BEHIND THE MIKE

Recently, the theme of our weekly Toastmasters Meeting of Club 1841 in Kissimmee, Fla., was “Leaving A Legacy.”

That set me to thinking exactly what I would like my own legacy to be. When you notice that you are closer to the end than you are the beginning, your mind tends to wander in the direction of the hereinafter.

I am doing some downsizing in my life. From day-one of being in business, I have never had an office in my home. I have always had a stand-alone office building. Now that I am chasing age 80 and taking things down a notch, I want to dispose of a lot of stuff. I have immediately discovered… my kids don’t want my junk.

The speaking and insurance industries are fraught with recognition ceremonials. As a speaker, host groups feel compelled to give you a plaque, trophy, cowboy hat, cowbells, baseball bats, a shotgun, you name it… even a grandfather clock.

The insurance industry is worse. It has been said the insurance business has done more for the demise of the walnut tree than any other singular industry in the world.

All the trophies and plaques are nice, but they are a piece of the past and we do not live in the past. The CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame trophy represents a lot of sweat to me. However, it may have meaning to only the 232 of those who have earned it, 171 of whom remain alive.

The Toastmasters World Champion of Public Speaking® trophy, of which I have two, is part of even a smaller group. The competition began in 1938 and except for a couple of war years, a winner has emerged every year. It is impossible to repeat as a winner because all past winners are not allowed to compete again. That begs the question… how did I end up with two trophies?

I competed in 1977 and had it won until they disqualified me for going 8 seconds overtime. No cigar for that one.

In 1978, I came back and managed to win it and was awarded a nice piece of hardware that got scorched to a nice crisp when my office building burned down later that year.

Toastmasters found out about it and replaced “old crispy” with a new, shinier and nicer World Championship award, giving me two.

I also have a Certified Speaking Professional award which is an earned designation that the National Speakers Association started in 1980. I was awarded mine back in 1983. There are currently only 450 CSPs living or deceased in the world.

Another honor was accorded me was the Veteran Speakers Retreat commemoration for being a Legend of the Speaking Profession. It was 2010 when the late Jim Rohn, CSP, CPAE, Zig Ziglar, CSP, CPAE was chosen as posthumousness recipient along with me, the youngest guy to ever receive the award.

Only two speakers in history have all four of these honors. The late Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association and yours truly were the only two to win the Toastmasters World Championship as well as all the other honors. Cavett was the 1941 Toastmasters winner.

I’m pitching out “the dust collectors” and trying to figure how to co-exist with all the junk which my wife would never allow me to bring home. It occurs to me that despite the sweat invested in these honors, they do not amount to more than a few pounds of metal, wood and or plastic.

I do have a couple of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Speakers Association (George Morrisey Lifetime Achievement Award) and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (the Philip Hosche Lifetime Achievement Award). Besides the guys they are named for and yours truly, I’m not sure anybody cares.

Still, they mean something to me, and I will keep my own little “mini-glory wall” in my man cave where grandsons Keenan and Cameron go to hang out. All the rest of the junk… has got to go!

Michael A. Aun is the author of 11 books. His column “Behind the Mike” appears in 1,500+ publications in 41 countries.