we overstep

I am happily surprised. I’ve just received “the most improved speaker award 2008″ from my local Toastmasters club. Toastmasters International is a worldwide network of clubs for developing public speaking skills. Below you will read about how meetings look like, what will happen if you join and at the end you will be able to do a search for a nearby club.
The first step in improving your public speaking skills is breaking the fear of standing in front of an audience. Most people fear it more than death. You can overcome this fear with Toastmasters quite easily in a safe and supportive environment. It doesn’t have to be a speech straight away, there are plenty various roles like introducing a word of the day, saying a short poem or just saying few words in a proper time.

Meetings are very organized and the program is almost identical in all clubs globally. Most clubs meet fortnightly or weekly and duration is usually two hours with a break in the middle. The first part is informal and is mostly filled with impromptu speaking, that means that one specified person - a Topicsmaster - asks a question to someone in the audience or waits for a volunteer which has to give a quick answer off the cuff. For beginners it’s hard, the first few times I was selected I stood up and couldn’t breathe, the heart was pumping loudly, I just kept thinking “Why me? I have nothing to say on that. Couldn’t they ask me another question?”. Now I volunteer on every meeting and I like to say something even if afterwards I have back thoughts like “I forgot to say about the most important thing”, “I could say it without tension” etc. I like it because I know that it’s normal and I see some progress. Usually there are plenty of interesting questions during the first part of the meeting.

The second part is more rigid and timed, those are the prepared speeches and evaluations. That is really cool because in Toastmasters we do evaluation internally - one member to another like a friend to a friend. In some clubs like in mine there are even paper slips that anyone from the audience can fill in with a feedback and comments about what could be improved and what are the strengths of the speech.

Any interested guests are always welcome and it feels good to all members if there are guests. First three meeting a free, then if you decide to join there is a yearly fee of something about $90 and on each meeting about $5 for renting the room, prices vary. You will receive helpful manuals at the beginning and then a not so helpful monthly magazine sent to your address. When you join Toastmasters and decide to give speeches you will get an assigned mentor - advanced member who can guide you or at least give some clues. I have a privilege to have a mentor who was a president of the Toastmasters International several years ago.

Now you should know how to break the fear of public speaking. Do it with small roles, volunteer to answer impromptu especially if the question fits you. When you join you get manuals, a mentor and warm support of other members. I definitely recommend Toastmasters. You can search for clubs right here: www.toastmasters.org/websiteApps
Remember, the first three meetings are free but you will know straight away how much it can help you.

In Dublin there is a motorway around the city which used to be clogged. The entire motorway is now under great modernization and the traffic is getting better. However there is a toll bridge which is causing many delays. Even thou I am rarely going there I wrote an email to the administration of this motorway. That’s what I wrote:

Hello

I know that you are thinking about a new system for the toll bridge on the M50.
My idea is to do the following experiment: remove the toll bridge and introduce a donation system instead. People then could do a donation online or by post once or few times a year. Additionally to the online donation you could introduce donation by text message from a phone. Donation: Fair not Fare system. I know that sounds ridiculous … but only today, in the future it will be common.

Benefits of the donation system:

drivers save time because of the smooth traffic

you save on keeping the toll bridge, employees, accountancy.

Those people collecting cash in booths can go home and spend time with their families in the park instead of blocking the motorway and inhaling smoke or they can find a constructive job.

Many people can donate not only those who go thru the toll. You can even get a surge of money from companies supporting that idea.

it is good for the environment because of fuel saving: stopping and accelerating consumes enormous amount of energy, with millions of cars going thru toll yearly that’s a lot of fuel.

Satisfaction. Donation feels good, paying fees feels bad. How about that! Millions of souls feeling good not bad, even if it is for a moment.

Everyone wins, only you risk a downside, but you can also have unlimited upside if you do it properly. It is possible that you could get more money from donations and saving on the toll bridge than form the fees.

How to convince people to donate? Use media, use billboards, refer to trust, solidarity, fair play. This is an experiment, if it succeeds others can take example and it can spread thru the world. You could be the first!
Put billboards on the side saying:

DONATE Let Dublin shine example in the world !

keep M50 open, go to m50.ie and DONATE !

I’ve donated (picture of a man standing from the crowd)

Donated by now xxxxx €. Needed yyyyyy €

Without a toll bridge we are saving Your time. Donate!

Hope this idea went to someone who thinks. If it is not you then forward it to someone who can.

Regards

Feel free to use the text above, modify and send it to your local toll bridge administration.

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Update: a month after writing this article I was going thru that toll bridge and as I was preparing to give coins they opened the gate and said that motorbikes go free (I was on a motorbike), what a shock, what is going on? Did I manifest it somehow or what? Surely it wasn’t my email. I don’t know if it is permanent or temporary but such a nice coincident gave me a lot of weird happiness for a whole day.

This is a review of the recent Abraham-Hicks’ seminar that took place in Dublin. It was the first Abraham’s seminar in Ireland.

The title was “Art of Allowing”. There was about a thousand of people. It was worth to attend. The seminar started with a quick introduction and the rest of it was Abraham answering to the questions asked by people from the audience. I was one of them, read about it in the previous article. I took plenty of notes. Below are the values that were conveyed:

• Larger part of everyone of us is non-material and is expanding as we are expanding here in this lifetime.
• When you give attention to something you activate a corresponding part in yourself.
• When you turn to who you really are everything flows.
• You think too much about where you are. You are perpetuating current situation. Instead put your major focus where you want to be.
• It’s OK If you don’t exactly know how it is to be in your ideal situation. Example of doing it wrong way: any negative thought will add to the sickness, not only thinking directly about sickness. You don’t have to study all the negative side effects to get them.
• If something terrible happens, and it feels wrong, it is actually not done yet. I’ll repeat it is not done. You confirm it when you put negative emotions and your direct focus to it, and then you are perpetuating it every day reliving it. Things that happen in a material world are not real, you make it real in a nonphysical larger part.
• If you are at the bottom you can’t take too big jump as from being depressed to total happiness. Feel just a little bit better, first feel anger that gives you the energy, then after a while reach for hope that opens the door.
• Every great person was at some point unrecognized, so if you are doing a good job but you are discourage then that’s normal.
• Never the same question is being asked twice. Every time and every person ask it differently.
• Life’s purpose is ever unfolding. You can’t just do it, you can live it.
• Purpose is intended to be eternal. Growth and expansion is good, but actually joy is the purpose.
• Let go of the resistance that keeps you form getting what you want. Everything else is ready to happen only your resistance is holding you back.
• Having problems is not necessary.
• Put attention to the wellness
• You never get it done, you can’t do it wrong - about your purpose.
• A deadline should be spelled a lifeline because it is not the end but the beginning of more “deadlines”
  
• If you are focused on what’s nice you can shine even in the time of crisis.
• If you are not selfish then you have nothing to give.
• We are really living like on islands with different kind of people on each of them. Those are vibrational islands. Other people have no access to you if you vibrate at a different level. It refers to good and bad people.
• When you see someone in a bad situation, they perhaps are in a better situation than you. It is because you don’t know their feelings, settings.
• The world is big enough for everyone. Find your place instead of trying to change the others.
• Thru breathing you get faster alignment to who you really are. Running is sometimes better than consciously trying to do breathing meditation. It is because when you run you are not frustrated, you feel joy and breathe deeply.
• Appreciation feels better than wanting. Appreciation is the key.
• See things that you like as already done. That’s how people can bend spoons by the power of mind.
• Constantly focus on what you want.
• The higher your vibration the less resistance of the source flow.
• What you ask for it is done! Stop thinking that just because you don’t see evidences it is not done. Thinking that it is done creates, thinking that it is not cancels. Immediate physical evidences are really negligible for creation even if we physical people see it as the only reality.
• You can get more pleasure from feeling good about what you want than after getting it. If you want a house you can get more pleasure form the vision of it than from living in that house later.
• Look on others who have what you want so you can get the feeling.
• If the quest is joy the goal will manifest.
• Sometimes you can hear better an answer to your question asked by someone else because you see it from a different perspective and you are more relaxed.
• Do you believe in power of your mind beyond what you live?
• Focus on wellness to be a great healer. Wellness is better than healing because it is focusing entirely on the good.

As you can see the seminar was all about the low of attraction and the art of allowing. If you think it is valuable then visit abraham-hicks.com and find there materials and info about seminars.