This is the start of the new beginning…

You must have observed that I am no longer regularly writing since January 2009.  It is because I have been busy  collecting materials for the books which I intend to write, and write the draft of my speeches,  conducting seminars, and writing articles for my new website – jefmenguin.com – which you can now visit because it is already content rich just like this blog. You may read articles arranged in various categories like leadership, management, personal development, comunication, etc. The resources category by itself is already filled with ebooks (very great ones from Scribd.com and ChangeThis), powerpoint presentations, videos, and articles from other bloggers.

I am creating a new blog – blog.jefmenguin.com – which you’ll be able to access in a month of two.  At first, I thought of closing this blog, but after much thinking I thought that deleting this blog is unwise. This blog still ranks high in google and yahoo search engines and people who are looking for public speaking seminar, customer service seminars, or stress management seminars in metro manila will still find this blog in the front pages of these search engines. Also, people still write their comments and email messages of thanks after reading some of the articles. This blog must therefore continue serving its readers.

Jef Menguin Workshops and Seminars will stay. This time, my entries will be focused on the lessons I have learned while conducting workshops, speaking before a group of managers and leaders and students, or even presenting a proposal to a prospective client who usually request for leadership, communication, and team building sessions. I was not able to capture these lessons. I intend to do capture them now, and share these lessons with you. And just like the way we do it in toastmasters, I will tell you about the “strengths” and the “points for improvement”.

Slowly, I will cleanse these pages. Unrelated topics must go. The good ones may find its place in my new website, and the not-so-got ones will be expunged from the internet universe forever (that is, if some good souls did not copy-pasted the entries on their websites).

Observe that I have already changed the template. This is the start of the new beginning.

That’s all for today friends. Please visit jefmenguin.com, share the beautiful articles to your friends in Facebook and Twitter, and please leave your beautiful message.

God bless you.

Palo Sebo of Success

I am the greatest.” When Muhammad Ali was in his prime, he thought that he was the greatest. Until old age made him kissed the canvass.

Many people associate greatness with success. The more successful the person seems to be, the greater he becomes. The world view a person to be great when he is able to acquire something which most people are just dreaming about. Thus, we declare somebody to be the greatest athlete of all time, the greatest opera singer, the greatest action star, the greatest writer, the greatest leader, etc. But time passes, and after a century, records will be broken, great names will be forgotten.

Success is temporary. It can be here for a moment, but only for a moment.

Success, oftentimes, is a game of Palo Sebo. Some have to struggle throughout their lives. They embrace the greased bamboo pole to can move up. Sometimes, it means kicking the faces of those who are following them, to move an inch higher. But when the prize is almost within their reach, they slide down. Energies wasted, they cannot go back again even if they want to. There will only be one great person, one winner in the Palo Sebo of success. Others will remain losers.

People play Palo Sebo at work. They play Palo Sebo in churches. They play Palo Sebo in schools, in government, in the smallest organizations. They play Palo Sebo everywhere. When I looked into the content of the seminars and workshops I have attended in the past, they all seemed to say the same things; set your goals,aim big, you can if you think you can, you can be the best, you can change the world. The unwritten, unsaid curriculum is that in the play of Palo Sebo, eveyone, but one, is bound to fail.

I don’t deny the fact that you can be successful. In fact, all of us can be more than successful. We can do that when we stop playing the Palo Sebo of Life.

It has been said many times before, and you will hear this again: whoever who wants to be great must be a servant.

Are we ready to become servants?

How To Find Local Public Speaking Training That Best Meets Your Desired Goals & Outcomes

Finding local training is not usually a problem – but finding a training that will efficiently and cost-effectively meet your needs is a completely different matter.

That’s why I’ve put together some tips for you to help streamline your search for a local public speaking training that will actually meet your needs.

Tip #1:
Before you even start your search for local public speaking training, are you 100% clear about what your most desired goals, outcomes and results are? Imagine that you’ve already taken the public speaking training – what can you do now that you couldn’t do before the training? Make a detailed list of your goals and desired outcomes.

Tip #2:
What kind of time are you willing to invest in your training and how quickly do you need to reach your goals and desired outcomes? If your time is limited this is a critical question. Local adult night school classes might be good if you have no time to train during the day. Weekend intensive workshop trainings can be a better solution than night classes because the training is condensed to a short time frame.

Tip #3:
Look for a trainer who has a lot of public speaking and training experience. It’s one thing to be a great public speaker, it’s quite another to be able to train others to be great speakers. You need to find a trainer that has tons of real-world experience in public speaking, but also a long track record of training others.

Bonus Tip:
The absolutely best local public speaking training – or not local for that matter – will be small group workshop intensives. I’m talking about workshops that are 10 or less people in the training – and are entirely facilitated by the experienced public speaker / trainer. Think of it like taking a Karate class – you want The Master personally training you. And small-sized classes mean that won’t get lost in the crowd so you’ll be able to get all your questions answered and get lots of personal attention and feedback.

Summary:
When it comes to finding the best local public speaking for you, first determine what your goals and desired outcomes are so you can evaluate each training based on your goals and outcomes. Second you need to figure out what kind of time you want to devote to training. Third, look for trainers that not only have lots of public speaking experience, but have lots of teaching and training experience because great speakers are not necessarily great teachers. Finally, look for a workshop intensive with the group size limited to 10 people or less so you don’t get “lost in the crowd” and so that you’ll get lots of personal attention and feedback.

By David Portney

Website: http://www.bestpublicspeakingtraining.com/