Constantly Casting a Net

A fellow Toastmaster asked me the other day, “How do you come up with your topics? Your topic selection seems random, but very interesting” I said, “Well, I read the job description in the Toastmaster’s manual, then use whatever comes to mind.” “Really?” she said, as if that couldn’t possibly be all there is to it. I said, “well, I’m constantly reading about different things, so I constantly have new ideas floating around in my head.” “Oh,” she said. Then I added that sometimes I’m already working on a project for something outside of Toastmasters and I just mold that to whatever the project requires.” But, it’s not like I have 7,500+ Speech Topics.

If you’re constantly reading, talking about and doing new and exciting things, you’ll have something to talk about.

It works like this. Have you ever bought a automobile, and suddenly now your noticing all the exact duplicates out on the road? Where were they before? They were there, you just never noticed them. But, now that you have that automobile, you are searching for them and possibly comparing the features and condition against yours.

This same things happens with ideas. Earlier I blogged about things that come in 3′s. Constantly casting a net for ideas that match what you’re focused on is how I get to 3.

For example, when I blogged about What Every Presenter Should Know…, I noticed later the day I posted that that someone did those things and wasn’t even a professional presenter, yet. In comparing Star Trek to Star Wars, he talked in depth about one, talked briefly about the one he didn’t like, then went on to finish with the one he likes better. Pretty cool when you start noticing these things.

When you are contantly interested in learning new things, starting now, you will notice that it’s just because they are top of mind that you’re noticing them.

Advertisers and marketers of all sorts know that if they keep their name in your face, when you need what they do, they’ll come to mind first and foremost. Doing this constantly, you’ll notice how it just becomes habit.

Photo Credit: Sameer Karmarkar on Flickr