I’m visiting Naledi-Polokwane Toastmaster club (virtual) meeting in South Africa. I volunteered at table topic (impromptu speaking) and was given the topic: ‘Yes, we’re back to reality’…
For a split seconds, I wondered what it meant. Don’t we ‘always’ live in the reality? Or the topic meant that life is back to ‘normal’ (pre-Covid)?
This is the beauty and challenge of table topic: we don’t know what we’ll get and we need to think on our feet, at the same time, we can go any direction…so here I went…
We’ve been living in the ‘new norm’ for a while…we work from home, we wear masks when we go out, and some people still concern leaving their homes. We could complain that we can’t travel freely or we could choose to be happy. Here I am…visiting your club (online meeting), thanks to Covid and technology, the world becomes even smaller. Yes, we’re back to reality…our mentality creates our reality…
Audience nodded, smiled, and gave me a big applause after my speech. The next speaker provided a perfect example (her story) of turning a crisis (layoff) into a growth opportunity. Things could and did happen out of our control yet we always have a choice what to do about them. We could be upset and angry or we can learn from the experience, find hope, and grow stronger. Our mentality creates our reality.