An Acceptable Compliment

A recent TV ad by a well-known Supermarket chain captured concisely Irish people’s inability to accept compliments: a lady is at a party and receives a casual compliment about her dress from another lady which triggers a monologue about how ugly the dress is and how she doesn’t know why she bought it in the first place. It is a scenario which women all over Ireland can identify with – we often react to compliments as though they were actually insults.

The majority of compliments I receive are about my hair. I consider it an unruly, frizzy mane with a mind of its own, but when I go to the hairdressers, they all gather around and marvel at it as if it was a new baby. Recently I was in a bar in Sligo where another woman groped my hair, before immediately apologising, saying she just “had to touch it!”

I take compliments about my hair with polite unease as I feel in no way deserving or responsible for my hair – it is a genetic gift in which I had no more choice in than my blue eyes or slightly short arms.

Skip back to my pre-Toastmaster existence, when my presentations at work would leave my audience looking at the floor, feeling as uncomfortable and as embarrassed as I felt. Foolishly, I assumed that with time comes wisdom and that eventually I would become a confident speaker. Time ticked on – a year a half to be exact – before I conceded that it is not time that improves us, but rather practice, feedback and experience. And so, my Toastmaster journey began as I joined Talk Club Letterkenny. With the guidance and examples of experienced members, I launched myself into the club, taking on roles, speeches and committee roles, which pushed me outside of my comfort zone, but which made me the speaker I am today.

Now after work presentations, I am the only one perspiring uncomfortably, and both my audience and I can leave each other on eye contact terms. I recently launched our company’s Autumn Winter 2016 Collections, with a very special collection which commemorated the company’s 150^th year in business – a big deal for a family company in the fickle textile and fashion industry.

At the end of the launch, I was complimented on my presentation, and the next day, two of my colleagues stopped me in the corridor to congratulate me on my performance.

Do you know what I did? I flicked my shiny mane, said thank you, and thought – finally, an acceptable compliment.

"I want to be a failure"

Does anyone else strive to be a failure? Of course not and really I don’t want to be a failure either. But what interested me most about a lot of successful people, is that a lot of them talk about the many setbacks & failures they had in life on the road to greatness and how it was their refusal to accept failure that ultimately led to their massive success.

A definition

 “Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable objective”

This would suggest that failure it something final. That it is the ultimate end but in reality how you react to not reaching your goal will define if it’s failure or not. Failure is only temporary and should be the catalyst to propel you to learning and finding another way to make it work

What you learn in any journey is what is important. If, for example you studied for an exam and got 35% and failed. You only fail if you choose not to re -sit it. And when you do re-sit it then what you learned the first time is vital to getting you over the line the second time. Am I right or have I failed to convince you?

OK, I’m going to tell you about three failures.

Michael Jordon

Michael Jordon failed to make his high school basketball team. His coach told him he would never make it as a basketball player and that he was too short

Within 2 years he not only came back to make the team but he was also named high school All-American in his senior year

Michael Jordon is now considered the greatest basketball player of all time and led his team to

• 6 NBA Championships
• was named league Most Valuable Player 5 Times
• He is only the second player to score over 3000 points in a season

Was Michael Jordon a failure? He was

Albert Einstein

When Albert Einstein was young his parents thought he was mentally retarded. His grades in school were so poor his teacher asked him to quit saying "Einstein, you will never amount to anything". Also he didn't speak until he turned 4 and didn't read until he was 7. He was a failure.........

Albert Einstein is widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century winning a Nobel Peace prize for Physics in 1921.

Was Albert Einstein a failure? He was

Jim Mc Guinness

Jim Mc Guinness played in 3 Ulster Finals for Donegal and failed to win any of them. He applied to get the Donegal managers job three times and failed to get it twice.

Jim Mc Guinness is Donegal's most successful manager ever. He led Donegal to three Ulster titles in four years and two All Ireland finals winning one of them.

Is Jimmy Mc Guinness a failure? He was

I could go on and on about examples of failures. Steve Jobs was sacked from his company Apple. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb after finding 10,000 ways not to do it. What all these successful people have in common is that they would not accept their situation as failure. They did not focus on what happened to them instead they focused on what they were going to do about it and how they can learn from their mistakes

Let me tell you a story about two friends Ricky and Anthony who both graduated from college together:

Ricky got a job paying $80,000, Anthony could not find anything

Ricky got all the chicks, Anthony was celibate

Ricky went to parties regularly. Anthony was wasting his 20's

Ricky got promoted. Anthony was a waiter.

Ricky invested in shares. Anthony hardly earned enough money to invest

Ricky lost everything in shares. Anthony found the love of his life

Ricky was deserted by all the girls. Anthony got married

Ricky was broke. Anthony built a house

Ricky desperately wanted to get married. Anthony was to become a father

Ricky resorted to drugs. Anthony resorted to his children

Ricky lost everything. Anthony found everything

Th point of the story is this: We all fail at some time in our lives. Some may look back at times in their life when you were failing and have now come out the other side, while some of us have failed at something recently.

However you must remember its not about what happens to you in life. Its about what you're going to to do about it

Its not about being the next person to lead Donegal to the All Ireland title or to invent the next big thing. Its about accepting that failing is simply part of life and that it should never stop you from trying new things. You should never let the fear of failure outweigh your desire to succeed. There are a lot of great people in your local graveyard with some great ideas, but the fear was to much for them

I am going to leave you with a quote from a guy called Les Browne (check him out on You Tube)

"If you are not willing to risk, you cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot be your best. If you cannot be your best, you cannot be happy. And if you can't be happy, then what else is there"

For more information contact us at talkclubletterkenny@gmail.com or phone Connor Mc Donagh on 0876480457

"Good or Better?"

As President of Talk Club Letterkenny, I love talking to members after meetings to find out what their experience of the night has been. Following a recent Talk Club meeting, a club member shared his observation that “all the speakers were very good tonight… … … a tough act to follow!” Alarm bells sounded when I heard this because the goal of a Toastmasters meeting is not to produce “good speakers” but rather to support all members to become “better speakers”.

Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential, suggests that we focus on getting better rather than being good because the former is about learning whereas the latter is about assessing yourself against some notional idea of what good is, or isn’t. If you set yourself learning goals, you will be focused on improving, that is, doing something better than you did it before, rather than avoiding failure, i.e. being “not good”.

This also means that you are competing against yourself rather than against others, and especially others who you deem to be “good speakers”. I encourage Toastmasters to remind themselves about what prompted them to come to Toastmasters for the first time, often asking them to reflect on:

·         Why did you join Toastmasters?
·         What did you want that you felt Toastmasters could help you get?
·         How will you recognise that you have been successful in Toastmasters?

Once you are clear about your end goal for joining Toastmasters, you can consider what your goal is for the year ahead. For example, what do you want to be able to do by the end of May 2016 that you can’t do now? What or how many speeches do you need to deliver to achieve this? What roles do you need to have taken on to accomplish this? What supports do you need to make those speeches or take on one of those roles? What will support you in getting there? Experienced members of Talk Club Letterkenny will support you to create the plan for you to achieve your goals

I recall being in the gym one day and seeing someone new who had joined. They appeared to be in their late 60s and were carrying a lot of weight. They were wearing brand new trainers, a new track suit, had a towel around their neck and a sweatband on their forehead. As I warmed up, I watched as they slowly walked on a treadmill and I couldn’t help but wonder what brought them to the gym. Over the next week I saw them each day I was in the gym and I continued to wonder until one day it hit me: they were in the gym because they wanted to get better, whatever it was that “better” meant to them. They weren’t competing against the people lifting weights or against the people in spin or aerobics classes. They were competing against themselves and very likely had a simple goal: to be better tomorrow than they were yesterday. And they were doing it one step at a time.

What do you need to do next to be better tomorrow than you were yesterday?

Come to the next Talk Club Letterkenny meeting to see and hear how we can help you achieve your public speaking and leadership goals.

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Talk Club Letterkenny was established in 2008 to provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members were empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth. Our core values are Integrity, Respect, Service, and Excellence. We also make sure we have a lot of fun doing this.

We meet on the first and third Tuesday of every month, from September to May, at 8.15 p.m. in the iTek (Swilly) Building on Business Park Road, Lisnennan, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.

Guests are always welcome to come along to a meeting and there is never any pressure on anyone to speak unless they wish to. We never forget that every person who walks through the door does so for their own reasons. And we never forget that each of us once walked through the door for the first time as well. We look forward to greeting you if or when you decide to come to a meeting and walk through the door for the first time.

For more information, email us at talkclubletterkenny@gmail.com or call Connor McDonough on 0876480457.

Connor McDonough is President of Talk Club Letterkenny for 2015/2016.