connect the magazine articles to the interviews and that's really powerful for me to feel that. So since we're talking about your episodes, are, are there any that really resonated with you when you look back? Is there any that you had this interview, you really connected to a guest and you just walked away feeling. Inspired, energized, or you walked away with a really powerful lesson. The truth is there's so many and each, each one is so different. Some of them are, sir, so some of them are serious, some of them are deep, some of them are lighthearted, some of them are fun, and there are some with topics that I know nothing about. So of course it needs a lot more. In depth research, but the one that resonates with me, it's probably the most memorable, and it was episode 1 0 4 where I interviewed a lady named Sarah Safari, that's actually her name. I did ask her if that was her real name or whether that was a pen name. She was hanging off Mount Everest when the earthquake hit in 2014 that killed 20,000 people in. Cat Mandu and she was literally hanging for dear life. And she's also a Toastmaster. And I still remember, and in fact as I'm thinking about it now, I've got shivers down my spine because listening to her recount her story. And you see this is also interesting because. I had nothing but the image on the front cover of the magazine, but her recounting the story. Just put an image of it. Put an image in my mind. And this is also, video is great too. It's the power of audio. Yes. And when, so when people ask me, which is the one that's impacted me the most. It's probably that one, and I think about it and every once in a while I'll listen to it. In fact, that was in 2014, I think we interviewed her in 2015. In 2022, Netflix actually created a series called Aftershock, the Everest and Nepali Earthquake. So if you're interested in that, listen to the podcast, episode 1 0 4, and then please go ahead and check out that one. That's probably the one that has the most. Impact for me if I had to pick one. Wow. And then you mentioned to me, we've had some amazing conversations getting ready for this interview, and one of the things that stood out to me was you said you had some fun episodes. So you mentioned William Hung. Can you talk a little bit about him? I had to go back, so you're smiling already. I had to go back and look at, look it up. For those of you who don't know, William Hung. If those of you who know Ricky Martin shebang, William Hung, let's just say he, he earned success by a failed American Idol interview. Yep. And the funny thing is, William was actually, I'm not sure if he still is now, but at the time we spoke to him, he was actually a, a Toastmaster. So he shared a little bit about his journey. At that time he was putting out a new book and I remember him saying, yeah, I did my audition. And the producers loved it. And the staff loved it, and the audience loved it, but he said. Paula and Simon and Randy, he said, not so much. And when you think about what Toastmasters evaluations are like, they're very supportive. Simon wasn't very supportive, so we had a really good time. We also interviewed another gentleman, and now his name eludes me. He talked about being a clown. That was another one that was, that's right. That was a lot of fun. And even interviewing the world. Champs, the great thing about interviewing the world champs is you can catch their speeches on YouTube if you don't. If you don't, if you hadn't attended the conference. But what's great is to listen to some of their, to some of their backstory. So for example, we interviewed Cyril Junior, dim, who I think it was 20 20, 22. He went from Zimbabwe to Poland and. His, I remember his phrase was, Nini, it's me. I think that's what it, that's what it was. But when we interviewed him, he shared about this, these sort of untraditional ways that he rehearsed. So he talked about going into a crowd of a whole bunch of people and he would just start talking to gain some of that confidence. Or another one was Mohammed Katani, 2015. I don't know if those of you who remember. He gets onto a stage and pretends to light a cigarette, he goes, ah, what? But he had said, first of all, he wasn't supposed to be there. He was the second place person. But I guess the first place person couldn't get transport or couldn't get a visa. Hmm. And so he ended up coming in at the last minute and he made changes to his speech. He figured, you know what, I'm here. It's okay. Everyone is practicing, rehearsing their speech. He's playing video games. But he had said he had made a change to the speech at the last minute. So of course I asked him, what was that change? And he shared it. So those are some of the things that you don't get just listening to the actual speech itself. And so this is where we get a deeper dive. And of course there was a companion article to go along with it. So that was, we try to laugh at in every episode, and we try not to take ourselves too seriously. We, of course, we take the topic and the guests, but there's always lots and lots of laughing. I wanna see. I'm just curious. This is gonna be a little interactive, okay, within everyone that's listening and watching today. Show of hands, have you listened to Greg's amazing podcast? Because I am addicted, so I'd love to see some hands up there. Paul, I see a lot of them, which is Jen. I see a lot of my wife has listened. So anyway, if you haven't, I'm just gonna stop right now. You have to go out and listen to this podcast because if you're at all interested in podcasting. This is an education, the way that Greg connects to his guests, the way that he paces himself, the cadence, all of those things we learn in Toastmasters. But he's perfected those, and to me, I told him this, and I'm just gonna say it. When I listen to these episodes, I feel like I'm listening to Santa Claus. I just feel there's this certain. Energy that you have, and it's similar to mine, and I really have respect for that because there are podcasters out there that they use it to intimidate people and it's horrible. It's, I don't know why they do that, but I interview chefs and when they come on, I want them to feel so comfortable and so energized. That's what you give people. That's what you give your guests, Greg. And not only that, you do this amazing deep dive research. Preparing for this, you put me through the ringer and I am so glad you did because I feel like for the past month and a half I've been mentored. By someone that I really look up to, so I had to just put that out there. It was just burning inside me. Santa Claus. Hey, Santa Claus. That's right. Yeah. Thanks. I'm not kidding. I have, I have put on a little weight late lately. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever dressed up as Santa Claus? No. No. Not recently. No. Okay. I could feel the energy in this virtual room as I said that I could just feel it. I appreciate what you're saying. I wanna say that a lot of how, a lot of how things have evolved have, be, are because of Toastmasters. When I produce a podcast, I make sure that I will listen to it over and over again, and that's not just because I'm vain or anything. It's because I wanna listen to what I did well. And where it can improve. And in fact, I always ask my guests for feedback as well, and it's really important because sometimes there's a better way of doing things. Now what you hear, of course, is a. Polished episode, but let me just tell you how much is left on the cutting room floor. Yeah, because I flub and trip over my words all the time, and in fact, now I forgot which episode number it was. I wrote down most of the ones here that I was gonna mention. It's called Confessions of a Podcast Host. It was released January 1st, 2021, and it was the start to the new year. And it was to, it was a companion. Toastmasters had asked me to write a, an article for the magazine called, I created the, they didn't tell me what to call it. They asked me to write a magazine article for on podcasting. So I created an article, is There a Podcast in Your Future? And I was very blessed of the fact that they loved it so much that they put it on, that they put it on the cover and as a companion instead of just going through what was in the article. Ryan and I, my former co-host at the time, he said, why don't we just have a little fun. I love it. In reality, you know what goes on in, in the background, but we try to be transparent and sometimes when there's funny things, we might leave it in. But again, , we value people's time. And there are thousands and not thousands. There are millions of podcasts out there and we want to make sure that people get value for, for our time. But if you'd like, if you'd like, can share a couple if you'd like. Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. First one was funny. In fact, if you listen to the episode, I have to go back and listen to it again to remind myself of our faux PAs and the miscues. And the first one is ironic, Michael, because we were interviewing a chef. Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. Her name is Shelly. Shelly Ann Lovel. She's from Trinidad and we call it going from frying Pan into the fire. It was for her, the episode was entitled, leadership in the Kitchen, and she was on the cover of that episode of the magazine. And what had happened was she was in Trinidad and she had said to me, she says, Greg, I'm in the Atlantic time zone. I said, okay, Atlantic, I'm in Mountain. She's in Atlantic three hour time difference. So I phone her and she's in her car and she's really not impressed. No, actually she was pretty good with it. What I hadn't realized was that they, we are in three different, and it's three time zones, Uhhuh, but they don't change their clocks. We do. It was a different time at the time I had phoned her and in between the time I had scheduled the podcast and the time that we had spoken, I believe there was a time change. So again, we encourage to, that's why I always make sure whenever I'm speaking with someone is to make sure I use time and date.com. Especially when you've got multiple people on the podcast at three different places in the world. You wanna make sure that you get your time. Judy Carter, and I dunno if you, those, you who know who Judy Carter is. She's a comedian. Very funny lady. So of course we're recording an episode. And Ryan, my former close Ryan and Judy were talking, and while they were talking, my microphone went to sleep unbeknownst to me. Oh my gosh. So of course it was just a mess. We had to restart. Mm-hmm. We get back on, we cut out some of that part where there was a little bit of a kerfuffle, but she says, Greg, you gotta get rid of that. Radio Shack Special mic you used? Yeah. Okay. Which, it wasn't what had happened. Again, this is also a lesson for those of you who are looking at podcasting. I had purchased, I'd gone from a MacBook Air to a MacBook. I'm now back to a MacBook Air, and the MacBook only has one port on it. So I had a, I had a dock and I plugged the mic into a dock. So what happened was the mic was not. Getting any signal because I was listening as opposed to speaking. So it shut the mic down unbeknownst to me. And then of course, the other one that's funny is sometimes you have your guest who is helping you do tech support. Yeah. We spent 20 minutes trying to figure out why we could not hear our guest. We tried everything and everything, and it turned out it was ironic because this particular guest, she was an equestrian rider and she had very little vision. In fact, her vision was that of basically what you would look, what you would see is if you look through a straw, and she had said to us, Greg, Mike, Greg, right? I'm wondering if it's because my laptop cover is closed. She was using two giant 27 inch monitors, but her laptop cover was closed and she was using the built-in mic. In the laptop. So there you go. Anyway, we're not perfect, but oh gosh. You know what? Every time you're not perfect, you'll learn. And in fact, a friend of mine, those of you who know a very famous hockey player, I won't mention the name 'cause I don't have permission to use it. He got to interview the gentleman's father at an arena with 3000 people. He got the interview, but because a cable wasn't plugged in properly, he was not able to get. A recording and unfortunately that gentleman actually passed away. The whole idea is that you wanna make sure that you check your technology and you also make sure you, if you can, is to have a redundant recording. Yeah, there you go. That does, that definitely makes sense. I had a situation where I was in the middle of interviewing a celebrity chef and my computer died and it took me four or five minutes to come back up and because he was such a good sport, I could hear him saying, where did he go? Is he gonna come back? As the computer was dying.'cause everything just disappeared. And so you just gotta roll with it. And the great thing about Toastmasters is that we roll with it. It's amazing what happens. You get that forward, the con, you get that confidence. Okay? Okay. When things go wrong. Yeah. Along with that, how do you think you've changed from the first podcast that you started to now, and are there any lessons, any really key takeaways that you think that you've had in podcasting? As long as you had? As long as you have. So what's changed? First of all, the butterflies. When I first started, I had butterflies because I was. I would sc I was scared, speechless. That's not the word I would use in, we're in the public here, so that's what we used. I was very fearful. Fearful of making a mistake, fearful of looking silly. Feel, feel fearful of not seeming professional, but I overcame that over time. Now I still have butterflies, but it's for a different reason. See, the hair's getting gray and the memory isn't as good as it used to be. Mm-hmm. That's why I've got some notes in front of me. I'm not reading them per se. In fact, one of the things you had asked me was a episode number, and it's like I'm scrolling and I can't find it. It's here somewhere. So that's the different, it's a little bit of a different type of butterfly because for me it's really important that, again, I mentioned earlier value. You want people walking away. Feeling good about the time that they spent wanting to learn something. Or maybe you want them to, you wanna encourage them to do something. The other thing that changed is when I first started podcasting, it was more wearing, it was wearing a geek hat and I thought, oh, this is so cool.'cause when I was a kid. I didn't have eventually, by the way, eventually I did get a mixer, and when Beta tapes came out, you could put four and a half hours on a tape. I had two turntables and a mixer, and I was mixing into a VCR to be able to get lots of music. So for me, doing the podcast was from a tech perspective going, wow, this is cool. I can do this podcast. And of course of interview the individuals as time went on. I find that what I love about the podcast is the stories that you can tell, the stories that you can pull from individuals. For example, I'll interview authors, and they may be great at the writing craft. They've written this most incredible book, but yet they're just not comfortable. Speaking, they're happier behind the keyboard, and so if you can find a way of asking questions and driving the story. I call it story building. You help drive the story so that at the end you've put them on a pedestal and you've given the audience some incredible information and a great story. So for me, it's to be able to pull that story. It's like a good journalist who interviews someone. They're, they've got, they have an interview and the person has their whole life that they're interviewing or they're. Let's just say a book. Let's say there's a book about a person's life. How can you cover a whole life in 30 minutes or 20 minutes? Well, you need to find a hook and you need to find a story. And sometimes you have to help. Yeah, you have to help them drive it. So I think that's how I've changed. And in terms of learning, I've built a lot more confidence. I feel a lot more comfortable, and I've met some incredible people along the way. I hope that answers that question. Absolutely. And as we talk about incredible people, is there anyone that mentored you in podcasting? Is there anyone that mentored you along the way in Toastmasters that you could share about? Or just shout out a couple names. I know you have a few in terms in terms of specifics. It's hard to pick one specific, but I'll just give you an example of a gentleman named John Beau. He's an author. He gave an educational a couple years ago at an international convention. He, for example. We were speaking, and sometimes it happens that you get through an interview, you answer the questions, or you may have a series of questions, but yet in, in a way, your guest has answered them all and you're trying to figure out, okay, what's next? So sometimes you'll stop. So my co-host and I, at the time, we were thinking about how are we gonna go with this? And so the guest cut in. And said, you know what, why don't we talk about this and then I can say this and that. And we thought, this is great. They were very helpful. My clubs, anyone from the clubs has been very helpful. Of course, my, my former co-host Ryan Levek, I've known him for almost 20 years now. So he's been very helpful. And of course he's an English major, so he would always correct my grammar. Of course, I'd keep the Canadian Canadians a, but that's okay. There's a lot of people here for all of you to join us. What advice can you give to someone that's on the fence about launching a podcast? They're ready. They've got ideas, but they've got just this fear, this challenge ahead of them. What advice can you give 'em? Well, I'm gonna give you this in two parts because you had indicated you were gonna ask me about getting chefs to come to the meeting. No, that's next. Okay. I'll leave that one for after. What advice can you give them is, first of all. If you wanna do a podcast for the sake of a pod, just doing that, you just wanna do a podcast, you might find it a little bit of a challenge, but think about something that either you're passionate about or something that you wanna learn more about. So if you wanna learn more about cooking, for example, who better to interview than a chef and steal from Nike? I would say just do it. Uh, everyone has a phone in their pocket. They got a computer in front of them. You've got a voice recorder. You might as well just take a chance, record something. You don't have to release it, but try it and then maybe even get some feedback from your club. Okay. We have links in the chat for how to find you. So the last question I have, it is about chefs 'cause I have a chef podcast. Chefs have to deal with mental health challenges, communication issues with customers and staff challenges. Why would you recommend Toastmasters for them? It's funny when you mentioned that I was wondering, I try to put myself in the shoes of a chef, so I made myself a pizza anyway. I would say if I had to sum it up, I would say a good chef lets the food speak for itself, but a great chef helps the food tell the story. Now, of course as Toastmasters, we think media, right? We think tv, radio, we think about the tv, different TV shows, cooking shows. But of course, even just learning those skills that you learn in Toastmasters, they can, how do I put this? They can be better in the kitchen, right? Because it's chaotic. I'm sure not every kitchen is like Gordon Ramsey where he says It's raw, you donkey, get out. But good leadership and communication skills in the kitchen can certainly make or break a restaurant. And at the same time, it could also inspire and invigorate the staff. So I would encourage the chefs, even if it's not about getting better at speaking, try to find out, encourage them to figure out. What they wanna be better at or what things that they feel that they're having some challenges with because maybe it's a staffing issue. They're having trouble communicating with their staff or keeping their staff. Maybe that's something that Toastmasters can help by building those communication and leadership skills. And then of course, Michael, you could encourage them to create a podcast. I'd love it. Greg, we're out of time. I can't thank you enough on behalf of Pod Masters Advanced and everyone here for being our guest and sharing your journey with us. It's incredible and I'm truly honored and humbled to have this interview with you. Yeah, it's been an honor, Michael, and I do appreciate it, and I've actually learned a few things from you over our conversations over the past few months. Thanks for having me. Okay, I'm gonna turn it back to our Toastmaster and thank you.