At Parliament Hill Toastmasters Club, we finished January with a bang! Our January 31st open house meeting featured none other than Chris Ford, DTM, President of Toastmasters International. Speaking to a packed house, Chris spoke about goals. More specifically, he spoke about how important it is to align your goals in order to achieve your goals.

Chris's message was simple yet powerful. We all have goals in life. The shortest route between where we are now and a specific goal is a straight line, but when you have more than one goal (and who doesn't?) you will get diverted off the optimal path. However, if you keep all of your goals as close to the optimal path as possible, you will be much more likely to achieve them all.

Chris spoke with great enthusiasm, passion, and humour. His message was all the more powerful because he spoke to us as a man who has achieved his goal —the goal of becoming President of Toastmasters International. After his speech, Chris answered questions from the audience.

In additional to Chris Ford's speech, we also held a complete (though somewhat abbreviated) Toastmasters meeting. Complete with table topics and 2 evaluated speeches (thanks Philippe-Antoine and Anima), it was a excellent introduction to Toasmasters for the over 10 guests who were in attendance.