Ghost with a Toast

7 Years Past and 7 Years Future

I raise a toast to today! But I do it from the future looking back.

I know, it’s all very Back to the Future but roll with it.

The concept began when I accepted the next speech in the series I’m following in Toastmasters. Here’s the description I’m supposed to follow.

Speech 2 from the Innovative Planning manual – Deliver Social Speeches

This project addresses the skills needed to compose a speech for a social occasion including a toast, eulogy, an acceptance speech and a speech praising an individual or group.

The purpose of this project is to practice delivering social speeches in front of your club members.

Objectives:

Overview: Develop two different social speeches—each 3 to 4 minutes—and present them at two separate club meetings. You may choose any two types of social speeches that appeal to you or that you would like to practice.

Speech timings: 3:00, 3:30, 4:00

I’m shooting for the toast.

Seeing that yesterday was Halloween and today (Nov. 1, 2019) is the 7-year anniversary of what I started “Write Every Day,” it seemed appropriate to bring in The Ghost of 7-Years Past to meet the Ghost of 7-Years Future and raise a toast to today.

Here are my outtakes, rehearsals, blooper reel, and finally, what I presented tonight.

Ghost with a Toast | Take 1

I can’t find takes 1 and 2 … hmm.

Ghost with a Toast | Take 2

Nope.

Ghost with a Toast | Take 3

Ghost with a Toast | Take 4

Ghost with a Toast | Take 5

Ghost with a Toast | Take 6

Somewhere around here, I dropped the 82-year-old man routine.

82 years old is too far away. Let’s go with the 7-year-ghost. The ghost of 7 years.

“What have you done that you started 7 years ago and where are you with it now?”

Something like that. Then I can go back in time to me 7 years and then go forward in time to the audience–to give them something to strive for.

Maybe the ghost is here for new recruits. He’s done his job for 2012 to 2019 and he’s here tonight to see who’s ready for the next 7 years.

Editor’s/Author’s Note: This is why it’s good to write. I can go out there and rehearse all day but when I

Ghost with a Toast | Take 7

Ghost with a Toast | Take 8

Ghost with a Toast | Take 9

Ghost with a Toast | Take 9a – yes, I messed up the numbering

Ghost with a Toast | Take 10

Ghost with a Toast | Take 11

Ghost with a Toast | Take 12

Ghost with a Toast | Take 13

Ghost with a Toast | Take 14

I’m going to write out some notes after all of these takes.

First of all, 3 to 4 minutes is so short. I need to get across just a few but powerful messages. Let’s get a list.

• “Ghost with a Toast” as humorous “service” that this ghost is just a part of (employee)
• Honoring Bradley’s (exactly) 7 years since transformation (PAST)
• Now here to (a) do those honors but also (b) choose a new candidate for 7 years from now (FUTURE)

Opening

Hey there, so just to make sure I have the right date, it’s November 1, 2019, right?

(wait for approval)

OK, great, yeah, you know at headquarters, sometimes they get things mixed up and I end up too far in the future or too far in the past.

Right, so I’m a ghost.

I know, weird. You know what? You’re just going to need to get over it. The fact that I’m a ghost is the least amazing things you’re going to experience tonight.

Let’s see, I’m here to honor a Bradley Charbonneau. Is he here? Yeah, great. I’m in the right place.

So what we do at that “Ghost with a Toast” service is we come around exactly 7 years to the day and toast someone who began to change their lives for the better by taking a small but powerful step towards the future they had always dreamed about.

Yeah, you might think it’s a little cheesy but hey, it’s a living.

What do you want from me, I’m a GHOST! I don’t have lots of employment opportunities at the moment, OK? Deal with it.

So, let’s see, it says here he had always dreamed of being a writer but he wasn’t writing…

Looks to the audience: well, duh, wants to be a writer but doesn’t write? Actually, here’s a little ghost trivia for ya, if you want to keep your dreams alive but never actually make them come true, just do that: keep dreaming but don’t take any action. That way, you never actually fail.

You also don’t actually achieve your dream, but yeah, whatever.

So, let’s see, it says here that all he did was start writing every single day on November 1, 2012 and he hasn’t stopped since.

Wow, that’s, uh, 2,584 (two thousand and eighty-four) days. In a row. Impressive. Yeah, no wonder they called “Ghost with a Toast.”

So, right, let’s get on with it. Please raise your glasses with me in honoring Bradley.

[raises glass]

OK, great.

Yeah, so another part of my job…

[looks at watch]

Yeah, I have another appointment in Australia in two minutes, we gotta wrap this up.

So, right, the other part of my job is to recruit one of you to take a small step towards the life you were always hoping to live but you’re not yet doing it.

Now don’t go raising your hands or jumping on me–it doesn’t work like that.

Here’s how it works.

[searches pockets…]

Maybe I have some business cards on me. Nah. Yeah, oh well.

Right, so tonight, one of you will remember me, you’ll shake awake briefly, you’ll know you are the next chosen one who will begin on this very day, this November 1, 2019, and begin the path towards your dream.

You’ll take deliberate steps. You know who you are. You probably know it right now.

Then, on November 1, 2026, another ghost, probably not me, who knows, I might be working in a haunted house at Disneyland by then, yeah. So some Ghost with a Toast will stand somewhere, probably not in this Florin Cafe, and honor you for having taken a step towards your dream.

So yeah, my job here is done whereas yours has just begun.

Ghost with a Toast | Take 15

Ghost with a Toast | Take 16

Whew.

I kept making changes even on the Friday and I think I need to…stop doing that.

I need to find an “end point” or at least a point where I think it’s good and I need to stick with it.

I honestly have no idea how the presentation actually went. I used the hat and glasses as props and I couldn’t see out of the glasses and that was a bit of a distraction for me and I wasn’t as comfortable.

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