{"id":1107,"date":"2016-09-16T07:30:32","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T12:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/?p=1107"},"modified":"2016-09-16T07:31:57","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T12:31:57","slug":"yes-love-toastmasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/16\/yes-love-toastmasters\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, I LOVE Toastmasters!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, I LOVE Toastmasters!<a href=\"http:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/heart.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-1109\" src=\"http:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/heart-150x150.png\" alt=\"heart\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>LISTEN<br \/>\nOBSERVE<br \/>\nVALUE<br \/>\nENCOURAGE<\/p>\n<p>As the saying goes, we were given two ears and one mouth so we would LISTEN more than we talk.\u00a0 Listen to the speaker, to your colleagues, to your family.\u00a0 Hear what they say, be an active listener, not already preparing your next response in a discussion.\u00a0 It&#8217;s OK to pause and gather your thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>We also have two eyes so we can OBSERVE the speaker&#8217;s facial expressions, body language, and demeanor.\u00a0 Listening to someone on the telephone is far more limited then when we can see all this, either in person or over a camera.\u00a0 It provides so much more context to the speaker&#8217;s words.<\/p>\n<p>If the speaker is taking time to tell us about it, we must VALUE their message.\u00a0 We may not always agree with it, but it&#8217;s important to the speaker, and the speaker deserves our respect.\u00a0 Show that their message is important to you with your own body language, and in your response.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re not sure about the message, restate it and ask for confirmation.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, but most importantly, ENCOURAGE the speaker by providing constructive feedback, this might be in the form of an evaluation in the club meeting, or just a positive response in a conversation.\u00a0 We need to provide commendations as well as recommendations, what you did well as well as what you can do better next time.\u00a0 Conclude with an encouraging comment, leaving the conversation on a high note.<\/p>\n<p>Now go out and LOVE your fellow Toastmasters!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, I LOVE Toastmasters! LISTEN OBSERVE VALUE ENCOURAGE As the saying goes, we were given two ears and one mouth so we would LISTEN more than we talk.\u00a0 Listen to the speaker, to your colleagues, to your family.\u00a0 Hear what they say, be an active listener, not already preparing your next response in a discussion.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous-toastmasters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1110,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions\/1110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}