5-7 minute speech
Leadership Development – Level 3:
Elective Projects – CONNECT WITH STORYTELLING
Purpose: This project addresses storytelling techniques and descriptive skills to help make every speech relatable and interesting.
Overview: Choose an established story, a story about your life, or a fictional tale of your own creation. Deliver the 5- to 7-minute speech at a club meeting. If your vice president education approves a non-club event, your evaluator should be a Toastmaster who attended the event.
Personal Goals: Project enthusiasm, Take the audience on an emotional journey
Speech Title:
“The End” Doesn’t Have To Be…
Learn how to be successful! Create a life that’s not only financially prosperous but also balanced and enjoyable.
Introduction:
Earlier this week, my fourth book was published. The book is titled, “How To Be Successful: Think Like A Leader”. I’d like to share the path that brought me to write this book!
By the time I was 27 years old, I owned a number of companies in various industries including medical, fashion, manufacturing, distribution, and pharmaceuticals. I had become successful at a young age. My life was wonderful!
Conflict:
Everything changed when I started having daily grand mal seizures. One morning in 2010, I woke up and half my body had stopped working. I rolled out of bed and fell on the floor, before dragging myself to the kitchen where my phone was plugged in.
I grew up with Type 1 diabetes & had experienced seizures when my blood sugar was too low, so I assumed I just needed a snack. As I ate everything I could get my (hand) on… Something still didn’t feel right.
Laying on the kitchen floor, I pulled the charging cable & got my phone to fall onto the floor so I could dial my mom. I wanted to tell her that I’d had another seizure and I couldn’t get up off the floor, but the words coming out of my mouth were not the words I wanted to say. She called 911 when she realized I was unable to communicate.
I was rushed by ambulance to the emergency room as I lost consciousness. I was diagnosed with brain cancer. Oncologists gave me only 60-90 days to live. I still remember the doctor putting his hand on my mom’s shoulder and telling her to, “make some memories with the time we had left.”
I lost absolutely everything as I became unable to drive, live alone, or remember small details such as if I’d eaten, or taken an insulin shot. This caused additional seizures. Everything I had researched, the businesses I had built, and even my memory were gone.