Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Come as You Will Be in 5 Years

I'm Toastmaster of the Day for our next Slick Talkers Toastmasters meeting this Friday, April 12, and I chose "Come as You Will Be in 5 Years" as the theme. I'm really excited about it. I hope the other members will be as well.

Just thinking about this made me realize that in 5 years, I'll be 65! I will be thin, retire, travel, write about my travels (hopefully getting paid to do so), continue my Toastmasters commitment with 2 DTMs, work on the third, and give presentations in the destination cities, hopefully getting paid to do so or at least earn Toastmasters speech credit at different clubs. I might be able to take my grandkids with me, and I hope to travel with other family members and friends who are available.

At Friday's meeting, I plan to wear a Royal Caribbean t-shirt, capris, 2 Toastmasters DTM medals, a camera, and a straw hat. I'll carry a book (my published travel book), and my laptop with my travel blog. I may even use this blog as another way to show what I'm doing in 5 years.

I was going to make the DTM medals out of cardboard and ribbons, so I was saving files to print at home yesterday before I left the office. A fellow Toastmaster called to ask for help with the Conference, and we discussed the conference, the DTM ceremony, and our upcoming meeting. He mentioned that he had 2 DTM medals that I could borrow for the meeting. I couldn't believe my luck! It will be so cool to have medals for people to touch and feel. They're pretty nice.

I've been listening to "Think and Grow Rich" by Napolean Hill as read by Earl Nightingale, and freaking out because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do in 5 years. I had actually decided on these things, but had forgotten. I've been reading about travel writing, I've been on 2 cruises and a trip to Chicago since 2008, I have a passport, and once I retire, I'll be footloose and fancy free to do what I want. I want to use Toastmasters as a jumping off point to visit different clubs and give speeches. It's nice to see how other clubs are run and for the clubs to see different speakers. Hopefully I'll be able to teach them something as well.