Episode 15: Paul O'Mahony, Cork, Ireland (Part 2)

In this concluding half of the same chat with Paul O’Mahony started in the last episode, Paul gives insights into:

Live and impromptu opportunistic Podcasting;

Networking;

And Story telling as a vehicle to deliver a powerful message

He also shares honest and open self reflections on connecting better with the audience thus gaining rapport, and on the dilemma of being in a Toastmasters leadership role in the difficult position of being required to address the matter of a member who has breached the rules and wondering if despite doing things by the book, it has been dealt with in the best way possible

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Mentioned in todays episode:

Pauls interview with Danny Banks on Irish Talkers here

Ted Corcoran - How to write a speech in 10 Minutes on Youtube here

Dananjaya Hettiarachchi - World Champion of Public Speaking 2014 - Full Speech "I see something" here

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I hope you have enjoyed this Podcast episode. I'd love to hear your feedback, and any ideas or suggestions for improvement. Your comments can reach me via my email toastmastersworldtour@gmail.com

You can also subscribe to this Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube,  et al. 

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There is also an interactive map of the world you can view and click on showing the city or region where the interviewed Toastmaster/ potential Toastmaster lives here.

If you click on the location, the persons face will pop up with a link under it to the episode. Hopefully a fun way to explore the library as it builds as it's not necessary to listen to them sequentially. 

To find a local Toastmasters Club in your area, click here

For a list of online only Toastmasters Clubs, click here

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Holly, my name is Brieflace Hillig. Dellismaster from Rispina Surrey. Welcome to my Delismaster Riley Poljas. Please join me as I travel virtually a Red Well in Chat and Just Masters from different countries and all the Let's Excel. For this episode of Toastmaster's World Tour, we're still virtually in the Emerald Isle in Cork, Ireland, chatting to Paula Mani. Listen in to hear the conclusion of the same chat started in the last episode for Paul's insights into podcasting, storytelling, and learn from his honest self-reflections. So getting into the podcasting, I'm just intrigued about doing it live with your phone because I'd love to give that a crack. Do you hold the phone a bit like a microphone, sort of back and forth between you two? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I mean it's uh if I'm you're opposite me, so I say to you, how many Toastmasters meetings have you ever been in your life? Been to in your life. And uh give the person the camera. No, it's not as perfect as it could be. If I had an external mic, yes, I could put a mic on the other person, no problem at all. It can easily be done on two mics, and that would be better, I guess. But I have done so many podcast episodes right back in 2007 onwards. You know, once I'm probably doing about three episodes a day. Um I was just ridiculous the the amount of uh audio that I took to doing. Um the uh you'll get a good enough sound, and you know, yeah, try it, just do it, experiment, see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I am dying to give it a crack. In fact, it's an even more incentive to me to go to the next district conference in Stanthorpe, so I might give it a crack there, even though I'm reaching out to the world. I mean, Australia is still part of the world, so I don't see why not.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Will Alicia Curtis be at the your district conference? Alicia Curtis, I know her, but I think she's from South Australia. Well, I know she's from South Australia, okay, but I and she has been a district director, okay, and she goes to an awful lot of events. So I'll keep an eye out for her. I must mention this in case we forget it. I have a first cousin living in Brisbane. Ah, who's that? Well, like we call him Attie, Attie Omani, um Atti, uh Anthony, Anthony Omani. I was thinking today, I must see if I could possibly get him to come to a Toastmasters meeting that was online, so I could be there too. So I don't know if if in Brisbane you have clubs that hold meetings that are online. We do have some, yes. I can send you some links to them. What persuaded you to go to the international convention?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

One of my clubmates, Colin Williams, was in the made it to the semi-finals. So we were there, and quite a few of our clubmates came as well to support him. In fact, I was invited to come along. I it was only on the cusp of joining the club. I was new to the club, it was an advanced club, and they asked me, and I said, Oh, I had this Expedition Medic conference around the same time, and I thought I can't get away twice in a row, you know. And then I sort of thought about it and thought, well, I really like the people that were asking me to go. It was the hundred-year anniversary, and even though Colin at that point, this is at the end of the district conference, even though he hadn't actually made it through the regionals. I thought I loved his speech so much, I thought, I think there's a very good chance he's gonna be there. And I turned around sort of a few days later and said, No, sign me up, I'm in. So we went as a group, which you know is so much more fun when you go with a group of friends, and Colin was fabulous. But I met so many other people then, so I'm intrigued with your podcasting once again. When you interviewed people, they were people that you hadn't met before a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Uh yes, I I interviewed Danny Banks, who was the district director in District 71 while I was there. I recorded a very brief chat with Daniel Rex. Oh wow. I did a you know, I met a district director who had was on her fourth time being a district director. And she came from somewhere like North Dakota.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

And, you know, I was fascinated by, you know, I was sitting next to her at lunch or coffee or something.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

So uh there were two of them together and they were chatting, and I butted in and said, Look, you know, I you know, I'm from Ireland, I'm Paul, and uh and then we chatted, and then I said, Look, can I interview you? I mean, what you've done is fascinating, and she said, Yeah. So that was, and she knew that was the thing that was pretty remarkable over there, which was the network of people who knew each other. Now there's a guy called Ted Cochran, he was international, the only international president uh from Ireland, but he was international president in 2004 and 2005, I think. And Ted Cochran was there, but everybody seemed well everybody of a certain position in Toastmasters uh knows Ted Cochran. And so I recorded some fascinating conversation about this woman who said she owed an awful lot to Ted Cochran.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

And uh she'd been to Ireland and they'd met up and done things in Ireland, and you know, she thought quite understandably that this guy is extraordinary, and he is really. And um, so that's the other thing, meeting people who know other people who you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. Incredible experience. Paul, do you have any tips for better communicating stories? Because I know that's an area of your expertise.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Well, of course, I immediately back away when I'm called an expert of any kind. So I'm gonna say that I've been practicing telling stories since I was about since I was about three years old. So I've had an awful lot of practice at telling stories. And one of the things I learned an awful long time ago was that you don't have to tell the truth when you're telling a story. Now, there are situations where it's crazy if you don't tell the truth. You know, if you're telling your mother that it wasn't you who broke open the packets of jelly and took out the football cards out of the jelly packets, and uh you're well known for being the person who collects these. I mean, you ain't going to get very far by telling her the story that, oh yeah, somebody broke into the house and they uh must have been after uh jelly. No, but in truth, so first of all, yeah, as I say, a story doesn't have to be totally true. It does help if the audience can be sucked into the story so that they've kind of bought into it. But I'd I'd say one thing about stories, why do you want to tell a story? And sometimes I think that people think, oh yeah, it's good to tell a story. But why? Oh yeah, people will remember it if you tell a story, but why should people remember your story? What is it about your story that makes it worth somebody remembering? Was it a very funny incident that happened to you? Well, that'll be forgotten in a week. There's so many funny incidents going around society. You know, there are stories to be found everywhere. So I think that the the first thing any storyteller in Toastmasters needs to think about, anyone who's going to use stories is why, why, why? What is the thing that I want people to do after I have told my story? What is it I want them to remember? What is it I want them to understand, and what is it I want them to do after my story? And you know, it could be anything you might want them to go away and ring you up that afternoon to talk again. Go away and tell five people that um you're well worth booking as a speaker for the next uh conference, um but being clear about what you want people to do, and then there's a difference between wanting people to do something that I would call kind of trivial, small, tiny, and then there's the other kind, which is to transform the way in which they behave. Now I'm working at the moment thank you for asking me this question, on the idea that the very best stories that you could hear in Toastmasters really are very like parables. There is a message that the person wants to put across anything, good Samaritan. Maybe you know about parable of the Good Samaritan, right? Some poor fellow is on the side of the road in a terrible, bad way. Two people walk past very high up and very knowledgeable, they ignore him. The third person comes along and picks him up and does good things for him, and that person is called the Good Samaritan. And the message is really that you're a good person if you don't walk past somebody who's in need. Take that into your life, then as a you know, something that has been put across to you and it can be put across in a hundred different ways, and you leave that presence of with the speaker with a real intention of not passing by people who are in need, and there's a good chance that you will either on your way home go and talk to somebody who is in need, or go home. If you have children, talk to your children and uh talk to them about the importance of being present for people who are lonely, who have been abandoned. It's pretty profound if you can get somebody to do that. And that's where I'm grappling at the moment with the importance of being so clear about why you're going to tell a story. And in my opinion, the best place to start is what effect do you want to have on the audience, and then select the story that you're going and construct the story which will get that message across. Now, of course, if all you want to do is to you know amuse the audience and give them a nice opportunity to smile, and smiling and laughing is a very good thing, and you can achieve that without having a big profound message attached to it. It can just be great fun. There are also professional storytelling organizations. I call them professional. There are storytelling associations or organizations. I don't know if there's one in Australia. I know there is the national one in the United States. Huge. And there are storytelling clubs. I don't think story uh Toastmasters was set up to be a storytelling club. It wasn't set up to be a place where you tell stories, it was set up to be a place where you change lives. And okay, you can you use stories to change lives, but you don't just do it to amuse people. And also remember, Ravsmade set up Toastmasters to help people have a better life, get get jobs that they wouldn't otherwise have got. And he in his writings talked about the purpose of Toastmasters was to equip individuals so that they would bring about a better society. So we're actually talking about social impact of what you gain in Toastmasters. So this is a lot more than you know, an interesting story. It has to carry something that's really meaningful and that is worth your while going public, putting your reputation on the line, expressing yourself in the strongest, clearest way in order to help other people. A huge act of generosity, but also of vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah. I love what you're saying, and I certainly understand what you mean because I've certainly sat in on speeches, and I've been guilty of this myself, where you have an amusing story from your life and you tell it, and then you get to the conclusion, and then you're sort of looking for some sort of message or meaning to wrap it up, and it can sound a bit contrived. But I love the almost like reverse engineering. I love the idea of having a message to deliver, that being the starting point, and then either drawing from your own experience or making up a story to illustrate the point you're trying to make. So that's brilliant, and I think it's a really good message that I've taken on board from that because it can be so powerful, can't it? The impact of a good message told well in a good story.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Oh, yeah. And you know, there are tremendous illustrations of different types of stories used for different purposes, but the really great ones uh are very profound. I'll never forget Danoraya Heterachi from Sri Lanka. I never saw him live, but he did a speech called uh I see something in 2014. It won the world championship that that year. And he has a phrase in that which I I wonder if you've ever heard it. It it it's a bit like it goes like this I see something in you, but I don't know what it is. I like that. And that phrase is for me the uh most memorable phrase that any speaker in Toastmasters uh has ever delivered. Now he it's a recurring phrase, and he puts it in a story about three or four stories of bits of his life. I think and but uh the whole idea was that I'm quite sure that he my guess is that he began with I'm gonna give these people something that will enable them to influence other people to become greater than they are. I love it. I'm gonna help people to support others and motivate them and encourage them. And you know, if somebody said to you or to me, I see something, yes, I see something in you, Brendan. Yeah, I don't I don't know what it is, but they were somebody who in some way you looked up to or you respected, and you would say, Well, what does she or he you know see in me? Maybe there is something in me that I haven't even noticed.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

100% it's so much of how we get on and how we achieve things is dependent on the stories we tell ourselves and and our self-belief, doesn't it? If we have self-belief, the sky's the limit. If we have a lot of self-doubt, then I think that really holds you back. So I think that's brilliant. It reminds me, and I must go and see that. I see something in you, I love that. I must go back and find that. It does remind me of Harriet Tinker's speech from the semi-finals of the Anaheim World Championships. And I interviewed her in an earlier podcast. Her speech was Solwarbonna, which is an African Zulu word meaning I see you, therefore you exist. So it's a similar concept, I think. And I think that was really incredibly powerful as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

I found I don't think I saw her.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah, I'll send you a link. You must watch it.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Maybe I was in the other.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, that's what happens exactly. You can't see them all at the same time because they are happening at the same time. Paul, I've got another question for you. I've read on your profile you've made some mistakes. I'd love to know what mistakes you've made and what you've learnt from them.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Oh my goodness, which profile did I say I'd uh made mistakes on?

SPEAKER_01 19:50

There was something about mistakes you've made and what you've learned from them. Maybe it was maybe it was other people's mistakes, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Oh my goodness, no, no. Um mistakes I've learned from. I was running a this is going back a few years. I I used to be a management development trainer, and I worked in London Transport. And myself and another guy, Tony Hogan, were leading a whole series of management development training courses for people who had survived a downsizing, so they hadn't become redundant in their jobs. It was a huge restructuring, and new teams were being set up. And uh Tony and I began the first morning of the first group. I think there were maybe eight people on this course, and there were two trainers, and I remember a couple of things. One is I remember that I drank a whole uh jug of black coffee in the first hour. Clearly, I I was nervous, you know, I was um with that. We got to the break, and uh Tony, who was a terrifically talented general manager of a bus depot. Not really a trainer. I was the one trainer, but he was we were working together, he knew the business of running bus services inside out, and he managed about 700 people in a big depot, a whole load of drivers and engineers and supervisors and stuff. Um we had a Break after about an hour, and he said to me, Paul, you gotta loosen up. You gotta loosen up. You've been so serious in that hour. This is maybe not the words he used, but he he made me aware that I was tight that I wasn't getting rapport with the people who I was training with him. No. He was better at getting rapport with people than I ever was, and I you know it's you know, I do my best, but it made me aware very quickly that um I hadn't struck the right note. So is that a mistake? Yes, uh, I hadn't uh really addressed beforehand enough about how am I gonna get rapport with these people. I knew it, I was very serious, yeah, very serious about the purpose of management, the purpose of the business, all of these kind of things that come relatively easy to me because I just my brain works, I can think about the purpose of a business and the strategy and the plans and all that stuff. But I was actually talking to people who were supervisors and managers who hadn't been to university, weren't used to looking at strategic plans, weren't used to drawing up plans and budgeting and stuff like this, and I I I changed, I changed that. So that was that was uh I suppose you call that mistake. I made a more profound mistake in a Toastmasters Club once where I became the president of the club, and there was an issue which hadn't been resolved in the club committee the previous year, and I'd been on the club committee the previous year, and uh okay, I'll just put it this way somebody did something which I well I knew if you like, and I was so certain was absolutely against the rules, the governing documents, against things, and it in a sense it couldn't be allowed to happen. And I I don't want anyone to be able to wreck identify people who were involved in this because they're all still alive. No, but it was so serious that that the issue got sorted out. I did the right thing by the rules, and I checked with people to make sure that I wasn't a misinterpretation of the rules, and I I insisted that there be certain types of votes taken and that nothing could be done until the club members had approved a motion at an extraordinary general meeting, and you know, I did everything by the book, and ever since then I've been wondering the the guy left the club. Okay, I lost a golf partner, I lost somebody who I enjoyed having a drink with. I lost a lot, and the club lost an enormous amount. No, I was angry, I was cross to have been left with this issue. It wasn't all that nice to be the incoming president and to inherit an issue which was from the past and that I wished had been finished with the previous year. And it, you know, it did. I mean, okay. You know, I'm not saying that how I felt, but I do actually believe and I I I follow rules, you know. If it says in the governing documents that this is what has to be done, if it says club members have to vote on something, then that is what they have to do. Not, ah, look, we don't have to put it, you know, we can just decide this in the committee. Committees actually have you know relatively little ability to make significant decisions on behalf of the club. They have to get the support, and that's all written down. And I've had a few situations where I've had to try to persuade somebody, not just then, but other times. So I mean I could carry on. Well, that was whatever I did, I now would say to myself, do a better checking what could what could happen as a result of this issue, which would be very, very undesirable for everybody, and then try to find a way around that to get the maybe to get the right kind of result. Use different language. So often it is the language, and the impact and the way people feel respond to that, and to anticipate how somebody else will take your language that demands a lot of emotional intelligence and goodness knows. And we do come across people who are wonderful at navigating that, sure, but you know, all I can say is that it's a life's work for me.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, because at the end of the day, you're dealing with people's feelings, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Trying to navigate you're dealing with other people's feelings and you have your own feelings, of course, yeah. That's right. And you know how to find how to find a communication which will not involve you, you know. Compromise isn't the right word, but you know, uh retreating and leaving yourself with, oh god, I you know, I've just totally capitulated, we'll say, but also uh talking in a way that you're not gonna cause them to lose face, and that's the thing. Losing face. Yes, I came across that idea in a book by James Clavell. Yes, and I think the book I think the book might have been Noble House, um, but the idea that in in where do I mean China? Yes. I think it's China, it is Japan actually as well. But to lose face and to behave in such a way that the person you might be debating with or trying to sort out an issue with doesn't lose face. Yeah, that's there's eating and drinking in that issue, isn't there?

SPEAKER_01 30:00

That's right. Like in Chinese culture, there's also giving face, you can give face. And a classic example where this arises is when you have a group of people sharing a meal, they'll often fight over who gets to pay for the meal, wanting to pay, and you know, there's a bit of a fight going on, and a classic thing for the one to say that's insisting on paying is gay warmienza. Gay warmienza, gay warmienza means give me face. And so, in other words, if you allow the person to pay, you're allowing them to then have face. So it's uh it's a very interesting concept, I think, in their culture, but yeah, it's very they're very big on face.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah, and that's I used to be very political. If I go right back into you know my student days and maybe 10 or 15 years after that, um so I got into a particular style of arguing with people, very much a political style in which you were looking to win on an issue. Now, I'm not talking about going for parliament or anything like that, but I do recognize that I've had to overcome that disability. And I'd never been in a voluntary organization before I joined Toastmasters, and of course, when you're an employee at work and you're you know you're managing people, you do have authority and status and connections and all that sort of thing, but you don't have any of that in Toastmasters, none of it. I can't never, even when I was uh whatever position I was in, I was never able to instruct anybody to do anything.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

But I was when I was at work.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

And that has been one of my best learnings. Uh being in a voluntary organization, needing to practice a whole range of I'll call it softer skills. Uh that for me has been one of the greatest benefits that I get for anybody who hasn't, you know, for anyone who doesn't have a lot of experience of being in a voluntary organization. The wonderful thing about Toastmasters is that you're given so many opportunities to be in a leadership position.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

You know, almost right from the beginning, like you're in charge of the timing. You're the one who you're leading on the timing. There's nobody else except you. We're all dependent on you. So that's a kind of leadership position, and you know, you have you do it and you need to do it carefully, etc. But it's all voluntary. Yeah, you can't actually say no to doing a role and everything. And that to me, that leadership art is huge in Toastmasters. Huge. You you just it's inevitable. You will be in a leadership position you know, within a couple of meetings. Even if it doesn't sound like leadership, even if you think leadership is running the country and it certainly isn't contributing to a bit of a meeting. But you learn, everybody learns, that it is actually these roles are leadership positions, and you get more practice in Toastmasters than you would in any other organization I can think of. I I think Toastmasters are the only organization in the world that would have made me a president.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Yeah, I've been in that situation. I remember when it was put to me that I could be president of the club, and I was thinking the same thing. I've never been a president of anything. Okay, why not give it a shot? But it reminds me of what you're saying in the simple analogy when you're talking about companies versus a voluntary organization. I guess if you're in a leadership position in a company, you've got the carrot and the stick, and you might not necessarily want to use the stick, but it's there. Whereas in the voluntary organization, you've only got the carrot, there's no stick involved, so it really practices the carrot skills, I guess. Oh yeah. As a final question, Paul, because you're a more experienced podcaster, do you have any advice for me on podcasting?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Well, I have to say again that I've listened to your first, I'm convinced now it's four episodes, and I'm full of admiration. So I will just say a couple of things I admire. First of all, the music you use at the beginning of the podcast is gives it um speaks of strength. And you know, here's uh a place where there is going to be which needs to be respected and has got strength in it. So what whatever you chose that me music, to me, it's strong, and that is good because most people, maybe not everybody, most people want to put their trust that this is going to be worthwhile. So you know, you you you come across that so that's great. You you uh you have a great strong, well, it's not just strong voice, but you you have a a voice that is worth listening to. Thank you. And you in your podcast, you do something which is done terribly well. You contribute a lot in the podcast. So I've noticed that in the early episodes, anyway, you were you know asking somebody a question, they would say something, and then you would come in, and there'd be a development of the point between you. And that's style of podcast. And I really admire the consistency of the style you used rather than it being eclectic. Okay, one of the episodes was particularly short, but that's not the point. The the style, the communication style was consistent, and that means that an audience will know what to expect, and they'll be pleased with themselves when they get what they expected. That's always a if somebody gets what they thought they were gonna get, they even feel good about themselves because they think, oh, at some level, yeah, I'm very bright. I realized it was going to be like this, you know. I I I figured him out. Um what to do. This is about the hardest question anybody's asked me because I spent you know a good deal of today admiring your podcast. Okay, I'll tell you. You're you're very good at uh terrific sound quality, studio standard stuff. Go out in the street and do some street podcast. Now, this is only because obviously, you know, you can you can say, hey, this is me as a podcaster, but if you actually, you know, that's a bit like in golf, you know. I play a very good five-iron, and someone says to you, about time you got a six-iron, but not able to use a six-iron, and then if you were terribly good at golf, like I think Sevi Bellisteris, of course, is you you'll try playing out of a bunker with a seven-iron, you know, getting it up and down, and and you got all these other things to try. So if if you know you anybody, I'll say this to anybody if somebody goes into the art and craft of podcasting, um, they might well carry in an assumption about this is what a podcast is, this is what it's like. Um and it isn't because there's so many different types of podcast. And I'm only thinking yours so clear about what you're doing. I I I see now case, I I know that you're in your um in your professional life, you look after people's skin. Now, people's skin is pretty important, and you can't be making huge uh mistakes when you're dealing with somebody's skin. Correct me if I've got it wrong, but I I remember you saying on your podcast that you know I'm uh I'm a skin specialist. Uh I forget the exact role. Okay, yeah. Yeah. And I'm saying, look, you're precise, you do, you know what you're doing, you're clear, and that's great, great strength. Do some messy podcasting.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Okay, sure. I I love that. I will absolutely 100% take you up on that. And I'm looking at the district conference now thinking that's an opportunity to go and do some grab some people maybe before they get on. Maybe not right before they go on, but uh you know, before they get on, and then maybe a before and after style thing might be an idea. How did you feel your wine? They didn't do so well, maybe they'll run away from me, run away and hide. I don't know, but I'm definitely interested in taking that up.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Yeah, I mean, reporters do this, they sometimes uh doorstop people, you know, they literally knock on the door, somebody opens the door, and they have a microphone, and the person doesn't want to talk to them, so they talk to the person. Now, you can go to the conference and you can, you know, have your microphone however you do it, and um go up to somebody and just simply say, um, I'm Brendan O'Sullivan from uh this podcast. Um I'm here to ask you a question about your your views on the Toastmaster world. Um you know, where have you been to in Toastmasters? Have you been to any other district conferences? Yep, and you don't ask their permission, you just speak to them. And you yeah, but what it does, of course, is that it means that you've you've kind of barged in on top of somebody, yeah, yeah, and you could screw it up by not being pleasant, or you know, but you can use your skills to entice to have people what being glad. Oh, this guy is quite interesting, you know. And um, and that's different from asking permission. Can I interview you on Thursday week or anything like that? So uh, but you asked me a question which really got me to think hard.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm really gonna take up on that. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Paul. It's been an absolute pleasure and an honor, and I look forward to catching up with you again in the future.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Brendan, thank you very much for a very enjoyable conversation. Gorov Maragot.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Thanks for listening to today's show. One of the key elements of Toastmasters is evaluations. This is how we grow and improve, both by encouraging comments for things we've got right and points for improvement. We all learn and benefit from these evaluations, not just the person being evaluated. So any feedback in the comments is greatly appreciated. If you have a Toastmaster story you'd like to share or would like to be on the show to hear from me, reach me at Toastmasters Will at gmail.com. Thanks for listening.