Welcome to a brand new Toastmasters year! I hope you are as excited as I am about continuing your journey of fun and fellowship in the Toastmasters program. The Toastmasters program has so much to offer, I sometimes feel like a kid in a “Sweet Factory” candy store–scanning a myriad of colorful candy jars filled with chocolate covered gummy bears, gummy fruity dinosaurs, assorted fruit flavored jelly beans, tropical fruit salt water taffy–and can’t decide on what to put first in my bag! I hope you have enjoyed a good assortment of fun and friendship as you worked on your listening, thinking, speaking and leadership skills in and outside your club last year–because there is so much more to enjoy in the New Year.
You may have been elected to a new officer position, started to work on projects from an advanced manual, taken on a leadership position outside your club, started to prepare for the next speech contest or just started as a new Toastmaster. Whatever activities you have chosen to pursue be sure they are activities that inspire your enthusiasm. This is the simple secret to success. Steve Jobs once said, “the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
The theme for the New Year is “Pursue Your Passion.” Live your life to the fullest by investing yourself in activities that inspire your enthusiasm for the task rather than to prove you could do it better than anyone else. Invest yourself in activities that light your fire. What gets you excited just thinking about doing it? What are the things you would do even if you were not paid for doing it? What gives you joy? What gives you satisfaction and fulfillment? Find your passion and pursue it with all the gusto you can gather. When you pursue your passion, you will awake each morning with a new spirit of adventure. You will look forward to how each day will unfold–what would you experiment with; what insights would you have? You will find ways to make chores opportunities to be creative, and you will be energized instead of exhausted.
“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” -Patanjali
I look forward to travelling this road and experiencing this ongoing transformation along with you because we are all a part of Toastmasters International, a driving, passionate force with a noble mission to enrich the lives of people all over the world. Furthermore, we are a part of Founder’s District, the birthplace of Toastmasters. Let us make Dr. Ralph C. Smedley proud by working together to use the skills we gain to make a positive lasting impact on the lives of people in our family, at our workplace and in our community.