Presented by Moises Marin on August 22, 2020

“You are going to live literally like a god and then at the end of the year, you’re a living symbol and we are going to sacrifice you!” How could you not be intrigued by this premise? Wait, it does get better! There’s so much to like in this speech: originality, humor, inspiration. I hope you enjoy this great piece of writing as much as I have! Thanks to Moises for giving Seattle Sunrise the permission to publish his speech here!

Who here has uploaded a video on YouTube?

Congratulations you are a Content Creator!

Youtube has a monthly Newsletter for content creators like yourselves with useful information on how to empower individuals to become more effective creators.

On the Newsletter of March 2019 a content creator was asked this question: 

– How do you know you are creating the best video that you can?

– Well , I know I am making the best videos I can because when I make a video I ask myself, “Hey, what if this  was the last video I could ever make?” That pushes me to give the best I have and not save efforts for a later time.

Fellow toastmasters and guests, To give your best effort, do it like it’s the LAST TIME you are doing it.

Would you prepare your speech differently if it was the last time you were giving a speech in your club ?

Would you organize a meeting differently if it was the last time you are meeting with your team  in person?

To give your best effort, do it like it’s the LAST TIME you are doing it.

Let’s go back in time to 1520, to the aztec festival of the fifth month.

In this festivity  the Aztecs would take a young person and basically say “hey you’re going to pretend you are God for about a year and you’re going to enjoy yourself”.

He was taught courtly speech, singing and to play the flute.

Through the year he would parade in the streets and be treated with great reverence.

Several times during the year he would meet with the Aztec ruler who would ritually adorn him.

The month before the Festival of the fifth month, aka the fourth month he would be ritually wed to four maidens who impersonated 4 aztec goddesses and live with them for twenty days.

You are going to live literally like a god and then at the end of the year, you’re a living symbol and we are going to sacrifice you.

Then there was a selection of a new man to take that role in the year to come.

Fellow Content Creators, would you create content differently if it was the last time you were doing it?

Would you perform the art of being you differently if it was the last year you have to do it … and you had godlike resources available?

If, like the YouTube creator from the interview, you were creating something for the last time chances are you would use everything you have at your disposal, you wouldn’t save anything for later because there would be no other time.

Fellow heads in a square on a screen, 

Would you run differently if it was the last time you were running a marathon?

Would hugging a friend feel differently if it was the last time you can give a hug due to mandatory social distance?

To give your best effort, do it like it’s the LAST TIME you are doing it.

Rock climbing without equipment.

Skydiving.

An interview to get a new job.

One time events, do not give you a second chance.

You have to perform at your best because else could mean failure, death or worse, unemployment.

When you are packing your parachute before a skydive, will you not do your best effort?

You can get additional inspiration , motivation and energy for an activity if you think it’s the last time you are doing it.

This is an ingredient in the recipe for success.

A poem from a scarified god impersonator goes like this

What am I to go with?

Will I leave nothing behind me on earth?

How should my heart act?

Do we in vain come to live,

to sprout on the ground?

Let’s at least leave flowers

Let’s at least leave songs

Fellow toastmasters, our daily activities will sometimes take us to valleys of disappointment and sometimes to peaks of success. What is certain is that every day can be DAY ONE for finding the way to the peaks of accomplishment.

Let’s empower our daily activities by thinking it’s the LAST TIME we are doing them.

Bust out your swim gear and sunscreen – we’re going on vacation, y’all! Well, maybe more like stay-cation, for now… Today’s theme was Vacations and it’s something our club has been thinking about a lot lately since COVID-19 isn’t leaving anytime soon. Where would you go if you were able to go on vacation? Another state? Another country? Or, as suggested by one of our newest members, Moises, you could go on a virtual tour of the world from the comfort and safety of your own home.

Isabella, today’s Toastmaster, piqued our wanderlust by sharing a slideshow of her last vacation in Nanjing, China, where she, her daughter and her boyfriend spent their time enjoying everything Nanjing had to offer.

Paula, our Grammarian, was inspired by today’s theme and gave us “Resort” as our Word of the Day. Hannah, our Timer, kept the meeting on track and on time. Jovica, our Sergeant at Arms, helped us brush up on our Zoom etiquette.

Bill, our Table Topics Master, resorted to asking us about our hypothetical travel plans. Steven, Moises, Hannah, Vivi and Mari were today’s participants and a special shout-out to Mari for playing, because it takes a lot of courage for guests to join in – great job, Mari!!

Vivi gave her very first Ice Breaker speech, where she shared her story of how she came to join Toastmasters. Vivi is such a great storyteller already and we’re so excited to be part of her personal growth journey. Jovica followed with a speech about how we’re tracking the progress of our members, with an eye toward earning the President’s Distinguished Club honor for yet another year!

Sam, Moises and Lara capped off the meeting with their evaluations of the two speeches, as well as the meeting itself. Their insights are critical in helping to make us better public speakers and leaders.

We look forward to seeing all of you next week – in the meantime, we hope you take advantage of this sunshine and find a way to carve out your own personal resort during your stay-cation. If you need a little help finding paradise, as a last resort we asked The Beach Boys if they had any ideas… Enjoy!!

What do Nikola Tesla, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Meade all have in common? They’re geniuses. But what exactly is a genius? To paraphrase the definition Scott W, one of our long-time members, gave today, they’re “brilliant, have enormous impact and they have courage of conviction.”

Today’s meeting was themed after these and many other geniuses in honor of Nikola Tesla’s recent birthday. Jovica served as our Toastmaster and led us through a jam-packed agenda. Young, one of our newest members, served as Grammarian by helping us eliminate filler words and challenging us to incorporate the Word of the Day – “Ingenious”. Paula (our new club president) served as Timer by helping keep the meeting moving and making sure we stuck to our time limits.

Our Educational Moment was delivered by Lara, where she shared an ingenious tip to help us not only work through our speech projects, but anything else we want to accomplish in life – begin with the end in mind. Specifically, she recommended planning in advance, getting deadlines on the calendar and giving yourself plenty of time to prepare.

We had a fun-filled Table Topics session led by Steven, where we practiced our impromptu speaking by sharing with the club how we geniuses came up with our “inventions”. The crazy pictures of fake inventions used as prompts elicited some equally crazy explanations from our participants Scott W, Bill and Petar.

We had only one speech today, delivered by Isabella, where she shared with us her ingenious app, designed to help simplify the ordering process in the service industry. Isabella walked us through several scenarios that create lots of extra work for servers, and then showed us – through a detailed, professional, interactive slideshow – how her product would help solve those problems and make life easier for servers. Great work, Isabella!

Scott W provided some thoughtful, actionable feedback that Isabella could incorporate to make her speech that much more impactful the next time she delivered it. Afterward, Bill, as our General Evaluator, shared his thoughts on how we could make our next meeting even more awesome.

We look forward to seeing everyone again next week!!

President and Toastmaster of the Day, Lara opens the meeting with inducting the new members of the Club, welcoming Vivi, Moises, and Judy, who recited the members promised, as Lara shared the script on the Zoom screen. Lara was also the Toastmaster of the Day, wearing many hats for this meeting, she started the meeting to the audience by announcing that it was her last meeting as the President, and Paula the incoming President, will start at the beginning of July 1st. The theme of “American Dream” was introduced first as the agenda was discussed. This followed by the introduction of the Timer and Grammarian. Lara closed the Opening Section with the the Education Moment, which was delivered by Young. He shared the Toastmaster way of providing and receiving an evaluation, as our educational moment of the day.

Table Topics is a long-standing Toastmasters tradition intended to help members develop their ability to organize their thoughts quickly and respond to an impromptu question or topic. It typically begins after the prepared speech presentations during our in-person meetings. For the Zoom meetings, to allow early interactive participation, it’s perform in the early part of the meeting. Jovica was the table topic master for this meeting. Due to limited time, there were only two volunteers to answer these two questions. “What is the definition of the American Dream”, answered by Bill. “What is the one word that describes the America Dream”, answered by Vivi.

The Prepared Speakers were two in number. Brian was a second time visitor, and guest at our Club. He delivered Project #5 story of Apollo and Daphne from the Storytelling Manual. Judy gave a speech titled “Coming Full Circle”, from her Level 1 icebreaker project form Presentation Mastery Pathways.

The general evaluator was Jimmy, who introduced this section to the audience, along with each respective evaluator, facilitating between each evaluator and finally providing his overall critique of the meeting. Steven provided an opportunity for improvement to Brian by suggesting to bring the characters to live with more drama and physical gestures, and to introduce the story itself within the speech. Hannah was the evaluator two. First time evaluating at the club, she provided a positive and supporting criticism of Judy’s icebreaker.

Lara as Toastmaster of the day, concluded the meeting and handed off the meeting to herself, as the President. She spent 10 minutes or so reflecting on her one year journey as the Club’s President, her intentions, giving some announcements on the officer change over. Then she lead the officer installment.