After my last speech “Whats In A Name?’ which I have just downloaded an audio version for you to listen to I was tasked to prepare next weeks Inspirational Speech as part of committee duties.

In a moment of inspiration, delusion and indecision I have somehow come up with two Inspirational speeches for Toastmasters on Monday 1st October. Dear reader (and hopefully subscribers – just fill in your details below or to the side…) I am leaving it in your trusty hands to help me finally decide which speech I should perform on Monday. Please let me know which Inspiration speech you would rather me perform.

According to Toastmasters:

  • The INSPIRATION is usually placed at the beginning of the meeting as the first speaking role.
  • Time is 2 to 3 minutes.
  • There is no set format for the role. The intention is to start the meeting with something interesting and positive.
  • The subject can be anything you choose.

So without further ado you can listen to both speech below and read the transcripts as well. Either way I hope you enjoy the speeches.

Toastmasters Inspiration Speech – “Everyday Heroes”

Written and spoken by Samith Pich

[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”horizontal-curve-bottom” width=”500px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Somewhere in Australia, sometime tonight, someone will be in desperate need of a hero.

I’m not talking about someone who is summoned by the light of a bat signal or perhaps a caped crusader who proudly displays his undies.

No I’m talking about a real everyday heroes. Someone whom they will never meet but whom they will be connected with intimately. And in their greatest hour of need this hero or heroine will come to their rescue them.

Being an everyday hero life isn’t easy but you don’t have to swallow radioactive dust or move faster than a speeding locomotive to be so. All you have to do is give two of your most precious resources: Your time and your blood.

Tonight I call upon each and all of you to become regular blood donors.

Almost everyone can be an everyday hero, if you aren’t one already, and if you haven’t already done so recently, I ask you to one again soon.

The statistics are that 1 in 30 Australians give blood and yet 1 in 3 will need blood over their lifetime, intact every week in Australia we need about 26,000 blood donations just to keep up with demand.

Most people think that the majority of blood donations go towards accidents and other emergencies However the truth is most blood donated is used to treat people and children with cancer or other serious illnesses. And with todays current rate of 1 in 3 people will have cancer in their lifetime we need blood more than ever.

Blood isn’t just life saving, it’s amazing.

Your heart beats 100,000 times a day pumping more than 7, 500 litres of blood around your body.

If all your blood vessels in your body were joined end to end they would stretch around the world, twice over.

Through modern technology your life saving donation you can potentially save the life of 3 people.

Your main aota artery is about the size of a garden hose and yet your capillaries are so small that you could join ten of them together and the combined width will still be less than a strand of a human hair. They are so small in fact that the tiniest of sell, your red blood cells must travel through them in single file. And to give you an idea of how tiny blood cells are you could fit 250 million of them on a small nail head.

So I ask you to decide again today to commit to becoming an everyday hero. To literally roll up your sleeves and walk into a red cross blood bank and proudly display your veins and donate two of your most precious resources your time and your blood, to people you will never meet and whom you may never know for a reward that no money can buy.

The pride of being in the league of extraordinary ordinary heroes. [/dropshadowbox]

 VS

Toastmasters Inspiration Speech – “Stretch Yourself”

Written and spoken by Samith Pich

Personal development is lot like a rubber band. It can stretch us, it can propel us to distances we could not imagined or it can snap back and bite us leaving us limp and tongue tied.
Have you ever tried to take on a new habit? Have you ever said to yourself ,’I’m going to go on a new fitness regime, and I’m going to buy this Ab Pro Master and workout everyday for 3 months until I have 6 pack abs’. And after a week or two you no longer use it, and you must put up with it’s hurtful evil glares as you pass by it in the lounge room until one day in a KFC induced frenzy of guilt and procrastination lead you to do the only sane solution and that is to put it away in the ‘wardrobe or the shed. Or is that just me? Have you ever tried to stretch yourself and do something a bit crazy? Have you ever tried to learn a new language, trekked across the Nullaboor, join toastmasters or simply create an Impossible List?
What usually happens?
Like a rubber band we all start from a neutral position until one day we have an urge or an desire to be somewhere or do something we hadn’t done before. Lose weight, get fit, be nicer. We start making an effort, we initially feel good and the rubber band starts to stretch. Propelled by our progress, we lift a few more weights, give a few more toast master talks, talk to some new clients and the rubber band stretches some more.
Until we get to this stage – you and the rubber band are fully stretched.
 
It’s at this point, at this moment of tension and exertion any 1 of 3 things can happen.
The first thing that usually happens is that life happens or people will start saying ‘Why are you trying so hard? Have a break, have a Kitkat. Lets go out drinking… careful you might fail and look like a fool.’ And if others don’t say it we say it to ourselves. And slowly the weight of life, others, and our lack of discipline weighs us down, drags us back until the rubber band relaxes and we return back to neutral position.
Secondly, we take charge of life, we don’t heed the naysayers and we tell the voice inside to ‘sit down, shut up and hang on for teh ride’ and we allow our goals, our dreams our new habits to pull us up to a new position and we enjoy the fruits of our efforts. By stretching ourselves and using the tension we created we allow ourselves to arrive to a new place.
And finally thirdly, we go harder than before, we exercise to another level and smash through plateus, we bust our butts to get a dozen clients in a week, we live with a passion that others cannot understand but admire. And through the sheer will and force of what we are doing our limiting past beliefs lets go and the rubber band flings forward and shoots off into the stratosphere!
And one day, you wake up a different person, in a different place in a different world. Not that anything has changed but because a while ago you decided to change yourself and you never gave up.
So be like a rubber band, go stretch yourself.
So what did you think? Which did you like better? Write your thoughts and comments way… down… below… And ofcourse feel free to share, like or tweet this or any article.
Cheerios Amigoes – Go live your dreams!
Samith Pich
P.s If you liked this speech perhaps you’d like to listen to my first ever Toastmasters speech ‘What’s In a name?”