Fitness Update #2 - Don't wish me to "break a leg"

Today was a painful experience. My long run is up to 10K's, but my shins gave out. The 'achilles heel' that led me to pull out after running 5K's in agony were ... my running shoes.

For every runner, the lowest common denominator and most important piece of equipment is a decent pair of technical running shoes. They take brunt and abuse of our running endeavours, so it would only make sense to check out whether your shoes have seen its days. I figure I had about two more months in them for running, but boy was I ever wrong. I had to get shin splints in order to numb the pain and decided to retire my Mizuno Wave Inspires. They've served me well, but I digress...

For all runners out there, dropping by a stores that focuses solely on running such as The Running Room is a great way to check out your options of what shoe is perfect for you. You can get a proper fitting of a decent pair of technical runners, to see what type of shoes were best for your foot type.

I eventually picked up a pair of Asics GT-2130's, which are supposedly the most popular running shoe in North America, but their cost was a bit of a turn off and since I'm on a budget, I'll be returning them to get an older model of an equally better if not superior running shoe. I found the Mizuno Wave Nirvana 2, their 2005 model on eBay for $55 USD, which is substantially cheaper, the only setback is the wait time, so I'll be doing some cross training to maintain my fitness level.

Keeping in check your running shoes or whatever fitness equipment that is crucial to your success should be taken into account as we often take them for granted and don't consider the consequences should they fail on us.

For now, it's back to the gym for me, while I'm patiently waiting for my shoes to arrive...

- Will

Here's the route I was supposed to take. I made it half way and had to take a streetcar for the trip back home. Next week, I'll be back at it, but until then.. cross training :)

9 Tips on Becoming a Better Public Speaker

Time and time again, public speaking or presenting in front of an audience lists as one of the top fears or phobias held by people around the world. Why can some people speak effortlessly and with ease, while others fall flat on their faces or don't even bother? The truth of the matter is, to speak in front of an audience is not a natural thing to do. We all had to start from somewhere. No one is really naturally inclined, because public speaking is an art and as such, it takes consistent practice and refinement.

You ever wonder how Sen. Obama Barack got to the level where he is today? I bet you that it was through consistent practice and refinement that he was able to get to the level where he is today in swaying millions of people to relate and buy into his new vision for change in America.

It's not surprising that people aren't scrambling for opportunities to speak in front of an audience. The fear of being judged, being in the spotlight or being seen as an authority can stop anyone dead in their tracks. You have to acknowledge that the fear, pain and anxiety associated with public speaking is self-created, which is insane. The key is to face your fear, acknowledge it and just do it! You grow and learn so much by pushing your comfort zone.

Public speaking is one of those skills that helps develop your character and gives you that unshakable confidence in order to interact and communicate with people in an effective and confident manner. But in order to get better at anything we often look for guidance.

Here are a few realizations after reflecting on my first speaking engagement in front of close to a hundred people at the Ryerson Tri-Mentoring First Impressions Gala on behalf of Social Relations Institute.

1. Research your audience - find out or think of all the reasons why they're attending the event you're speaking at, what sort of value you can provide to them, why they're there and what they want to get out of the event, and what your message to them will be. Once you've answered those questions, try and weave your findings and ideas around the theme of the event and cater it to your audience. PREPARE and KNOW what you'll be talking about!

2. Brief notes and timing - have some brief notes or cue cards that you can refer to so they serve as reminders for you to stay on track and within your given time slot. If you're a Powerpoint savvy presenter, keep in mind that you shouldn't be reading your slides to your audience - any knucklehead can do that. A Powerpoint presentation should serve as signposts of what you'll be talking about. Also, you should be wary of cramming so much information that you get overwhelmed; you will also in turn confuse your audience with too much information.

3. NEVER memorize! - this is probably one of the most common ways of preparing for a speech in a class presentation, for work or at an event. When you're speaking to inform or persuade, memorization will come across as rehearsed or inauthentic. The purpose is not to remember your speech, but make a connection with the audience in order to get their attention and build a strong rapport with them.

4. Your mindset - Go in with the mindset of imparting a simple message that your audience can remember, relate to or implement in their own lives. The more the audience can relate and make sense of what you're talking about, the more effective you'll be able to inform and persuade people in changing their behaviours.

5. Visualize your success! - if possible, scope out the venue you'll be speaking at and familiarize yourself with the environment. When you do that, visualizing your success will be made much easier. You can imagine the entire audience applauding, the thundering of their clapping with hoots and whistles, and ultimately praising your speech/presentation. When you envision something to the point of it feeling real, you'll feel like you've done it and rehearsed it in real life many times before. It can give you that added confidence in order to deliver a high impact and outstanding speech.

6. Don't beat yourself up - if you don't do well as you originally envisioned, don't beat yourself up over it. You took action and did what the majority of people can't do - speak in front of an audience who see you as an authority in your field or topic.

Reflect on the things that need to be worked on taking into account your thoughts and experiences in a blog, journal or even with supportive friends/colleagues so you can learn, grow and deliver an even better performance the next time! Remember, becoming an effective public speaker is a process and journey - not a destination.

7. Measure your progress - you can do this two ways: as I mentioned previously, journaling or blogging, and videotaping your speeches.
Although the thought of watching yourself speak can make you cringe (as it happens to me), there are a lot of things that can be gained by watching yourself. It allows you to see yourself from the audience's perspective. You can pick up on little nervous ticks you may have, improve how you express emotion, and your body language to the audience.

Only 7% of our communication is done orally, the other 93% is done through body language and emotion. Since we can fully control our body language and emotions, we can tweak it so we can improve the way we communicate instantly.

If you want to go further with this, you can put your videos up on Youtube and share it with friends and colleagues so they can give you constructive feedback that you can take into consideration for future speaking engagements.

8. Turn public speaking into something enjoyable - instead of framing public speaking in fear, turn it into something enjoyable. For myself, whenever I feel extremely uncomfortable (as when I first started public speaking), I conditioned myself into knowing that there is a breakthrough to be had in my public speaking. It both excites me and pushes me to express myself fully, authentically, and passionately in order to capture an audience's attention to engage them.

9. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! - I can't stress this point enough. I believe it takes theory, skill and practice in order to be truly masterful in anything. Public speaking/Professional Presentation classes in school can be a great first start (for students, you can get credit towards yourdegree) to break you out of your shell and push you outside of your comfort zone. This is how I started out when I had taken by taking Professional Presentations at Ryerson University. It served as a great starting point and put on me this path of improving my communication to not only audiences but everyone in general.

Additionally, Toastmasters is another great way of honing the art of public speaking. I found out about Toastmasters through my Professional Presentations class, and I never looked back!
Toastmasters an International organization focused on developing communication and leadership skills in its members. As it is international, you most likely have a few hundred Toastmasters clubs in your area if you live in a major metropolitan city.


What are your thoughts and feelings on public speaking ? Let me know in the comments!

Fitness Update #1 - Cold Weather Running!

So I've bumped up my long run from 8K last week up to 9K this week. The challenge for this week wasn't the distance, it was the temperature! I completed my run in about 58 minutes and 24 seconds, which could have been done faster had it not been for the treacherous terrain. Running through unshoveled piles of snow/ice aren't really that of a concern for me, what really concerned me were the patches of ice while I was going DOWNHILL on Avenue Road.

I have to say that I have a lot of respect for people who run for longer distances in sub -10 degree Celsius weather WITH windchill added! I am so glad that my friend Beverly, who is also training for a marathon had given me the tip of putting Vaseline on my face when I'm running in particularly frigid weather.

I finally got to test the limits of my midweight running tights that I picked up from Mountain Equipment Co-op (mec.ca)... probably -7 degrees Celsius is the limit to which it can sustain any reasonable amount of warmth for my thighs. By the time I got back to the Ryerson gym and had taken off my tights, my thighs were red as lobsters. Note to self - pick up a pair of heavyweight tights for these crazier days.

Below is the course I took with the use of the handy-dandy runners companion, MapMyRun.com :)

Importance of Sickness Prevention and Challenges of Becoming an Early Riser

It's been quite some time since I've been waking up early. I was inspired through the different personal development programs I had finished, and reading great posts by found on StevePavlina.com and ZenHabits.com on the benefits of waking up early.

During the time, I was able to keep it up for about 3 weeks straight back when I trying it out in late Dec '07 up until Mid-January 2008. That was when I caught the cold and had confined myself to bed for a few days.

Whatever momentum I had built up over the past few weeks of waking up at 5:30 AM, I felt I had lost. It was like having the wind being knocked out of me while running full-speed ahead.

While I thought it was something minor where I could recover on my own, boy was I wrong. It taught me an important lesson that when you build up so much momentum - a routine that you feel is working for you - becoming sick can just throw everything you've worked for up to that point into turmoil.

By day 4 after I had caught the cold, I took some DayQuil medicine in order to alleviate the symptoms, which helped me feel better, but I didn't feel I was my same 'great' self a day prior to becoming sick. What it boils down to is that being proactive about your own health is something that needs to be addressed immediately so you minimize the loss our most precious resource - time. I'll be adopting the use of ColdFX - a daily cold/flu prevention medicine available in all major Canadian Drug stores.

I have to admit at this point of my life, it's a constant struggle and battle to sustain that positive change especially when you're coming from toxic cycles of waking up to an erratic schedule.

I'm going commit myself to waking up at 5:00 AM for about the 2nd time now, and I'll report my progress and what make use of the time I have to myself in the morning, within a week.

- Will

The webtool that every aspiring Marathon runner should have - MapMyRun.com!

After a brief discussion on the phone with my dear friend Beverly, she had told me about this awesome website by the name of mapmyrun.com. With MapMyRun, you're able to track the distance of your run in both km's or miles (which is useful for Canadians :) and measure your progress according to your own regimen. Also you could find a tightly knit community of runners that have various running groups or clubs in this area.

Below is a run that I completed earlier this afternoon to see how much further I could push myself. Here I chose my school, the Ted Rogers School of Management right beside Eaton Centre as the destination, where I'd swing around down along Bay St. and back east along Queen St East back home.

I'm excited to measure my marathon training progress here. I think I'll bump up my distance up to 10 km for next Sunday (weather pending). See you on the street or on the trails!

- Will

The Power of a Warm Smile

Lately, I've been thinking and experimenting of the simple yet powerful gesture of smiling in everyday life. I examined this gesture on two fronts; how it effects others and how it affects oneself.

Generally, I'm a pretty happy guy and as such, I smile a lot... well, no.. I smile pretty much all the time. I smile from ear-to-ear with a big toothy grin. I smile until my eyes can't be seen (I guess I smile with my eyes). I smile with my whole body and an open heart. It's pretty much hugging a person without physically hugging a person out of nowhere because that would be pretty creepy.

The precursor to the delivery of a warm smile is the initiation of direct eye contact. So how does this affect others? Through my own extensive experimentation by initiating eye contact and smiling at people from all walks of life; on the street, streetcars, subways, buses, malls - pretty much anywhere and everywhere, people will almost unconsciously respond in kind with a warm smile as well. In terms of meeting new people or strangers, it instantly creates a connection between two people through something so universal, simple yet profound in sparking a connection with someone.

Naturally, however, making direct eye contact with a person is seen as a VERY aggressive gesture. It sends a shot of adrenaline through our bodies and the other person because it's a biologically hardwired response to view direct eye contact as a threat, challenge or act of aggression. But when you follow up immediately direct eye contact with a warm smile, it automatically lowers a person's defenses because there's such a contrast between direct eye contact and a warm smile and instantly makes a person feel "good".

Why it works that way in my opinion is that a warm smile signifies whole-hearted acceptance of a person. When I smile at a person, I picture where the person might be headed to, what's on their mind, what were they thinking before I made eye contact. When it's coupled with the fact that its towards a new person, the effect is amplified in your favour because this sort of "risk-taking behaviour" is generally not practiced by society at large.

The foundation that makes this gesture consistent and powerful is your mindset or belief system when you smile in this fashion is your mindset or belief system. I *love* meeting new people, understanding them and blowing past the usual superficial pleasantries like "what do you do?" or "where you're from?". While most people are trapped in their own selfish thoughts of what's to be done in the future, what happened in the past, what needs to be done today in order to make it through the week. By getting down to the core essence of a person, you break that pattern of stress or insecurities. I like to get to know what drives them through life and by discovering their passions, you can open a whole new world of possibilities in connecting with someone.

During this process, you need to open yourself up as well, because how much the other person will open up is correlated to your level of openness. When you employ that sort of mindset, you will notice a marked improvement in your relations with new people, colleagues and friends in general.

How this affects oneself is simple. If you were try to feel depressed when you're forcing a smile from ear to ear, it's simply not possible. You can trigger the way you feel by how you express yourself physically. Like direct eye contact, you're biologically hardwired this way. When you smile for a set amount of time, you'll literally change how you feel and as such change your mood further adding momentum to your reaching out and connecting with someone.

Here's an exercise that you can try out for yourself. Try to feel depressed when you're smiling and looking up at the ceiling. I'll bet you a pint of beer (or non-alcoholic if you don't drink) that it's VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE to feel depressed when you're doing so.

*insert I had my friend Rob Wilkinson message me on Facebook and here's what he had to add about smiling:

"did you know that smiling is Scientifically Proven to make you Happier? Smiling actually creates endorphins which stimulate natural responses that effect mood. That's why it actually helps when you try and get someone who's up to try and smile."

Try this stuff out. It's good for the soul :)

What are thoughts on smiling? Let us know in the comments section!

Related Links:

The Art of Smiling

Nabbed galvanizd.com!

For a while I was mulling on trying to snatch a domain name that were either:

1. www.galvanized.ca
2. www.galvanized.com
3. www.galvanized.net

Or some combination thereof. I had logged onto Sedo.com in order to see what the bid process for galvanized.ca would be... and got a response... $6000!!!

Crazy stuff eh? Considering I'm a very tight budget, and trying to stay within $20 a week - it hasn't been the smoothest of rides.

I realized today that a lot of startup web companies names have their domain names mispelled. For instance, flickr.com or "lookr.com" etc. As long as it SOUNDS fine, you're still good to go in terms of marketing, simplicity in a domain name and ease to remember.

So I give you.. GALVANIZD.com! Haha.. cost me about $10.45 after registering via NetFirms.ca, but this will definitely be something fun to learn from and re-embrace the inner computer nerd persona I shed years ago.

I'm definitely gonna have to tap Malcolm, Josh or Garmond in order to get some help in getting this thing up and running.. haa :)