Night Vision Toastmasters (NVTM)

Dear Fellow toastmasters:

Learning is a life-long process rather than a series of discrete educational episodes. Toastmasters club is completely new to me. I have been thinking of how to effectively learn in such a new environment and quickly improve my public skill. This is an issue about the art of learning.

Regarding learning, I thought of Confucius, the greatest philosopher in China. His thoughts have influenced the Chinese for over 2500 years. He said, “When walking together with others, there is always one I can learn something from. I should find his merits to follow and his shortcomings for references to overcome my own. A student may not be inferior to his teacher, nor is a teacher certainly more virtuous and talented than his student. Somebody comes to know before others do and nobody is equally conversant with everything”

Everybody understands that this principle is important for improving himself. However, only very few can follow this principle. To do that, people must be humble, then find the merits of others and finally learn from them. To learn from your teachers is easy while to learn from students or disciples is difficult. To mutually learn from each other is important to develop a healthy society. Don’t always look down on others. Everybody has advantages and disadvantages. You are certainly not better than others in all respects. If you have such a learning attitude, you will respect others and develop a harmonic environment.

Many of us are familiar with the story about the Zen master who invited a professor for a cup of tea. The master kept on pouring until the cup overflowed saying that the professor’s mind was like the cup; you came here to learn about the Zen, but all you have done is tell me what you already knew. Empty your cup and let me teach you.

This story tells us that if you want to learn, you must listen with humility, i.e. you must be coachable.

If you are not coachable - willing to learn and surrender to being taught and coached - your cup is full and there is no space for leaarning and development. Coachability is to have the mind of a beginner. A beginner’s mind is one of the greatest assets a person who is striving for excellence can have.

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……. Winning is a result of learning …….

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Please come this Thursday to share how to learn with fun.
This week intro is “How do you learn from yourselves and others”.

There are the following roles left. So hurry up and sigh up for a role.
St. at Arms,
Humorist,
Grammarian
Word Master
Toastmaster
General Evaluator.
Prepared Speech Evaluator
There is also a space for prepared speech.

Thanks everyone.
See you all this Thursday.

Jianming