Motivational Speaker Near Montreal Quebec This Saturday

Once again, I will be the token motivational speaker for another Toastmasters district (61) conference this weekend. This time, I will be at a place called Bromont which is about an hour south of Montreal, Quebec. Too bad this event won't be a few weeks down the road because the conference location is right at one of the ski resorts in the Eastern Townships region. I could have gotten in some skiing on the same trip. But that's okay because at least the driving will be nice and there will be a new audience to motivate. My talk is scheduled for Saturday morning at Chateau Bromont. This will be a uniquely bilingual conference where there will be concurrent English and French sessions. I don't think there will be a French speaking motivational speaker there. My motivational talk will be in English.

Recognized At Motivational Talk This Morning

I did a very early morning motivational talk at a breakfast meeting at 7 am and I was recognized by one of the attendees who like myself, was in the local martial arts tournament circuit many years ago.  He said it was very interesting to see that I went from a martial arts competitor to become a motivational speaker and that my talk has an interesting spin with martial arts.

Speaking On Video About Clint's Motivational Talk

Toastmasters members are welcome to speak on video about Clint's recent motivational talk.  A video camera will be brought in for our next club meeting on June 6 and we will have time during the break and before the meeting to shoot these short one minute segments.

Revised Article For Toastmasters Magazine Sent In

The editors of Toastmasters magazine suggested that I make a few additions to an article that I submitted months ago.  The revisions were done and I sent the revised article back to them over the weekend.  Hopefully, we will see this article in a future issue of Toastmasters magazine soon.  It will be about one of the main principles from my motivational talk but with direct applications to Toastmasters.

College Students Have Made Me A Better Speaker

After doing five separate talks to US college students during the last two weeks, I've actually become a better speaker because of this audience.  College students, by their own admission, tend to have shorter attention spans.  My diversity talk already has a lot of audience participation while me motivational talk has less as it was designed more like a traditional keynote for general adults.

The diversity talk was a huge hit among the students while the motivational talk, which is my signature presentation, didn't fair as well.  I could see that I was losing the attention of some of the students during my motivational talk which was initially a bit of a shock to me given that this talk had done so well in the past.

Changing the motivational talk to be slightly more interactive improved the attention rates when I got to present it a second time around.  There's still more work to be done on this talk while the diversity one is already a success for this type of younger audience.

So if the motivational talk could be adjusted so that it is almost as interactive as my diversity talk, I will be able to hold the students' attention.  And if I could hold college students' attention, an older adult audience will be really easy.  This will make me a better speaker overall.