Tenth Toastmaster Speech...

Again with the qualifier that I don't really read it so what comes out is never exactly what was written...

My fellow Toastmasters and Honored Guests:

My speech tonight is “Inspiring. Who me?” It’s a personal story about the way I used to be and why I became better.

I now can admit to being a cynic most of my life, although, I’d rather you think of it as just being a healthy skeptic. My wife said that I should have been born in the “show me” state. In fact, it turns out that I do have some relatives living in Missouri—but I wasn’t born there.

How bad was I?

When I first read about a person who was convicted for his third strike and sentenced to 25 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family, I thought: “Yeah, most crimes never have an arrest. A high number of arrests aren’t prosecuted or are dismissed for technical reasons. He probably committed other crimes.” Besides, it costs more to incarcerate someone for four years than it does to pay for a four-year state college.

I was the kind of person who would walk by a homeless panhandler, and there were and probably still are quite a few in San Francisco, and while trying not to breathe think I was doing something great by looking them in the eye and mouthing “sorry.” Besides, Newsom passed his “care not cash.” I didn’t care, at least not then, not really.

My greatest cynicism has always been reserved for politicians. By the time they get to any higher elected office, they had to have sold themselves to the big buck donors, the special interests, and their cronies. I don’t know why I’ve voted in every election since I became eligible to vote, since often I felt like I was voting for the least worst?

I’ve worked for over thirty years at various companies and at virtually every one of them compromises were always based on figuring out the “what’s in it for me” for each person involved. Very rarely was the “what’s in it for me” something for the good of the company or the environment or people in general. Thank goodness this was always for small things like credit or control and not contracting out hazardous waste disposal to some company that would just pour it down the nearest storm drain.

Cynicism has an outward manifestation. I commuted into San Francisco on BART for years, first from Fremont and later from Pacifica. Every weekday, twice a day, I could have looked around at all the numb expressionless faces but I didn’t. My numb expressionless face was usually buried in a book or work or a puzzle in the newspaper.

It’s easy to be cynical. Events happen almost everyday that are cheap attempts to manipulate someone. Recently we found out that the Balloon Boy who wasn’t was staged in an attempt to gain a reality show. It’s easy to expect the worst in people and always see what you expect.

It’s also easy to parlay these manipulation attempts into believing that all tearjerker stories are made up. Certainly many of the email chains of sob stories are. A cynic would even have doubts about whether the nine-year old boy dying from cancer truly made his “make a wish” a wish for world peace, or, think “what a wasted wish.”

On the other hand, it’s hard not to be cynical. People who look for the best in people are considered fools, or at best gullible—by the cynics. In my cynical reaction to the person who stole the loaf of bread, I never even thought of how hard it is for an ex-con to find a legitimate job.

Even a cynic can be inspired. My loved ones are truly a joy that “inspired” me to endure work, commuting, even my own cynicism. Of course, they had to endure it too.

I’ve also been inspired by deadlines. I don’t know how many all nighters I pulled in college to write papers due the next day, well, later that same day.

I’ve been inspired by humor, not the Don Rickles’ kind of insult humor, not even most jokes as most jokes have victims, the butts of the jokes. Unless I threw them out, somewhere in a box I may have pages of such jokes that a friend gave me with blank lines where the “victim” is to go. My writing certainly improved with some humor—like this—that and a word processor that checks grammar.

While I have been inspired by some of my bosses, I wasn’t by the one who left a meeting with these words: “Be creative.” I can’t even remember what we were supposed to be creative about but I know we weren’t inspired or creative.

From time to time I’ve been inspired by words. I’ve handed out my favorite quote to quite a few of my direct reports because I’ve found these excerpted words from a book about the Scottish Himalayan Expedition inspiring: (Parts of it have been traced to Goethe.)

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

But what is my commitment? What is yours?

It was in the depths of my despair while commuting after the loss of my wife that an event occurred, which struck me so profoundly, right to my heart, that I credit it as the trigger that turned my life around. This event hasn’t been the only thing that has happened that helped but my life is significantly different, better now in large part because of what this event started. What’s amazing, it’s something that everyone can do.

As I just said, I was commuting with my dead commuter face on, surrounded by other dead commuter faces and someone smiled. It wasn’t even directed at me but the genuinely warm smile brought her face to life and that started me thinking.

I didn’t start smiling right away but my thinking did lead to my own improved outlook. It led to me joining Toastmasters. It led to me taking up meditation. While I still have my moments of despair and outright sadness, I’m making it a point to smile more in the hopes that I can pass along the gift I was given.

Mr. Toastmaster