Toastmasters Speech #6: Vocal Variety (Luck: It's A Baseball Metaphor)

I've been bad at updating with my Toastmaster speeches - expect speeches 2-5 to show up eventually. In the meantime, here's my speech #6. This module is about vocal variety - about pitch and tone and pauses. I think I did a pretty good job of that. I need a bit more volume adjustment (someone suggested I whisper at certain parts... or feign a whisper at least), but otherwise I think I did well with that aspect of the speech. I got a lot of positive comments on my pauses, which accords with my own interpretation of my abilities. I think I do pauses very well. I also got some positive comments on my pitch during a few brief moments of levity.

Things to work on include my hand gestures, awareness that I often (almost always) use the word "So..." to introduce a speech or topic, and my nervousness as I approach the podium. A pretty constant refrain, in other words. I'm really not sure what I can do to deal with the nervousness, because I'm rarely all that nervous once I'm actually speaking. Also, for the second speech in a row I've gone past the 7 minute mark, which is the red light moment. I'm still within the 30 second grace period, and this time I managed to finish without cutting anything, but I need to do a better job of organizing the speech to fit my time constraint. One evaluator, who otherwise really liked the speech, said I could have slowed down just a tiny little bit, but had I done so, I would have gone over time. Food for thought in any case as I write the speech.

In terms of the content, I think I hit some really strong notes. I like the speech itself for the most part, though my introduction is a bit weak. The main evaluator commented that she would have liked a more structured intro that lays out where I'm going with the speech exactly. I feel like I did actually do that, but maybe in my delivery I missed something, or didn't emphasize that enough. I think the message is very strong, though I am concerned that all of my speeches kind of circle around the twin themes of recognizing priveledge and personal development. I may go somewhere completely different for speech #7. I have a month to figure it out.

The content of my speech is below. As always, what I have here does not fully represent what was delivered. I typically go off-track for about 25% of my speech, improvising different word structures, word usage, or even themes during the actual delivery. I find this helps me stay a lot more natural, and helps me avoid the use of notes. That being said, the gist of what I delivered is here.

Luck: It's A Baseball Metaphor

How do we achieve success? Success in business, in pleasure, or in play. Most people agree that there are two components - luck; that random chance that something good goes your way, outside of your control... and merit; what you bring to the table on your own, what you control.

I think most of us recognize that you can't be successful without some measure of luck. Stanford University did a study where they asked incoming students to reflect on how luck played a part getting into Stanford, and most of them had no problem identifying their good fortune. They commented on things like being born into a family with resources, having a teacher reach out to help them when they were younger.

To paraphrase President Obama:

There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you're successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.

It's not enough to have merit, in other words - success requires luck too.

So I think we can all agree that merit and luck are both important. But the real question is, which one is more important? This is a big question, because it changes how you relate to others. If success is mostly based on merit, that means people who lack success must lack merit.

I used to think that merit was more important than luck.

I recognised that I was lucky to be born in Canada to a middle class, university educated family.
I recognised that I was lucky to be male, and white, and straight.
I even recognised that I was lucky to be taller than average, because for men height correlates pretty well to success.

But fundamentally I thought that it was my work ethic and my smarts that were the foundation of any success that I found. I put in my time and thus created my own luck.

My thoughts on this have changed. Through reading and personal development I recently had a revelation, which I'll get to in a little bit.

Let me talk about myself for a minute. I'm quick on the uptake, I'm adaptable, I'm articulate. I learn new systems and processes very quickly and I can communicate my understanding of them very well. This is what I define as intelligence, and luckily for me this is what a lot of people define as intelligence. Being smart in this particular way is valued, right here and right now.

But go back a couple thousand years, before we had such easy access to information, and it isn't your ability to parse but your ability to retain information that would have been more important. And I'm not great at retaining information. In that world smart is defined in a different way, and suddenly I'm not smart.

The same thing can be said of my work ethic. Right here and right now a strong work ethic is highly prized, above and beyond most other qualities, but in other cultures, that's not neccesarily the case. In other cultures social awareness, or the ability to follow orders; those are important. In those cultures my work ethic doesn't matter, and I wouldn't do as well.

My revelation in other words is that I'm not only lucky for having been born with the characteristics that I have, but that I am lucky to exist in a world where those characteristics are valued.

So, you're asking yourself, why does this matter? What difference does it make if you think luck is more important than success? It matters because when you recognize and that everything underlying your success is based on luck, it becomes incredibly important to be humble. Not in ignoring your skills or abilities, but in refusing to assume that others who lack success therefore lack quality. Recognize that anyone who finds success owes a debt, a luck debt, to everyone who doesn't, because the biggest difference between success and failure is just luck.

I'm going to bring it back to the title of this speech, and leave you with a metaphor that really resonates with me:

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.

Don't be that person. Thank you.

Co-Op Report: Second Term @ DND

I'm about to finish my second co-op term with the Department of National Defence. As part of my program with school, I'm required to submit a co-op report for each of the three co-op terms I complete.

This is what I submitted after my second term:

Introduction

Our program has three opportunities for co-op placement: the summer of 2014, and the winter and fall of 2015. Because I already have fairly extensive professional work experience, I wanted to take a targeted approach to my co-op placements. I was not looking just for work experience, but rather for work experience that would help me in determining my career path after graduation. There are a surprising number of paths for graduates of our program. Based on talking with graduates I believe the three most common to be: working in some way on ERP systems such as SAP or Oracle, working in logistics or operations management, or working in procurement. Beyond this, and especially if I stay in Ottawa, there is also the question of working with the government vs. working with a private company.

In the summer of 2014 I took a co-op placement with DND to work in procurement within the ADM (Mat) section. As I will detail below I then went to work for the ADM (IM) section in a technical role. In my second co-op term, having made the decision that I will be targeting a career working on ERP systems, I decided to return to DND in that technical role.

This report will give a quick overview of my time with DND, provide background information about DND and the ADM (IM) section that I worked with, the type of work that I performed and how that work related to our program and my learning objectives, and will offer suggestions for students who might want to work in a similar role in the future.

Interview / Application Process

I started with DND during the first co-op term (Summer 2014). At the time I was hired to work with the procurement department. After two months I was able to transition into working with the DRMIS Materials Management team in a technical role. This aligned more closely with our program objectives and with my own skillset.

I was invited to stay on with that team on a part-time basis through the fall of 2014, and I subsequently returned for this, my second co-op term. I made that decision for three reasons: because I had only spent two months with the group, I felt there was more that I could learn and accomplish, because the location is very close to home and helps with work / life balance (I have primary custody of a six year old who goes to school nearby; even though co-op opportunities are about setting oneself up for the future, I have practical considerations to keep in mind at all times), and because I was studying to take the GMAT, and between that, work, and school I felt like I had enough on my plate during the fall semester without starting an extensive job hunt.

Working with DND – ADM (IM)

While with ADM (IM) I worked with the DRMIS Material Management Team. Their role is to support the Material Management components within DRMIS. This includes responding to user incidents, developing training materials, and assisting with the development of system changes among other things.

My role with the DRMIS MM Team has been to assist wherever necessary. Over the past four months my time has mostly been spent either developing technical documentation, or assisting team members on specific short term projects, as required.

The technical documents I worked on were mostly work instructions of how to perform specific transactions (Business Processes) using one of the several interfaces DND uses to interact with SAP. As a result I gained familiarity with a number of SAP transactions that I would not otherwise have seen, and was able to really build on my knowledge of SAP. I also created the actual technical documentation using a program known as UPerform. Working on technical documentation thus aligns closely with my “Technical Skills” goal to “further develop expertise with SAP and other DND-specific software”. While developing or re-working the documentation, I was also able to use writing skills that I had prior to joining our program, but which I developed further in our program’s various English courses.

While developing technical documentation I worked closely with two permanent team members and one other student to map out the business process for the maintenance of technical documentation. I also developed and populated a spreadsheet to track our progress for documentation maintenance. This aligns with my “Communication, thinking, and learning goal” of “improve communication skills by working closely with other staff members”, as well as my “Teamwork” goal to “work closely with other co-op students, contractors, and DND staff to accomplish day to day goals”.

In addition to developing technical documentation I spent time working with team members on various small DRMIS projects. These involved me using SAP to create, modify, or display data, as well as to extract that data for further analysis. The analysis was done in excel, and involved VBA scripting. This work aligned with my learning objectives for “Objectives and Goals”, which were to “accomplish tasks that help improve the day to day functioning of DND” and to “improve my technical skills”. Because I worked with multiple team members on varying projects, and also had an ongoing documentation role, I was also able to accomplish my “Working Habits” learning objective to “further develop my ability to multi-task and improve my goal prioritization”.

Some of this work is ongoing, and I will be returning to work with this group on a part-time basis during the Summer 2015 school semester.

Takeaways / Suggestion for Future Students - ADM (IM)

My biggest takeaways are that I like systems work, and that I think I could be very good at a career based around this type of work, and probably make very good money doing it. The day to day work can be very interesting. I am not sure, however, that I see myself working in the public sector for the course of my career. The sheer size of DND necessitates a level of bureaucracy that I find myself uncomfortable navigating, and the pace of change can be glacially slow. I think this has been an excellent opportunity to develop my skills however, and I’m very appreciative of it. I look around the office and as I write this I know of at least 10 people on my floor alone who have graduated from, or who are currently attending, our program. This speaks very highly of both the skills we acquire and the network we have available to us, if we choose working on SAP as our career path.

For future students, knowledge of SAP is critical. While I did not use many of the transactions I would have seen in school, the ability to navigate SAP and to know what the shortcut keys are and how to change options and settings, was essential. Personally, I also found that being able to work with excel to manipulate data was incredibly useful, and given that one of the tasks I had was to develop technical documentation, a strong understanding of writing principles also served me very well.

I would recommend technical work at DND for any co-op students who aspire to a career working on ERP systems post-graduation, and I would recommend students from our program with a high level of demonstrated technical ability to my contacts at DND looking for co-op students.

Ice-Breaking: A Talk About My Business Cards

I haven't been very good about keeping this blog updated (see: 3 posts in a year and a half), but I recently joined Toastmasters and thought I might include some of my thoughts here as I work through the Toastmasters program. I might also put down some of my thoughts about running as I work through my fairly aggressive 2015 race schedule.

Today I presented my first speech to the Toastmasters club. The first speech is called an "Ice-Breaker", and it's a means to introduce yourself to your club in a more meaningful fashion. I equivocated quite a bit on what type of speech to deliver, but finally settled on something that I titled "My Business Card". It's a bit gimmicky, to be honest, but when you've only got 4-6 minutes for a speech, a gimmick can help pull it together. It wasn't the best speech I've ever delivered, but I thought it went over quite well.

I really don't like presenting something that's already written in its entirety (I don't think I've done that since High School), but I didn't want to stand up there and hum and haw, so I did put a good amount of time into practicing something close to the speech, if not what I actually delivered. My transcription below isn't exactly what I delivered, but it's pretty close. (Forgive the punctuation and the spacing - I use odd punctuation to match more natural language patterns.)

My Business Card

Thank you madame toastmaster. Good afternoon fellow toastmasters, welcome guests.

About a year and a half ago I decided to attend several networking events. For these events, I went out and purchased some business cards.

I've had business cards before of course, issued by various companies. They'd include the company name, my job title. But for this I wanted something a bit more personal, a bit more unique. Something to help me stand out from the crowd.

I hold up my business card at this point. So I had these made. They're different, as you can see.

But what to put on them? I couldn't just put a job title, so I came up with three things about myself. Today I'm going to talk about what those three things are, I'm going to explain why I chose them, and in doing so hopefully give you all a chance to get to know me a bit better.

The first thing I put on my business card is: "Student". Three years ago I returned to full time studies. So I was, and still am, a student in the literal sense. But I also meant student in a broader sense. In my decade out of school I read a lot - I read a lot - and I attended part time courses. I did stuff like join Toastmasters. I am a huge believer in self development. I believe in life long learning. So my business card says student because even when I graduate a year and a half from now, I'll still consider myself a student.

The second thing I put on my business card is: "Salesperson". I've been in sales for most of the past five or six years. Anyone who's lived with a commission salesperson knows that sales is less of a job than it is a calling. When you're in sales, you want everyone to know that you're in sales.

But for the past year I've actually not been in sales. I have another reason to include it on my card.

I'm not a born salesperson. I'm shy. I freeze up when I meet new groups, and I scramble to find my words*. I'm not very good at small talk, as John learned last week**. Sales is something I started doing because I worked for a company where everyone else was like me. Nobody liked doing sales, and I saw it as a way to stand out and get ahead. I picked up a phone and started making cold calls, and eventually realized I was good at sales.

So sales is on my business card because it's a skillset I possess, but also because it's a mindset. It's a mindset that says the things I need to do aren't neccesarily the things I want to do, and that sometimes I should do things even if I'm no good at them.

The third thing on my business card is: "Runner". I've mentioned it here before but I love running. I used to be pretty fat, and when I lost the weight I fell in love with running. The moment I really knew I loved running was about two years ago, when I got a book called Born To Run. Some of you may have heard of it. It's about how humans are born to run, specifically born to run long distances. It was majorly inspiring. I read it over the course of an evening and the next day I signed up for a 24 hour race.

Running is something I do when I'm tired, when I'm bored, when I'm angry. It helps me clear my head. But I also have "Runner" on my business card because every so often, maybe one out of fifty times, when I hand my business card over to someone they'll skim student and salesperson but they'll read runner and then for ten minutes we'll both get to talk about something we love. It's a way to stand out, to be remembered. And suddenly being bad at small talk doesn't matter any more. So that's why it's on my card.

So now you know the three things I have on my business card and why they're there, and hopefully you have a better sense of me. I want to thank everyone for listening, and also for the opportunity to meet with you over the last few weeks. I've really enjoyed it and am looking forward to more.

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* Scramble was our word of the day - I planned its inclusion when it was first presented at the start of the meeting, and managed to remember to say it during my speech.

** This was a last second inclusion - I don't know what came over me but it just seemed like a natural thing to say. That's what I love about not presenting from memory - you can let last second changes fall into place.

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Overall the speech went well. I mostly got positive feedback, particularly on the structure of the speech, and on the fact I wasn't using notes and was thus able to maintain eye contact. The #1 critique was that I was nervous. I can certainly attest to that, particularly before and even after I spoke (I think I was mostly ok when actually talking, though certainly not perfect). I usually just wing it, which allows for a certain number of umms and awws, and maybe a lost train of thought or two, but with only 6 minutes at most, I needed to be a lot more targetted than I'm used to. It was hard. I actually forgot to present a little section of the running portion of my speech. Oh well. Pretty sure nobody noticed.

I'm really looking forward to the next speech. If you haven't attended Toastmasters, I highly recommend it.