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Spark Love: About that 1 mandatory element of the 43…

Spark Love: About that 1 mandatory element of the 43…
This entry is part 29 of 70 in the series Spark

Working on my speech for Toastmasters this week. Spark Love.

Dear Reader,
You really don’t need to read this post. It’s just going to be my notes and video takes in preparation for my speech at the end of the week.
If you dare watch the earlier ones, just know it’ll get better. Well, in theory.
My goal is to create a collection of films to help promote the Spark movement.

Take #1

Here’s a first outtake. Just winging it here and clearly need a little help with some, you know, structure.

 Take #2

Complete with phone falling down from where it was perched, I get to a few good points, but I need to hammer home the ending better. #workingonit

How am I “defining” love here in this speech?

As I make it the crux of the speech, I better have a good definition of it.

I’m trying to make the point that it’s not just words (“I love you, Samantha.”) or even written words (“Love you, Robert!”) but:

  1. Actions
  2. Actions taken together
  3. Making/creating a “thing” together
  4. Adventures
  5. Experiments
  6. Experiences

Then later having that “thing” you did together. So are we then:

  1. Creating memories,
  2. Forming relationships,
  3. Working together,
  4. Playing together,
  5. Creating together,
  6. Starting,
  7. Persevering,
  8. and Finishing together.

Take #3

Audio only as I lost my little phone-connect-to-tree-branch thingy. Also, it was really dark!

Take #4

Audio only. Yeah. We’ll see.

Take #5

Reading the text from the original post. Just to get the words into my “stage brain” or “teaching brain” so I can pull them out when I need them.

I realize I’ve changed the, well, uh, main topic since I started. I started out with how we need that spark, that love to get things going, but later I’ve made it so what we’re building is love.

Which do I choose?

Maybe I have two speeches here?

  1. The “seed” of love we need to get going
  2. How love is the “product” of what we’re doing together.

I don’t have time for both–not in 5 to 7 minutes. Reading the text from the original took almost 8 minutes. Ouch.

I do have a speech for next week already on the schedule.

I could make this Part 1 and next week Part 2. This is the seed and next week is the product. This could all be used for Spark marketing material.

Hmm. I might be onto something.

Of course, if it weren’t Friday at 3:30 PM with the speech at 7:30, I’d have, you know, time to work on this and make it better.

I need to make an executive decision:

  1. The 1 mandatory element in starting a project with your kids: the seed or spark (which is love)
  2. This is what love is. How love is defined as what we do together, the Venn diagram of the overlap of what we experience together.

Just to be clear. What’s the seed again? Why do we need it?

We have love for them and we want to show it, to use it, to give it to them. This “project,” this experiment might be difficult and take some time and some persistence so what do we need to get it all started? Love.

It’s the seed, it’s the spark to set off this bonfire.

Sure, chips, pens, notebooks are great. But without love, we’re nowhere.

Here’s the reading of the text:

Toastmasters Speech, Dec. 7, 2018: There are 43 elements to a successful project together with your kids. 42 are optional.

Series Navigation<< The Widow and the OrphanRecipe for Love >>

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  1. Lucky (to Write) Every Day: A 30-day challenge turned into 2,000+ days. - […] Spark Love: About that 1 mandatory element of the 43… (Dec 5) […]

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