Rick Furbush is the Region 8 Advisor for Toastmasters International, which includes all of the Southeast USA and the Carribean. He has acheived the highest honor Toastmasters bestows, the Distinguished Toastmasters Award. I have been a member of Toastmasters under his leadership since 2009. Since his motto has been “Find Your Voice – Make a Difference,” I invited him to come talk with us about how everyone can make a difference in the world to reduce toxic expsoures by improving their speaking and leadership skills. Toastmasters covers all communication skills, from interpersonal conversations to media training..we’ll give lots of examples of how you can communicate in various ways to make a difference about eliminating toxics. www.toastmasters.org
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Finding Your Voice & Speaking Up About Toxics
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Rick Furbush
Date of Broadcast: May 21, 2013
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how we can thrive in a toxic world. Even though there are toxic chemicals all around us in consumer products and the environment, and sometimes it seems all over the news and every place we look, there are many things that we can do so that we don’t have to be sick from being exposed to toxic chemicals, so that we don’t have to be exposed to them at all in the first place. And so we can remove them from our homes, from our bodies, and our lives. And that’s what this show is about.
It’s Tuesday, May 21st 2013. I’m in Clearwater, Florida. And today, we’re going to actually talk about something a little bit different that’s not about toxic chemicals in consumer products per se or alternatives to toxic chemicals, but about how we can communicate better about toxics issues, and thereby be able to work together and make change in the world so that the world at large is less toxic.
There are a lot of things that we can do in our own homes for ourselves, but then we talk out our front door and we go out into the environment whether it’s toxic chemicals and we go into public spaces where there are toxic chemicals, and we send our children to schools where there are toxic chemicals, and we go to hospitals where there are toxic chemicals.
And in order to change on this larger scale, we need to be able to communicate with others and we need to be able to work with others in groups successfully in order to make change.
My guest today is Rick Furbush who is the Region XIII advisor for Toastmasters International. This is an international executive position. He’s in charge of Southeastern United States and the Caribbean. We’re going to talk about Toastmasters and how Toastmasters can help you and everybody in the world actually communicate better, know how to lead groups and thereby find your voice and make a difference in the world.
Hi Rick, thanks for being here with me.
RICK FURBUSH: Hi Debra. It’s great to be with you.
DEBRA: Thanks! So, where shall we start? There’s so much to talk about. Would you just tell us some about yourself? How did you get so interested in communication and decide to devote so much of your life to Toastmasters?
I just want to interject here that Toastmasters is entirely a volunteer organization. And so people who work in executive positions do not get paid to do this. People are Toastmasters because they love it and they can see the difference that it makes in people’s lives.
So, tell us your story, Rick.
RICK FURBUSH: Well, it’s interesting. I was thinking as you were introducing me, what came to mind, I remember hearing a quote: “If you know how to read, and you don’t, what good is it?”
It’s the same thing as if you actually have the answers, but you never communicate them to anyone, how will they ever know?
So, communication is really important. And you can have all the answers, but if you don’t have the ability or knowledge or the confidence to actually talk to groups, then it’s really difficult to get your point across.
DEBRA: It is! And I don’t want to interrupt you, but I’m going to. I just want to keep saying to the audience that’s listening here that there are in the world people who can communicate about toxic chemicals. There are people who get paid a ton of money to go on television and make commercials or to go on television and speak on talk shows or to go to Washington DC and be lobbyists. And the reason that toxic chemicals are winning in the world is because people communicate about them. And we need to have more people who can communicate about toxic-free alternatives.
So, go ahead, Rick.
RICK FURBUSH: Well, that’s great. Taking a look at this, a lot of people will say, “Well, I’m not going to plan to be a public speaker. Why would I want to have anything to do with Toastmasters?” Well, actually, Toastmasters is something very different.
A lot of people get in Toastmasters first to overcome their fear of public speaking. But they realize, the one thing they really get out of Toastmasters is more certainty and confidence in life to do anything!
Like I said, there’s no long line waiting to be a public speaker. But there are a lot of people that want to get more confidence in life. And if they’ve got something they want to say, they want to have the confidence to be able to get up in a speech and not go crazy, go dry in the mouth, so afraid to speak that they can’t stand up.
And the wonderful thing about Toastmasters (and why I got into it) is that you can do things on a gradient. A lot of people say, “Oh, I could never get up and speak. I have to do something in high school or college” and so forth. Well, they did it the wrong way.
If you do something […] in a stage environment where you can make mistakes and it’s not really serious, then you learn very easily.
Well, it reminds me of a time when I first tried to drive a car. I was scared to death! It was myself in the front, three or four souls in the back and the instructor on the right. We pulled out at the downtown traffic in Waltham, Massachusetts at five o’clock. I was petrified. I had the stick shift. And I was white knuckling it.
Then we came driving down the hill, a truck was coming at us, and I’m holding on for dear life, and the instructor said, “Why don’t you let go of the wheel, and I’ll take over from here.” I said, “Wh-wh-what?!” He said, “Let go of the wheel.” I said, “No, no. We’re going to hit the truck.” He said, “Trust me.”
So, I let go of the wheel. He reached over and grabbed the wheel. He had his own clutch and brake. He turned down to a tree road. And all of a sudden, I realized, “It was safe. I didn’t have to be so serious.”
And what happens in public speaking is people never practice it. Once you’ve started driving a car a few times, all of a sudden, it gets better. Nowadays, people do everything in a car besides drive. It’s so easy! It’s second nature. Well, public speaking can be second nature if you practice it a little bit.
And the great things about Toastmasters is it’s made up of clubs—15 or 20 people in a club, they meet once a week for an hour, and they practice impromptu speaking and prepared speeches. And what’s surprising is […] they start to get more comfortable and more comfortable. And you get to a point where you’re just natural, you don’t believe yourself.
So, I joined Toastmasters in 1989 when I already was a paid professional speaker just to improve myself. I didn’t necessarily have to get over the fear. But Toastmasters is for people of all levels, whether you just want to get over a fear, or you want to polish yourself to be a great speaker.
DEBRA: The reason I joined Toastmasters was that a lot of my friends were in Toastmasters. But I had this idea—I didn’t even have an idea of what Toastmasters was except that it seemed to not pertain to me. But I already was speaking as a published author. People would invite me to speak, and I have been on television and radio and everything. And yet, sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know.
And because I could get up and speak, I thought, “Well, that’s all I need to be able to do.”
And then, I went to a Toastmasters meeting, and I found out what else I needed to know to be more professional. And that’s why I decided to join Toastmasters.
But once I did, I found that it really improved every aspect of my life. For example, one of the things that you learn in Toastmasters right at the beginning is—I was going to say, there’s a series of manuals that you do. And the first one, The Competent Communicator just teaches you 10 basic things about communication. And one of them is simply how to organize your thoughts, so that you know what it is what you want to say. And so, instead of just rambling on, you can say, “Well, what is it that I want to say?” and really make your point.
And that is something that’s really necessary, whether you’re making a speech in public or giving a presentation in business or having a conversation with a friend or if you’re a parent wanting to know your child […]
Whatever the communication is, you need to know what it is you want to say and be able to say it clearly and get your point across.
And I remember the very day that I recognized this. I wanted to talk to a friend, and I wanted to make sure that I said exactly what I wanted to say, and I wanted to have it go well. I sat down and I wrote a speech (not because I wanted to give my friend a speech, but because I wanted to organize my thoughts).
And since that point, I can see that there’s been a huge improvement in how I communicate just in general.
We need to go to break, but we’ll back with Rick Furbush. And we will talk more about improving our communication and leadership skills, so that we can help make the world a safer place to live.
DEBRA: This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And today, we’re talking about communication and leadership and how important that is in creating a toxic-free world in everything that we do when we talk to people, being able to talk to our neighbors about not using toxic chemicals or going to a public hearing or speaking up, or even going to Washington DC and saying, “I don’t want toxic chemicals” or writing about it. We need to be able to communicate.
And I’ve invited Rick Furbush to be here today. He’s an international executive for Toastmasters International. And we’re talking about how Toastmasters can help you improve your communication skills.
Rick, I know that you probably have many, many examples—as I do myself—of seeing people coming into a club and just not being willing to talk at all, and after a few weeks or months of Toastmasters, you can’t keep them quiet!
RICK FURBUSH: That is so true. In fact, the other point you’re making just before we went to break about getting organized, this is one of the most important things a person needs to do that they don’t realize.
Let’s say you are impassioned about toxic waste and want to talk about it. You show up to a meeting, and all of a sudden, you’re not sure what to say or how to put it in the right words. You’re a little confused. It’s not quite organized. You finish talking and you look at yourself and say, “Wow! I should’ve thought of this, this and this.”
Well, what’s great about Toastmasters is you actually plan out your speeches. You learn how to put your thoughts together, so they really can make a difference.
And one of the interesting things for brand new people when they come, we have them do—their first speech is what’s called an icebreaker. And this is a fun one. And it’s easy for them because they’re talking about themselves. We get to know a little bit about them. They don’t have to do any research on the topic. They’re talking about themselves.
And what’s amazing is, after they’ve done their icebreaker, and they’ve sat down […], their heart is racing, they finally get finished, they’re so happy, then they got to prepare for the next speech. And they don’t know what to talk about.
DEBRA: That’s right.
RICK FURBUSH: Organize your speech. That’s the actually second one. It is so important. And it’s probably where people really start to realize the value of Toastmasters […]
DEBRA: I think it’s basic to us as human beings to want to communicate and to be understood and have people communicate back to us. And when you don’t know the basic nuts and bolts of how to do that and how to listen and how to have a conversation, I think that so much conflict occurs from misunderstandings or that you feel like that you have, as you were saying earlier, valuable information.
I know many people who are listening have valuable information that they’d like to share about toxic chemicals. But they don’t know how to get up and say something that actually communicates that. And that’s where Toastmasters comes in.
I also want to really emphasize that there’s so much more than simply getting up to speak. That’s only part of it. You get the opportunity to take a look at your grammar and how you use words and um’s and uh’s. Now, I don’t even want to say this because I have not totally conquered um’s and uh’s. But now that I’m aware of this, I’ve practiced so much not saying “um” and “uh” and “well” and “you know” and “like” and “so, well…” and all those little filler words that we fill in with.
And then, now I look or listens to professional radio hosts and TV announcers, and they’re all saying “um” and “uh”. And then, I listen to somebody who is more trained and has removed those um’s and uh’s from their speech and how much more clearly they can communicate what it is that they want to say without the distraction of those words.
And we also learn how to have more vocal variety and use gestures and to things like speak to time. That’s one thing that’s been very useful for me since I’m interviewed a lot on radio and now have my own radio show. They only give me so much time, and I need to make sure that I fit in what I want to say in that period of time.
And that’s something that you learn in Toastmasters. And that can be valuable in all kinds of different areas of your life. So, it really is…
They teach you how to persuade someone else of your viewpoint, they teach you how to negotiate, all these little things that you use in your life or can use in your life if you know how to do them.
And I have to say that it’s the best bargain for personal growth because, as you go through a program, you really need to see parts of yourself. You find out more about yourself. You find out things about yourself that are really wonderful skills that you didn’t know you had. And you find out areas where you have fears and blocks and that you need to get through those in order to accomplish what you want.
It’s one of the most wonderful things that I’ve ever done in my life.
RICK FURBUSH: Wow! I agree with you.
What’s amazing, as you mentioned a little earlier, when you listen, you don’t—when you have lots of uh’s and um’s, you say them, you’re not aware of them. So you actually have to sit down probably your first and second meeting, and they make you the uh’s counter. And you actually have to listen. And what’s a lot of fun is you have an advanced Toastmasters next to the brand new person, and they both count um’s and uh’s and compare notes. [unclear 16:12] would find 35 or 40. It’s shocking!
DEBRA: It is!
RICK FURBUSH: And as you tune in, it’s almost like scratching your nails against a chalkboard when you hear an “uh” and an “um” after a while.
And here’s the thing that the audience may not know, but the only reason you have uh’s and um’s is because people are petrified to have silence. So when you’re trying to think of your next word, instead of a nice pause, they have filler words, “uh… um… uhhh…” They’re just nervous.
So, when you get over the nervousness, you start to get confidence, you can use those moments of quiet as a gesture. A pause is very, very powerful.
In fact, I heard a world champion giving a speech, and he had the most powerful pause. And he told me he had to count to 10 before the next word.
DEBRA: Well, Rick, it’s time for me to put you on pause…
RICK FURBUSH: Great!
DEBRA: …while we go to a commercial break. We’ll be back after the break. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And we’re talking with Rick Furbush about how to improve our communication and leadership skills.
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Now, we’re back with Rick Furbush, international executive for Toastmasters International. And Rick, let’s talk about the leadership side of Toastmasters. Tell us about how that goes.
RICK FURBUSH: That’s a great point. You know, when you go to learn leadership, when you think about it, did you go to college? Is there a college for leadership? You show up to a business, and all of a sudden, you’re expected to kind of be a leader? How do you learn about it? How do you do it?
Well, Toastmasters is effective because you learn to do it by actually doing it. You learn to speak by getting up and speak. And you learn to be a leader by getting up and leading.
So, what’s amazing about Toastmasters is, first of all, it’s been around for 89 years, number one. Number two, it’s non-profit.
No one in Toastmasters get paid, including the international presidents. And the entire organization is run with volunteers.
In a club, you have seven officers that are elected by your peers for a year. You have a president, three vice presidents, sergeant at arms, treasurer and secretary and so forth. And above that, you’ve got an area governor who’s over five clubs.
Then above the area governor is the division governor over five or six areas and 30 clubs. And then, you’ve got a district governor who’s over 200 clubs let’s say. And then you’ve got 86 of these districts around the world.
So it’s pyramid-shaped where the leadership is done on a voluntary basis. And you actually learn to be a leader by doing.
There’s training involved, but so much doing. And you actually get those abilities by the experience of doing Toastmasters.
So, not only do you learn to speak, but you learn to lead.
As you’ve noticed, there’s never been a great leader that wasn’t a great speaker. So they go really hand in hand.
DEBRA: They do! And I really appreciated this. I’ve been a Toastmasters since 2009. And I’ve done a lot of the manuals, Learning to Speak. But I’ve also done most of the leadership side up to—there’s a designation called Distinguished Toastmaster which is the highest award that you can get in Toastmasters. And it leads you to learning a lot about speaking and a lot about leadership and that you need to do certain different projects in order to get this.
And I’m about to get this award on June 30th. I’ll be done with all of my qualifications. And it is the most valuable thing that I’ve ever done in my life because it does teach you these basic skills of communication and leadership.
And so, I needed to do things like, first, I was the president of my club. And then, I moved up to being an area governor. And I was expected to do things like be in charge of putting on a speech contest. Well, I have never done that before. Where would I learn how to do that?
But they do teach you how to do this. They teach you how to be a leader. They teach you how to get a group of people together united around your purpose and be able to work together as a team.
Now, how valuable would that be for you to get a group of your friends and neighbors together and go down to the city council and make an effective presentation and stop fluoride in your water or something like that.
And this is what is needed to make change in the world. It’s for people to work together. I’ve been in so many groups, local groups, where they didn’t know how to work together. And yet Toastmasters teaches you how to do that. And you can put together a group of Toastmasters, people show up, they do what they agree to do, and they actually produce something like a speech contest or whatever it is that they want to create together. They have the skills to work together and communicate and not fight with each other and disagree—
It’s not that we never fight and disagree. But we have the skills to be able to come together and say, “Alright, this is going to be our accomplishment. And this is how we’re going to get there and do it together and have fun doing it.”
As you said, Rick, where else would you learn that?
And now I feel like I could lead anything! It’s just that you learn those skills. And now I could go into a corporation, be an executive or I could run a non-profit or I could gather together people and make some change in my community because I know how to lead.
And that’s what I’ve learned in Toastmasters. It’s an amazing thing!
RICK FURBUSH: That’s fantastic! What’s very interesting is so many people don’t know how to run a meeting!
DEBRA: That’s another thing I’m going to have to do.
RICK FURBUSH: People have heard of this thing called Robert’s rules or parliamentary rules. They haven’t got the foggiest idea. And of course I think the British came up with it so it’s very confusing. But you learn not only the procedure but how to run a meeting, a democratic meeting, effectively, on time, getting things done.
And we do this every day in Toastmasters, so when you go out to the world, you’ve got an edge up. You can go and run any meeting.
And most meetings that you’ve been to, they run over time, they never get things correctly. They don’t know how to run it. And this is the basic thing you learn in Toastmasters every day in your meetings.
DEBRA: Yes, these are basic life skills. And I’m having Rick here on the show because this is a show about toxics, and these skills need to be learned and applied in the world of toxics so that our voices can be heard, so that we can go to a meeting, and as the meeting is not being run correctly, we can stand up and say, “Okay, let’s do this,” and everybody will follow you and listen to what’s going on with you because you can just bring order to the room. You can call on people to be able to speak and have their voices heard.
It’s just an amazing, amazing thing. And I want people to know that this is what Toastmasters is about, that you can learn those skills there for very, very little money—like really very little money, isn’t it, $46 for six months or something.
RICK FURBUSH: Yeah, it’s equivalent to a cup of coffee a week. It’s very inexpensive. It’s non-profit.
The whole idea, the purpose of the organization which started 89 years ago was to help make the world a better place through communication leadership. And it’s that effective, and it’s doing it every day.
DEBRA: Wouldn’t it be amazing for people to understand? We usually think that there are leaders, and then there are the followers. But what Toastmasters does is it makes everybody a leader.
One of the things that I am so impressed with the way Toastmasters is structured is that you learn the different roles that are necessary to the meeting. And you can just go to any Toastmasters meeting in the world and step in and fulfill that role.
We’ll be back after the break. We’ll talk more about Toastmasters and how you can be empowered to speak and lead.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And we’re here with Rick Furbush, international executive from Toastmasters International. And we’re talking today about learning to communicate effectively and when leadership skills can help create a toxic-free world, things that you can do that’ll help you have a less toxic life for yourself, [unclear 26:25] and just have there be general harmony.
I just really see people blossom when I go to a Toastmasters meeting […] I’ve been in Toastmasters since 2009. And I just see people who come in and won’t speak and sit in the back of the room, after a few months, they go talking and participating—and their whole lives change.
I know that my life has changed because I really amped up my ability to communicate and communicate well and organize my thoughts. And that’s how I got a radio show actually. I decided that I was going to be able to communicate my message in a way that would make sense to other people and that I’d be able to do it clearly and that I would take a leadership role in my field, create that.
And so, Rick, this is the last segment. Let’s talk about how people can join or create a Toastmasters club for themselves.
RICK FURBUSH: Good point. In fact, I wanted to just [unclear 27:37] people first. I know they were listening for toxic, and then we’re talking about communicating. But the point I want to make is when they use Toastmasters or anything else, you really need to overcome that fear if you’ve got it and really be able to communicate well. And we have found—because it’s so good.
It’s the leader in the field. It’s so inexpensive. And it’s such an ability-building organization—that Toastmasters for us has worked so well. And that’s why we’re talking about it. and
But we’d like to encourage you to go on and use whatever you can to become better speaker.
DEBRA: I agree.
RICK FURBUSH: And I’d like to share a couple of tips because people are going, “Well, I’m going to have to speak next week” or “I’m going to be the maid-of-honor. What should I do?” Well, here are a couple of tips—a couple of tips right off the bat.
If you go to Toastmasters.org, right on the front page, they have the tips. You can just print them down.
But the first couple of tips, one is you want to be prepared. You want to know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing worse than have to get up sort of impromptu and try to wing it. You want to really be prepared. Write down your speech—practice it, and practice it, and practice it. And you’ll have so much more confidence.
That’s probably one of the big tips I can help people with.
But second of all, if you’re going to be going and speaking to a group, see if you can’t go out and introduce yourself to as many people as possible. You’ve sort of broken the ice, and you have some friendly faces in the audience that you got to talk to, and it makes your nerves start to go away.
So, those are two great tips for anyone whether you’re Toastmasters or not if you want to go on and speak.
DEBRA: Those are all great tips. And I would say that, on the other hand, one of the things that you learn in Toastmasters is to just be able to speak extemporaneously off-the-cup. There’s a whole very fun part of each meeting called table topics where you get asked a question, and then you just get to give a 1- to 2-minute reply. And that comes in very handy at parties or if you’re at a job interview, or if you’re meeting somebody for the first time, or if you’re on a radio show and you have to answer a question.
RICK FURBUSH: I think that’s probably one of the most valuable things for me that I get out of Toastmasters, having the competence to be able to [field questions].
If you noticed, some of these politicians, you ask them a question, they don’t answer the question. they tell you what they want you to hear. It’s very amazing! But it sort of has this art of impromptu speaking geared the way they want to go.
So, if you’re really good, you’ll actually be able to answer the question and sound intelligence just because you have that competence with having practiced the impromptu speaking.
DEBRA: Yes. And I know a lot of people are experts in a field of something (like I’m an expert in my fields of tactics. But just because you know your field or doesn’t mean you know how to communicate. And I think that that’s a great area people still need to be trained so that you can communicate what you know and sound like you’re somebody who knows what you know. If you don’t have those communication skills, you can know all the facts you want and somewhat come across as being the intelligent person that you are.
DEBRA: Yes, very good point. In fact, as you’ve mentioned, you asked—before we run out of time—“How could someone join Toastmasters?”, it’s very simple. You can go to Toastmasters.org. And on the front page, it says “find a club.” Click on it, and it’ll say, “put in your zip code.” And it’ll bring up the 20 closest clubs to where you live. There might be one around the corner.
And just here in Pinellas County, there’s 48 clubs in Pinellas county and almost 50 over in Hillsborough. And every major city in the world has a lot of Toastmasters club. They meet either morning, noon or evening. So it’s easy to find a club.
In fact, I suggest that people go and visit different clubs because these clubs have a different personality. But you’ll find that the one thing they all have in common is they’re very friendly, and they’re very warm. And everyone’s in the same boat.
If you show up and you’re afraid of public speaking, they either are or they have been. They know what you’re going through.
So it’s a safe place to go visit and overcome your fear of public speaking.
DEBRA: I totally agree with you. As area governor particularly this year, I’ve had occasion to go to different clubs. The first couple of years, I just stayed in my own club. But I’ve been going around visiting different clubs. And I do see that if you want to go some place, if you just moved to a new city, and you want to meet some new people, and you want to go some place, you don’t have the confidence to say go to a bar and strike up a conversation with someone, go to a Toastmasters club because, when you walk in the door, somebody will walk over and talk to you, I guarantee it.
RICK FURBUSH: That’s absolutely true.
DEBRA: They’ll be friendly, and they’ll be interested. And they’ll introduce you to somebody else. And it won’t be like going to a party and just standing in a corner.
RICK FURBUSH: In fact, I have to point out that when I went to Hong Kong last summer—I was there for two to three weeks—the first week I was there, I’ve been through four Toastmasters’ clubs. And they all spoke English. And it was an incredible experience! They had 40 or 50 people in each of the clubs. And they have over 50 clubs just on the small island of Hong Kong.
I mean China, India, South America, South Africa, you name it, there are Toastmasters clubs anywhere.
So, if you’re traveling, what a great networking experience!
DEBRA: Yeah, yeah.
RICK FURBUSH: So, I feel like, now, I could go any place in the world and I can be part of a family anywhere. If I ever needed something, if I needed to meet people, or I was in trouble in a strange place, I could just find a Toastmasters club, and they would take care of me. That’s not really what it’s for. But I know that I have friends everywhere because I’m a Toastmaster.
DEBRA: Absolutely!
RICK FURBUSH: Well, the call-to-action simply is, if you want to get over that fear of public speaking, it’s a safe, easy place.
Just go online, Toastmasters.org, put in your zip code, find a club and go visit it. It’s friendly, it’s safe. They won’t have you get up and speak. You go at your own pace. And you’ll be shock!
My wife didn’t get into Toastmasters until she was over 50 years old. And she wishes she had done 40 years earlier. It’s made all the difference in her life. And she’s been very public speaking-petrified! And now she does stand-up comedy for fun on weekends.
RICK FURBUSH: Yes, I’ve heard her. And I’ve seen her even just over the past four years that I’ve known her, the transformation that’s gone on with her.
One thing I want to make sure that we do mention before our time is up is that there’s two kinds of Toastmasters club. One is what’s called an open club. And that’s open to the public. And then, there’s also what’s called a closed club. And there are actually a lot of closed clubs. And what a closed club is is a club that is formed around an interest group. A business can have their own closed club where you have an employee of that business or a member of a church or a member of some organization. And so, in that way, people within already established groups can get to know each other and learn to work more effectively together.
So, for example, if you belong to an organization, say a non-profit that’s working on a toxics issue, you could form your own Toastmasters club for that group. You only need to have 20 people to have a Toastmasters club.
And if you have an organization or a business that’s making non-toxic products or something like that, you can form your own Toastmasters club, and then you will be more effective operating as a group, but then you could also go out in the world and speak more effectively about whatever is the purpose of your organization or the purpose of your business.
Say you have a business selling organic vegetables. Maybe you’re a farm or something, and you want to sell more organic vegetables. It would be so much easier for you to go out in the world and talk to people about your organic vegetables if you have the skills of communication.
So, I just really see this as a tool that so many people could use to be more effective to do their toxic-free purpose. And it’s available to anyone everywhere. And if it isn’t there, you can make it be there.
RICK FURBUSH: Very good point. And if they really want to start a club in their group, they just go online, Toastmaster.org.
There’s a place where you want to start a club, and they just fill in the information. They will connect you off with someone in your area to help you start a club. It’s very simple. It’s almost nothing to do. Just find a group of 20+ people, and they’ll come in and do a kickoff meeting, show you how it’s done, and help you start a club!
DEBRA: Well, here’s the red light, Rick. We need to stop. Thank you so much for being—this has been—
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And I will see you tomorrow.
