Toast of the Wild East is a show for ambitious Toastmasters, who are looking for ways to raise their game. Join past Toastmasters District Director Lukas Liebich and his guests to explore ways how to make an impact with speaking, leading and helping others grow. Brought to you from Prague, Wild East of Europe.
Episode NotesJohn Zimmer (connect on LinkedIn) is a Keynote Speaker, Presentation Skills Trainer, and Public Speaking Coach.
On top of that, he is also a 9-times District Winner in Toastmasters Speech Contests, member of an Improv Troupe and blogger at mannerofspeaking.org, where he wrote more than 800 blog posts on public speaking over the past 13 years.
Topics covered in this episode (Part 2 of the interview):
The topics we cover in the previous episode (Part 1):
Links mentioned:
Bonus material:
John's analysis of his own District-winning humorous speech: Anatomy of a Humorous Speech
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
Instagram: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
John Zimmer (connect on LinkedIn) is a Keynote Speaker, Presentation Skills Trainer, and Public Speaking Coach.
On top of that, he is also a 9-times District Winner in Toastmasters Speech Contests, member of an Improv Troupe and blogger at mannerofspeaking.org, where he wrote more than 800 blog posts on public speaking over the past 13 years.
The topics we cover in this episode (Part 1 of the interview):
Topics you can look forward to in Part 2:
Links mentioned:
Bonus material:
John's analysis of his own District-winning humorous speech: Anatomy of a Humorous Speech
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
Instagram: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Souvik Mukherjee (connect on LinkedIn) is a Distinguished Toastmaster, and business professional with experience in Operations, Strategy and Project Management.
Currently running his side-hustle as a Virtual Assistant, he met me on Twitter, where I was toying with expanding the audience for the Toast of the Wild East. As two random strangers, we connected - and the result was this interview.
In the interview, we talk about how Souvik came up with the idea, why he presents himself as a Virtual Assistant and Toastmasters helped him get started.
You will also get tips on how to get started as a Virtual Assistant yourself!
If you'd like to get in touch with Souvik, you can do so via the following channels:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/souvikhere/
Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/Souvik_VA
Email: souvik@theworkingdesk.org
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
Instagram: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Percy Roland (connect on LinkedIn) is a Sales Executive at Mas Property Marbella.
He is a luxury real estate specialist with a passion for communication, public speaking, debating, writing and art. Winner of various speech contests and speaking trainer and coach. Organiser of Game of Words (aka unofficial Fall Toastmasters Conference) in 2019.
A famous Toastmaster in his District (and beyond), Percy is an original speaker, a fun person to be around and a good friend.
The book Percy mentioned is "The Moon's A Balloon" by classic British Hollywood actor David Niven. Actually, if you have some time, Percy recommends you to check out his brilliant interviews on YouTube. A fantastic storyteller!
If you would like to get more of Percy, you can check out some of his performances on YouTube. For example, here is his fabulous performance in a short teaser called "Crime and Punishment" directed by Jenny Haka.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
Instagram: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Percy Roland (connect on LinkedIn) is a Sales Executive at Mas Property Marbella.
He is a luxury real estate specialist with a passion for communication, public speaking, debating, writing and art. Winner of various speech contests and speaking trainer and coach. Organiser of Game of Words (aka unofficial Fall Toastmasters Conference) in 2019.
A famous Toastmaster in his District (and beyond), Percy is an original speaker, a fun person to be around and a good friend.
If you would like to get more of Percy, you can check out some of his performances on YouTube. For example, here is Percy's 2021 District Contest Speech titled "You're Still Human."
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
Instagram: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Martin Svaneborg (connect on LinkedIn) is a Speaker, Actor and author of the book Trinity:The I, We and They of Communication.
His Toastmasters journey is different from most people, as his was preceded by a couple of decades of an acting career.
In this interview, we speak about authenticity, finding one's voice and how being in the center of attention, standing on the stage, can have different motivation.
We discuss in detail his book Trinity, and we also get a preview of his soon-to-be-published novel "A Moment of Faith" about Søren Kierkegaard.
Enjoy!
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
Instagram: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Sabyasachi Sengupta (connect on LinkedIn) is a Keynote speaker on Change and Innovation, Storyteller and Pitch coach, Business Developer at ABN AMRO Bank and the Author of the book"What's your Plan B?"
He is also an avid skier - just kidding, in fact he tried skiing last week for the first time. He had his Plan B prepared.
In this episode we talk about skiing, about Saby's book "What's Your Plan B?" and about how writing a book changed Saby as a speaker.
If you want to do more public speaking in your life, this episode is for you.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
Instagram: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Cécile Bastien Remy (connect on LinkedIn) is a Trainer, Speaker and Founder at SPEAK4IMPACT, a faculty teacher of Applied Communication at SBS Swiss Business School, a TEDx Speaker and a long time Toastmaster.
Her company SPEAK4IMPACT is helping her clients to better connect with their audiences.
Cécile delivered a TEDx Talk with the title "Bounce Forward" at TEDx Politecnico di Torino in November 2019 on the topic of resilience. You can watch it here:
If you'd like to learn more about Cécile's prep process, you can read her blog post here.
Book recommendations:
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Michal Juhas is a Tech Recruitment Expert who helps Recruitment, Sales, And Tech Teams Fill More IT Vacancies & Get Clients, Ex-CTO In A $70m Revenue Startup, Trained 27,000+ IT & HR Professionals Online.
He was also a president of Prague's Bohemian Toastmasters and one of the founders of Prague Business Toastmasters.
You can find out more about Michal and his current company, Geek Recruiters, on their webpage: https://geekrecruiters.com/pages/about-us
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Safura Atan (Connect on LinkedIn) Co-founder and Managing Partner of StratNaViGo Consulting, where she is Facilitating entrepreneurialism via thought & action. and Humanizing innovation for the masses.
Safura is the District 102 International Speech Contest Champion for 2020/2021.
She hopes to connect with others world wide, learn from others through conversations and exchange of ideas.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions, or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Andrei Popescu (connect on LinkedIn) is a Carnegie Master at Dale Carnegie Training, Associate Certified Coach (ICF), and Past District Director of District 95 at the time when District 110, the Wild East of Europe, was still part of it.
To find out more about Dale Carnegie, check out their webpage.
In the episode we're referring to an interview we did in 2016, you can read it here.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Giorgio Ripamonti is an insurance industry 360° expert who worked across functions, from asset management, to sales, product development and strategy to name a few and who is very keen on continuous learning; [..] so keen that he just started a 22 months long Executive MBA program to further upskill himself.
He is based in Milan and has been a member in several Toastmaters clubs around the world, currently a club coach in 2 and is a regular at district conferences.
Referenced books:
Lewis Howes: School of Greatness
Stephen Covey: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Jim Kwik: Limitless
Giorgio recommends finding a club near you (whether you're at home or visiting another city): https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Alena Huberova (connect on LinkedIn) is a Trainer, speaker, and founder of SHELeads. A globetrotter, sports enthusiast and an optimist, with an insatiable curiosity about people, life, and business.
In this episode we're going step-by-step through the process she used to develop her 6-month SheLeads coaching and training program.
Find out more about Alena on her webpage https://www.alenahuberova.com/
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
John Cheng is a professor at Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan and member of a Toastmasters club Leadership Village. Earlier in his career he held various senior management positions in Corporate Banking, among them Senior Vice President, Corporate Banking at the Taiwan Desk in HSBC in Shanghai.
While most of the Toastmasters in the Wild East of Europe join the organization to boost their career, John joined it to better connect with his staff during his stay in Shanghai.
Different in many aspects from the typical "Toast of the Wild East", he provides a fresh perspective on how you can benefit from Toastmasters, no matter what stage in your career you're at.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions, or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Iwona Winiarska (get in touch via LinkedIn or follow on Twitter) is an Agile Coach and Delivery Consultant. In 2020, she was a Finalist in the Women in Tech Excellence Awards: Woman of the Year.
In 2014, Iwona was the founder and main driver of chartering the second Czech-speaking club in Prague, Professional Toastmasters Praha.
Originally from Poland, we met in Prague, now based in London in the UK.
If you'd like to find out more about Clean Language, you can start exploring Judy Reese's website.
If this episode made you curious, you can have a look at an earlier interview with Iwona from 2016.
And to hear Iwona speak more about agile, you can listen to this interview she did for the Agile Business Consortium.
Learn more about Iwona's work on her website winiarska.com
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions, or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Zain ul Abidin (LinkedIn) is a Product Manager at ResMed, medical equipment company. He has 11 years of experience in software development, going through the roles of Software Developer, Software Architect and now Product Manager.
He started working in software development in 2010 and joined Toastmasters in 2016.
Originally from Islamabad, Pakistan, I met him in Wroclaw, Poland, where I noticed his enthusiasm for competing in speech contests as well as organizing events. Now he is based in Dublin, Ireland, where he continues his Toastmasters journey.
Episode takeaways:
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions, or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Mark Snow (Connect on LinkedIn) is a Community Problem Solver and Change Agent living in Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia.He works in the Department of Local Government, Racing, and Multicultural Affairs in Brisbane.
Held multiple leadership roles in Toastmasters, most notable Chief Pathways Ambassador for District 69, covering Papua New Guinea, Australia's Northern Territory, and Queensland.
When Pathways was rolled out in 2017, he became the first person in the world to fulfill the requirements to achieve the Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) level used the new system's educational awards.
More importantly, he created various materials that made the new system easier to understand. The materials were so good, that they got popular among Toastmasters from all across the world - and brought Mark to a Toastmasters fame.
Florian Bay is a Presentation & Leadership Skills Trainer and International Speaker. In 2019-2020, he was the District Director of Toastmasters District 91 UK South. I can say he is one of the most passionate Toastmasters I've ever met in my life.
If you'd like to connect with Florian, you can do so on LinkedIn or Facebook. You can also check out his website Speak to Lead, where you can read his blog post on public speaking, leadership, and strategy. And as a bonus, a written interview with Florian from 2018.
If you're considering joining the Toastmasters International Virtual Convention, you can find more about it at the Toastmasters International Website.
Ovidiu Oltean (connect on LinkedIn) is a Professional Public Speaker & Public Speaking Coach from Cluj, Romania.
He is a three-times District champion and 16-times national champion in different speech contest disciplines.
In this episode, Ovidiu mentions the following books in the conversation:
To have a look at some of Ovidiu's Contest Speeches, here is a selection for you:
If you speak Romanian, you can also check out:
Bogdan Ghiorghiu is a science communicator and a physics teacher, born in Romania, now living in Denmark.
He is a Toastmasters District 110 Humorous Speech champion and a regular contestant in both online and in person contests
In this episode, he recommends watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV Series. In case that's not on TV this week, you can go for the book, which I've already read and thoroughly enjoyed.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
If you'd like to connect with the host of this show - that would be me - you'll find me on Twitter @lukasliebich or read my blog at lukasliebich.com
Alex Popa is an Associate Director in Blockchain for Pharma Supply Chain at MSD (connect on LinkedIn).
Over the past couple of years, his career is connected to the area of Blockchain and personalized healthcare, developing and implementing innovative digital solutions while using some of his Toastmasters skills to connect with experts, build up his network, and speak at conferences.
If blockchain is completely foreign to you, Alex recommends to start with the video Blockchain Explained - What is Blockchain?
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
If you'd like to connect with the host of this show - that would be me - you'll find me on Twitter @lukasliebich or read my blog at lukasliebich.com
Talk to you soon!
Adrian Salasan is leading a software architecture team and the Cluj-Napoca office for TouchPoint Medical and he's Founder & Trainer Consultant at Live to Learn SRL. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
He was a Toastmasters Area Director, Division Director of Division D, Romania and Moldova in District 110, the Wild East of Europe.
In 2019, Adrian chaired the District 110 Conference in Cluj, Romania.
"It's difficult enough to convey abstract technical information when you have perfect audio and perfect video. It's even more difficult to do it when people don't understand what you're saying." - Adrian
We start the episode by discussing Adrian's remote set-up that includes a professional microphone and a mirrorless camera instead of the usual webcam.
If you'd like to upgrade yours, here are a few tips from Adrian, ordered by impact / importance:
Adrian's favorite book that we're mentioning close to the end of the episode is Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature.
We also speak about motivation without power. This topic is further discussed in Daniel Pink's To Sell Is Human. Now I realized - both authors' surnames include "Pink." Coincidence?
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions, or just to say "hi":
Twitter: @ToastWild
Facebook: @ToastWild
This show is hosted by me, Lukas Liebich. You can connect with me on Twitter @lukasliebich or read my blog at lukasliebich.com
Olga Rudakova is a Finance professional, Data skills trainer, and Dashboard design consultant.
In the past, she was an auditor with PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Finance Manager with Tesco and Mars, and Client Solutions Manager in DataSapiens, a startup helping its corporate clients become data-driven organizations.
Olga was a president of Prague Business Toastmasters and competed in Speech Contests at District level in Toastmasters District 110, Wild East of Europe.
You can connect with her on LinkedIn or find out more about her work on her website, olgarudakova.com
In the episode, we are discussing the idea of Pie Charts being Evil, which Olga treats in more depth in her blog post.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East to suggest guests, ask questions or just to say "hi":
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog at lukasliebich.com
Ray Walsh is an internal communications consultant, who helps multinational organizations with communications, content creation and management, and developing practitioner skills.
While American, Ray spent most of his professional career living in Europe. Right now he lives in Prague, Czech Republic, where he met Lukas in Prague Business Toastmasters.
A year and a half ago, Ray he published a book: Localizing Employee Communications: A Handbook
You can find more about him and the services he offers at raywalsh.net or connect with him on LinkedIn.
In today's episode, we talk about why he as communications professional decided to join Toastmasters, how any employee can support their company's internal communication, how to plan with your audience in mind, how to improve your content... and other topics.
Referenced book: Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East on Twitter as @ToastWild. If you have any comments or questions to the show, or if you'd like to recommend any guests, this is the place to go.
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog lukasliebich.com
Daniel Sullivan (connect on LinkedIn) is a Scrum coach. In his role he helps teams become more effective by using the Scrum agile framework.
He is an agilist that has served various roles (software developer, systems analyst, business analyst, technical writer, scrum master, product owner, release train engineer, and agile coach) under companies such as: Sprint, SAIC, Leidos, Orange County Government, Cigna, Express Scripts, CuraScript SD, and Children's International. He has been involved in multiple agile journeys as organizations transform and integrate the agile mindset.
He is a Distinguished Toastmaster and lives in Florida, US. In the past, he held the role of Area Director, Club President, VP Education, Sergeant At Arms, and Club Mentor with Toastmasters International.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East on Twitter as @ToastWild. If you have any comments or questions to the show, or if you'd like recommend any guests, this is the place to go.
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog lukasliebich.com
Mel Kelly (connect on Facebook) is an Irishman living in Germany since 2003 and has been doing comedy on stages all over Europe since 2014.
Recently, he published a book with the title Top Tips for Dating Disasters in Germany. It is available both as an e-book and as a paperback. You can check it out - and buy it - at https://comedybooks-melkelly.com/
Mel has an impressive collection of Toastmasters District-level trophies, some of the notable ones are listed below:
Despite all that, he does not do public speaking for living. He earns his bread by talking to his computer, and sometimes to people, in his work as IT Consultant.
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Connect with the Toast of the Wild East on Twitter as @ToastWild. If you have any comments or questions to the show, or if you'd like recommend any guests, this is the place to go.
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog lukasliebich.com
You can connect with Iva Horka on Linkedin.
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You can find The Toast of the Wild East on Twitter as @ToastWild. If you have any comments or questions to the show, or if you'd like recommend any guests, this is the place to go.
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This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog lukasliebich.com.
With Karla Viebahn, past Division Director and HR professional from Germany, we focus on the human side of Toastmasters.
For Karla, Toastmasters was a lifeline during the pandemic. In the interview, why she remains active even after 10 years as a member, about her Toastmasters re-takes and about her leadership takeaways.
Connect with the Toast of the Wild East on Twitter as @ToastWild. If you have any comments or questions about the show, or if you'd like to recommend any guests, this is the place to go.
This show is hosted by Lukas Liebich. You can connect with him on Twitter @lukasliebich or read his blog lukasliebich.com