Wow. Quite exciting stuff. On my way to writing about this morning’s Toastmaster speech, I found out about Kyle MacDonald’s oneredpaperclip.com adventure. Within half an hour I’d caught up on the basics via his blog: in one year he made 14 trades, starting with a red paper clip, ending with the deed to a house.

Kyle’s goal was a house. He had fun with the adventure. Supporters and unsolicited media tracked his progress and cheered him on. He wasn’t going for major glory, he was doing his thing and having a good time.

Which leads me to what I wanted to report back re: my speech this morning. In anticipation of the upcoming workshop next Wednesday (Parents, let it be easy!) I presented the first eight minutes of my presentation to the club for feedback and suggestions.

After my last two speeches, which went extraordinarily well–I felt comfortable and connected with the audience–I was a little freaked out to see straight faces that smiled only occasionally this morning. “Are they bored? I’m not connecting with them! What’s happening?!” were the panicked thoughts going through my head.

Afterwards, Life Coach Lori came up to me and gave me the low down. She said I could do away with the intro part that I had included as way of “establishing myself as qualified to be in front of them.” She said, “once you jumped into the content, which you know so well and are excited about, I perked up.”

What failed: talking about what I thought people would want to hear.
What worked: talking about what I know and love. (sounds pretty obvious when stated like that, eh?)

How many times do I need to be reminded that the most important thing that I can do today, tomorrow, whenever is to do what I love. That’s what reaches people, that’s what fuels me, that’s where the fun is.

I’m going to rewrite my workshop intro and have some fun with it!