SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hi, my name's Brendan O'Sullivan, a Toastmaster from Brisbane, Australia. Welcome to my Toastmasters World Tour podcast. Please join me as I travel virtually around the world and chat to Toastmasters from different countries and all walks of life. Let's explore! Last week, in the very first episode of Toastmaster's World Tour, I chatted to a non-toastmaster who had never sat in on any form of a Toastmaster meeting to gauge his interests and expectations. For this week's episode, we traveled virtually to Dublin, Ireland, the land of shamrocks, leprechaunns, and the Blarney Stone, to chat to Alan Higgins, another non-toastmaster, but one who has had some exposure. He sat in as a member of the audience on the finale of my recent speechcraft course, Run over Zoom. Listen in to find out why he's interested in potentially joining Toastmasters. Welcome to the show, Alan. Thanks for having me. So you're my cousin's cousin, but not a direct blood relation. That must have come as a relief to you when you worked that out.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Oh yeah, no, that means whatever you've got I can't get, so happy days. That works the other way too, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah. So you're originally from Australia. How did you end up living in Ireland?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, um, I'm an Aussie and uh long generations of uh from the colonial and and convict and and other emigration waves of emigration into Australia, so absolutely no connections with Europe. And uh so I guess I ended up in Ireland through a long set of uh stops along a sort of Finnish college, Finnish uni in Australia, work abroad, working holidays, different countries, and uh I met uh my to be wife in Cambridge in uh the UK. Um oddly enough, she was working with uh another physio from uh who was from one of my uh friend circle in my friend circle from Brisbane. So uh it was kind of an introduction, that's how it all got got got kicked off.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Aha. So you've been snappled by a lovely Irish lass. That old chestnut. That's it. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Mary.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

That's right. Who can resist the power of love? Okay, you've been caught up in that one. So we so we can't get you back.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Yeah, you can't, and you can't get through this uh chat with uh music lyrics, can you? Power of love. We could have a whole conversation on I'm I'm sure we could.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Uh so how long have you been living in Ireland now?

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Oh, gee, um probably about it's over 30 years. So officially lived here longer than I I lived in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Well, you still got your Aussie accent, I reckon. Yay. Does anyone say you sound Irish?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Or no, no one ever says I sound Irish. They get I guess over here, oddly enough, you you don't have many Aussies make it all the way to Ireland. Some do, but not many stay. Um and so people aren't really trained on the accent. So they they get that it may be southern hemisphere or maybe sometimes uh some other place, but fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Now you're a university lecturer. What's that in?

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Yeah, so I work in the management information systems subject area in the College of Business here at UCD. We use the word college for in Ireland for a university. They don't really use the word university, but it's colleges college. And then you can have colleges within colleges. I think the college of business within the University College Dublin. It's the biggest university in Ireland, and uh the the business school, which you know in Queensland it was commerce. I don't know if they've rebranded or what have you over the years. So uh mainly training accountants and business uh career path um students, and they teach an undergraduate and postgraduate in the technology space, so teaching, um, bring bring them into how you'd become a product designer, product manager, um, how you manage software engineering teams. One of the great uh I don't know, inversions of of reality I is that many high-tech companies are actually run by uh business graduates rather than software engineers or computer scientists, which uh is is kind of weird. I suppose power follows the money, but it anyway, I I try and make sure that the business people have a sensitivity to both the digital product that's designed and also the managing the people who are involved in producing it. So that's the kind of broad scope of what I teach in.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Okay, well. So recently I was running a speechcraft course for skin cancer educators, and I had the thought that, you know, as you're also an educator, I decided to reach out to you trying to think outside the square uh from an educator in another field to see if they had any thoughts about engaging their audience. Did you have any thoughts about that when you're lecturing?

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Yeah, um specifically, I I had an intimation this is where you were gonna go with some of this this chat because we're kind of doing a cold take, right? Um I'm unprepared. That's fine. But uh yeah, I kind of guessed that this is where you were gonna go um with the chat. Um and yeah, I've given it some thought, a considerable thought, as many of us do because we're involved in speechcraft, uh, for want of a better word. Um it's a good title, actually, better than what we would usually um use. So yeah, uh how you tell, I call it storytelling is is my label for the topic.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Cool. Right. And so have you had like obviously you know your stuff in the software engineering. Have you had any formal sort of training in uh public speaking, that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02 6:42

No, so uh no formal training in public speaking, self-taught, but then self-taught means you're looking for good practice and trying to replicate it by um mimicking, copying, uh trialing of you know, just uh and more importantly, uh I think perhaps uh what I found most effective um from this point in time looking back is when I started recording some of my speeches and um interactions and then listening back to the recordings and editing the recordings for my own podcast, I have a teaching podcast, that uh I've become more conscious and deliberate in the way I uh engage in this process of articulating for others. Um call it storytelling, call it what you will.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And so is your podcast like this? Is it sort of um chatting to someone else, or is it just you you on your own talking and and uh educating, or what is it?

SPEAKER_02 7:42

No, no, no, no, no. It's very much like this, Brendan. It was funny as the preamble before you started recording, um, that that those uh top tips for the guest, I often give them to my guests. Uh so uh I I was just happy to sit back and and hear it uh being delivered to me. Um yeah, no, it's always all of the pods I've delivered um or captured, most of them are conversations like this. Um not often centered on me as the subject or as the interviewer, because I'm in a teaching role. I structure them so that uh my students act as the guests, as as the hosts for the guests. So I'll have done all most of the prep and direction and production. Um not always, I don't want to take credit for it. Some some student groups are really into doing it too, but the guests are at ease because they know the sort of scope of topic we'll be discussing. They may have actually had five or six questions. My rule is for a half hour to one hour interview, you can really only get through six questions because guests are naturally uh well, they're talking to a topic that they know about, so they they can be quite effusive. Yes, loquacious, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

So I was, you know, I mean, I'm I'm interested, therefore, at the end, because I'm pretty new to this, to to get your feedback on and and tips on podcasting. But I just I'll ask you this pressing question. Do you ever have any of your guests go rogue on you? And if so, how do you handle them?

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, um, you know, no, not often. I don't think anyone has really gone rogue. Um if you're looking for things that can go wrong, actually, it's you or me as the host that where things go rogue. Um, you can have the best plan in mind, and you rely too much on the prop that you've prepared, and um you have to be you know ready to sort of segue to another topic or to uh get go rogue, might be the guest going on and on too long, but sometimes they go off topic. Um, just steering it back, gentle nudging, other things that can go wrong. I think uh uh yeah, you yourself can have a brain freeze. So uh that's no grid.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

That's possible.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Uh it's funny you said about adapting because I I was actually going to bring up the podcast, and you mentioned that to me before, and I was gonna do that at the end, but as you've mentioned it now, I thought I'd jump on that and and discuss that a little. But getting back to where I was heading with this is um it's it's funny how you know you can start a conversation in one direction. I was interested in your thoughts on being an educator, uh, and there can be unexpected outcomes because you suddenly became very interested in Toastmasters, and I think there was a specific reason. What why was that?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Me, my specific reason in getting very interested in uh Toastmasters recently is it's all down to you, Brandon. Yeah, I mean, um I don't know, you you needed you actually kudos to you. This recent class that you ran and and group that you brought through. Um, I mean, you had a lot of moving parts in in your production. Yeah, um, and I was only able to sit in on the the final session um for the full duration, and and it was just incredible. You had maybe uh six support people, you know, had structural roles, you had um uh in fantastic kind of uh visualizations, and I was just brilliant. So you're the reason.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Thank you, but I think you also thought there was a specific purpose that you could apply some public speaking to coming up. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Uh yeah, okay. So I think this is pretty classic, isn't it? Um uh the wedding speech. So uh that's that's uh something I'm preparing for later in the year.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

So this is your daughter Ella, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah, yeah. Actually, she she seems to think I'll be able to speak, no problem. Um she's also pretty relaxed about what I might, what I might actually might say. Uh that's the big challenge for for me, actually, crafting the speech. But uh she said there's one thing you're not allowed to do when you're standing up there holding that mic, is don't go off mic, as in go off angle for the mic, because she's the the kids are going to a lot of weddings these days, and so many of the dads or the mums are uh holding the mic up in the air or off to the side or drop it down to their waist so no one can hear what they're saying.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

All right, okay. So tech issue, I I thought you were going to go to some topic that shall not be discussed.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

But uh, so basically, you're giving the father of the bride speech, and and you know, actually, that's not an uncommon reason for some folk to join Toastmasters. I think there's actually a specific project about that in the Toastmasters social speech selectives that you might be interested if you do join. But I would have thought, you know, you're a lecturer. Wouldn't it suffice to give your son-in-law to be a good stern lecture on how to treat your darling princess? That's a great inspiration point.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

I think I might uh take that on board.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

I mean I mean, have you seen the movie uh called Meet the Fokkers? Have you seen that one?

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Oh my god. And the and and then there's uh Father of the Bride. There's so many good uh movies. Yeah, the the the Focus is very edgy.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I mean, you're a software engineer, so I'd imagine you'd be very good at surveillance and and making home homemade uh lie detectors, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my god. No, I'm I'm not sure that I'll go down that road, but thanks for the idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

No, fair enough. So anyway, you came to my speech for craft finale, and did you did it had it has it given you any ideas of how you might approach anything differently in your lecturing or with the speech for your the father of the bride speech?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Well, not for the father of the bride speech, but I was impressed by the way, and I presume you were reproducing some of the practices that teach masters inculcate in their uh people that it's your system or your kind of and that was the the very um the timekeeper, the topic watchers, and you've probably got proper labels for these roles, but I I thought I thought they were very um helpful, they were very dedicated. My gosh, they were totally professional in the job of um perhaps you know warning a speaker that they've gone over time or uh to actually record the times and the durations and the topic watches for the keywords that you wanted to trace. So I I thought those structural elements were something I don't ever uh uh uh trial or or even think of because I don't have a team um in the way I normally in the way I work. So uh I thought that was really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

So have you thought about joining a local club?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Well, I have, yes. And I I've I've looked into how many clubs there are in the vicinity. There's one naturally, as you might guess, in the university, and uh reached out. So we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Sure. So if you do join, um the first speech people usually have to do is call their icebreaker speech. Now, you know, that can be talking about your hobbies and stuff, and I know you have your own worm farm hobby. Uh, that sounds like a great thing to talk about. Can can worms break through ice?

SPEAKER_02 15:16

No, they can get frozen. Uh, you want to make sure you might not uh realize Dublin is kind of temperate, but yeah, we do get the odd frost and snow um situation, but they get on okay. Uh, I think because the worm farm, uh, just for the for the uh anyone who's curious, I use the Can of Worms system, which is a three-tiered and a drain-based um uh drum-shaped uh wormery. I have two of them because we produce a lot of compostables, uh, and um it just allows for a sort of slower rotation, doesn't put the worms under too much pressure. But in even on the coldest days, there'll be a core of this sort of composting uh soil and and humus in it, um the the that acts as an insulator, so they don't normally freeze.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

That's awesome. Yeah, and what I found like this sort of reminds me, and and no disrespect to you, but it's not necessarily the sort of topic that would grab my attention particularly. Uh, but really good speakers, and and you were already piquing my interest because of the enthusiasm, and that's what's that's what sells it. The enthusiasm you speak about it is like, oh wow, you know, I actually do want to listen to this. Maybe there is something in this worming worm farming. So so thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

I think you're after a good start there.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Stick with it, look it up, try and get you you produce compostables. The best sort of uh it's a very eco-friendly way of producing your own compost and and uh plant nutrient, but uh you get to be the responsible person for hundreds of thousands of little lives, tiny lives, each generating new lives. So we've had ours for nearly 25 years. Um big responsibility, but it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

I tell you what, using that word lives, it makes it sound very important all of a sudden you've sold it. Well done. Now let me just say, give you one other um thought for your father of the bride speech. I'm not sure whether it's going to come in the program, but you know, if people have had a bit to drink, sometimes people get a bit disruptive. One of my favorite uh Toastmasters um projects or speeches is where someone and one of my clubmates, Joshua Morotti, got up recently and had to do this. He had to speak on a topic, you know, any topic, and then there were people planted. Normally we're very quiet and respectful, but on this occasion uh we had to sit back, and people had different forms of disruption, whether it was their phone going off or being argumentative or just chatting amongst each other, and he had to kind of diffuse each of those situations. So we didn't have anyone drunk, even though we're Toastmasters. Um but uh that might be an interesting one to look at if you do join. If you do join, would you be interested in coming back down the track and seeing um how things matched up uh with your expectations?

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah, I suspect that if I do, if I do join, that I'll be required to. And if even if it's not required, you'll make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

I'd never forced you to, but it's been an absolute pleasure. I really appreciate your time tonight. Uh, thank you so much, Alan. Thanks for listening to today's show. One of the key elements of Toastmasters is evaluations. This is how we grow and improve, both by encouraging comments for things we got right and points for improvement. We all learn and benefit from these evaluations, not just the person being evaluated. So any feedback in the comments is greatly appreciated. If you have a Toastmasters story you'd like to share or would like to be on the show, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at Toastmasters World Tour at gmail.com. Thanks for listening to the body.