Listen to our very first interview with podcast host of Off The Beaten Path, Christopher Hulse! In this episode, we explore how finding various travel partners in unlikely places can create the most interesting of human connections, especially as someone learns and grows into a new identity of exploration and adventure. Making friends is a big part of creating the "currency" we need to get through life!

Guest Bio:

Chris Hulse is originally from Adams County, Pennsylvania. He works for Mondelez International as a Customer Service Team Lead, is a Distinguished Toastmaster and is occupying the role of Club Growth Director for District 38 of Toastmasters International where he was recently elected as the Program Quality Director role starting July 1st, 2023. He is also a host of his own radio show, "Off the Beaten Path with Chris Hulse" which broadcasts every Monday at 4:30pm on WWDB-AM 860 in Philadelphia but also available on the station's website as a podcast. He travels extensively in his spare time. He has been to all 50 states and every county in 30 states and is currently working on a book documenting these travels.

Christopher's Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088963392986

Christopher's Website: https://www.offthebeatenpathwithchrishulse.com

Christopher's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.hulse

@chrishulsewriter on Instagram

• https://www.toastmasters.org - Visit this website to learn more about the benefits of Toastmasters and what this non-profit organization is doing to enhance the communication and leadership experiences of members worldwide!

Visit Our Website: https://speaking-from-the-heart.captivate.fm/

Visit Our Business Website: https://www.yourspeakingvoice.biz

Support The Mission Of The Business! Donate Here: https://speaking-from-the-heart.captivate.fm/support

Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome back to episode number two of Speaking From The Heart, and

this is the inaugural episode in which I'll start interviewing guests every

now and then on the podcast, and I'm really excited for our very first guest

that we'll have today, Chris Hulse.

Chris is originally from Adams County, Pennsylvania, in which he

works at Mondelez International as a Customer Service Team Lead.

He is a Distinguished Toastmaster, which is the highest recognition within

Toastmasters International, and right now serves as the Club Growth Director

for District 38 Toastmasters, covering Central and South New Jersey along

with Eastern Pennsylvania, and we'll soon be taking the role of Program

Quality Director in the next few weeks.

He also has his own podcast.

He is the host of the of the radio show Off the Beaten Path With Chris Hulse.

It broadcasts every Monday at 4:30 PM Eastern Standard Time on WWDB-AM

Radio 860 in Philadelphia, but it's also on the website and you'll hear

a lot more about in today's episode.

He loves to travel; you're going to hear a lot of that, especially part

of this episode in which he's been to all 50 states and every county in

30 states, and he's currently working on a book documenting those travels.

Let's get to the episode.

We are here now with Chris Hulse.

Chris, welcome to the show.

Well, thanks for having me, Josh.

I'm really happy to be here.

I am too, and full disclosure for the audience, Chris and I have

known each other for a very long time, and I'm really excited that you are

my very first guest on really the inaugural series of interviewing guests,

so I bestow that honor upon you.

I'll take that honor and I'm honored to have that honor.

I really appreciate you taking some time to talk with me today and our

listeners as well, and I really want to start off with just tell us a little

bit about how you got started with the podcast, because I feel like you

explaining that might even help us a little bit with our conversation.

There was another Toastmaster who, had his own radio show, and I think

he's had his for about four years now, and he had always invited other Toastmasters

to come on his show, and I've been on his show 10 times and I think after about the

eighth time, he had said to me, "you know, you're really, you're really good at doing

this, would you be interested in having a whole half hour to yourself?", and I

did that, and basically I was hooked, I said, "How do I do this every week?", I

would love to have a forum to be able to talk about stuff and try to help people,

inspire people, and he talked to a radio station in Philadelphia, WWDB, and really

the all he wanted to know was, "What are you going to talk about?", and for me,

because I'm well-traveled, I wanted to talk about that because I figured it would

give me enough material to fill a bunch of episodes, and I love this experience

because number one, I like to talk.

I mean, and there's lots of us who who like to talk, but really when

you have a radio show or a podcast, you have to really have a reason for

doing it and, and a way to be able to organize into something that is going

to be beneficial for other people.

I figured with all this traveling I've done and the travel is really going to

places that, like my title of my radio show Off The Beaten Path, I have had

a following of going to these places and I thought, "Why not take all those

experiences, turn 'em into a radio show and tell people about them?", and the

feedback I have had since I've been doing this in January has been great.

I have a following, like, I'm Casey Kasem or something, and that blows

my mind because this has really been a dream of mine since I was a kid.

You do a lot of traveling, is it something that

you do just the United States?

If you do, tell us a few things about what you've learned in your travels.

I think that I'm really curious and I've been really wondering for a number of

years, how many experiences you've had that maybe fundamentally changed your

outlook just because you've met somebody or you got to experience something.

Most of my travel has been domestic.

I really haven't traveled much internationally.

I've traveled so much domestically is because I belong to an organization

where our goal is to be in every county in the United States, of

which there's about 3,100 of them.

Other than that, I love taking road trips, I love the whole experience of being in

a car with other people, listening to music, jamming out, singing at the top

of your lungs, eating food at different types of restaurants, whether it's a mom

and pop or a truck stop, and you said about the experiences of other people.

I've met people all over the country at one point, and this is when I was

in college, I had actually reached out to people I had never met.

I literally had met them by either posting something on a bulletin board,

on a virtual bulletin board, or just met them through different groups I

was in, and people would always say, "Oh, hey, if you're ever in Texas, if

you're ever in Minnesota, if you're ever in California, just let me know

and, and you can crash on my couch."

and that's definitely what I did.

The thing is, we all are Americans, we're all in the same country, but,

everybody has had different experiences.

They come to the table with different things, different food, different

insights, different emotions, and what I've learned with everybody I've

met over my entire life is everybody can teach you something, whether it

helps you in your current situation or something you can stick in your

back pocket, until you need to use it.

All of it is useful and so many people I've met have touched my heart, taught

me things, and have gotten me through some tough times, and you know, my life

itself has been a bit of a road trip.

I wouldn't say that it's what people would call typical.

Some of my life experiences have been a little backwards but I've gotten

through it, and I think some of it has been because I've met people that

endured tough situations themselves and inspired me and taught me something,

and, I'm going through that now.

I'm, I might have this radio show and I might look like I'm having a fun time

all the time, but I'm having a rough go of it; I'm not gonna lie, and, and

knowing the people I do and getting to talk to them and that relationship to

be able to just open up and just talk about it and try to get to the core and

solve something, it's helpful and I'm glad that I have those people in my life,

and they're not all in my neighborhood.

This is like all over the country.

The one thing that sucks is that you can't hang out with people that are a

thousand miles away, but you go visit 'em when you're taking a road trip.

There's definitely even the online catch up as well, and technology has

made that so much easier for all of us.

I really want to dive into what you just said about really connecting

with people all across and having those authentic connections because

that's something that I really enjoy in my life and been able to do.

I have not, been an avid traveler like yourself, but I'm curious, is there one

person, you don't have to mention names, but is there one particular individual

that you think of instantly when you think of that connection and how have you

kept that relationship up over the years?

You know, it's funny, it's when you said that, I started

to think of somebody, but there's different people that pop into my mind.

One person that that's really had an effect on me in my life, her name is Lisa

Wheeler, and how I met her was about almost 20 years ago at this point, all

of a sudden, and this is typical for me when I say this, all of a sudden I

decided I was going to move to California.

I took a road trip with my friend in California and decided, you know

what, I've always lived life on the East Coast, I'm going to move out to

the West Coast and see what I can do.

I wanted to get into the entertainment industry, but not in front of the

camera, I've always been interested in the production side of it, and over

the next few months I made it happen.

At the time I looked up, I think I went to a website, looked for people who

were looking for roommates or tenants or whatever, and I found Lisa Wheeler, and,

you know, we couldn't be more different.

We were of different ages of completely different experiences, but we both

were open about talking about what we were feeling about not being afraid of,

oh, "what's this other person going think of me if I say this?", and she

was really having a rough time too.

I think sometimes that's when people are apt to connect the most when they're going

through something and they don't know, they're not sure what to do and they,

they feel like, "Okay, I need somebody else who has either gone through the same

thing or something similar and I need them to almost give me a roadmap", like this

is what you do, this is how you should approach it, this is, you know, and at

the end of the day, it's all advice.

You really have to take that information and make your own decision, but, I know

when there's big stuff that happens in my life, I always call Lisa up and I'm

like, "Oh man, let me tell you what's going on in my life right now.", and

I always have kind of a comedic way of looking at stuff and she really has

encouraged me to go after some of these things that I'm interested in, you

know, writing and taking pictures and documenting everything and you know

I told her about the radio show and she's like, "I'm not even surprised.",

she's like, this feels like something you've been destined for, but I'm lucky.

It's, something else that you just drew out the hat and is

like, yes, we're going to go right around it and we're going to do this

because that's just what I do, right?

Exactly.

I mean, that's one thing I will tell you is I am pretty fearless.

Stuff that that might scare other people.

If I get into my head that I'm going to do it, I will.

When I was in college, I decided I was going to drive around the country for

three and a half weeks, and I knew I was going to put over 10,000 miles in

my car, and the more the people were like, no, you're not, you're not going

to drive around the country and, go to places you've never been to and

not really have a plan, and I'm like, "Oh, you don't think I can do that?

You know what?

I'm gonna prove you wrong."

Wow.

I'm almost into proving people wrong because I want to show people

what I'm made of, what I'm capable of.

I've kind of learned that my life it's not normal, you know what I mean?

I feel like in doing that, that's how I've connected with people because then I'm

like the leaser wheeler to other people.

I can tell people, "Oh, well this has been my experience and this is how I dealt

with it.", and because I'm going to be honest, to me, connecting with people,

that is why think I was put on this Earth.

Yeah.

Whether your listeners are religious or not, to me, even the jobs

that I've had, maybe the work that I was doing, to me that that was not the

important thing if I was able to sit down with maybe somebody that worked for me,

or I worked for them, or we just happened to be at the same meeting, the fact

that we got to connect over something, to me, that is what keeps me alive.

I know for a lot of people, even myself, I sometimes struggle with

being able to connect with those people because I always think there has to

be something in common, and I found something really interesting that you

said is that with Lisa particularly, there is nothing that you had really

in common, per se, in the beginning.

It's almost like one of those opposites attract stories that you

hear about, and I think that this is an important lesson because wherever

we're at, it can create some great, fascinating, different perspectives,

and it sounds like you've had that.

Absolutely.

One thing that I say a lot, and I've actually been saying it a lot

more recently is we're all humans.

We're all humans; I actually say that to my employees because I'm a, team

lead and obviously part of my job is to motivate people to get work

done, but I also don't want people to forego the other experiences in life.

I don't want people to work so hard they are missing out on family

functions or their kids are like, "oh, well I don't know mom or dad

very much because all I see is sitting them in front of a computer".

When you get to the end of your life, you are not going to remember, "Oh, I worked

really hard and I got that project done."

You're going to remember the connections you had with your kids, your family,

your friends, your neighbors.

That's what's important, and I'm always telling people, "You know what?

We're humans first.

We're humans.", and part of that human experience is connecting with people,

and like you just said about, you know, me not really having a lot in common

initially with Lisa, the fact that we're both humans, we've experienced

the same things, and that's where I try to draw on with people is the fact

that maybe you're meeting somebody who has a wall up, and you know what?

I'm not saying I try to break through that wall, but I try to

maybe put a hand through that wall to be like, "You know what?

I'm here for you.

I can help you.

If it's something I can say, if it's a story, I can tell you.

I'm here to help you," and I want someone to know that they're not alone because

there are times in my life where I felt so alone, and I'm telling you, that is

not a good feeling, and if you can be there for somebody and make them realize

that whatever is happening to them, they are not going through it alone.

That's the connection I want to make with people.

I know that for you, I know you have a remarkable story and that is

something that you definitely resonate with people and my listeners are going to

hear later on in a future episode coming up after this interview is done about my

own personal story, which you know about very well when it comes to getting that

help that I desperately needed, but we'll save that for a future time when that

episode goes out, but you said something that I, I think that my listeners would

really love to hear about as it comes to how you actually reach out, because for

some people, they do not even know how to start that conversation or even have

that interaction with different people when it comes to what you're feeling.

Can you talk a little bit about how you've done that?

What's your strategy?

What's your go-to that seems to always work, or even if there's something that

hasn't worked, what are those lessons that you've learned, that you've applied?

To me, it's, it's really keeping in touch with people, and the

ironic part of this is that sometimes it's hard for me to stay in touch with people.

Sometimes other people are the ones that have had to do the work, but,

if I know somebody's going through something, I want to be right there.

I want them to know that they can count on me, that I can be a an ear to listen to.

I, and again, I'm not saying this to be like, oh, I'm some great person or

whatever, but I mean, I'll forego sleep, I'll, put some other project on the back

burner or whatever if I know somebody needs me because, that's what I want.

It's hard to expect that of other people because other people I

know they have responsibilities.

I know they got to go to bed or they got to feed their kids or

whatever, but I don't have kids.

I don't really have other family around me where I live right now, so I have

the opportunity to be there for other people and whether it's hanging out, or

driving to them or taking a road trip or something like that, and, and sometimes

that really is all it is for them is to know that they have a friend that they

know they have somebody they can count on, and then it, it starts from there.

A lot of times with, especially with my friends, you exchange stories and a story

turns into, "How did that make you feel?

How did that other person make you feel?

Oh, that, that, that really upsets me.

How can we change that?"

and it really kind of goes from there, but it really is about having

those conversations and really keeping in touch with those people.

I know that, honestly, I don't always have to be the one to initiate the

conversation because when you get a good friendship going, it goes both ways.

I mean, I don't know.

I sometimes joke and, and think, "Man, if I could make a job out of being

friends with people, I'd be a very rich person, but here's the thing, money

doesn't buy you happiness, so if you can say that the connections I've had

in my life, I'm already a rich person.

Wow.

What a statement, because I was thinking about this the other day.

I was at an event and I was talking to someone too about this subject and I

said, "My business isn't about money."

I mean, I want to make money, obviously everybody does when

it comes to that importance, but it's about those connections.

It's about those people that we're interacting with; that's what I really

want to have, especially when it comes to creating that bigger wholistic picture.

Thinking of wholistic pitchers, I want to talk about a little bit of

your Toastmasters experience and maybe how that's interplayed with that.

Just so everybody is on the even playing field, if you've never

heard of Toastmasters, Toastmasters International itself is an organization

that works on communication and leadership building skills.

They have over 280,000 members, across 144 countries, with over 14,700 clubs,

and both Chris and I actually met through Toastmasters and being able to have that

connectivity, but Chris, I'm curious, has this Toastmasters experience, which you

can let the audience know how long you've been involved with, and I'll give you a

moment to think about because sometimes I have to think about it too, how long

I've been involved, but, when you talk about your authentic connections, maybe

like with Lisa and other people, even with doing Off the Beaten Path through

your podcast, has there been anything that's really helped enhance that

connectivity by going through some of the things that Toastmasters provides?

Absolutely, and for me, it was stepping up and being a leader.

I mean, initially I got into Toastmasters because I had this anxiety about

public speaking, and I worked on that probably the first two years, so

I've been a Toastmaster since 2016.

I would say probably about 2018 I was well into my experiences of getting

over my anxiety of public speaking, but something actually happened in

my life that spurred kind of this path that I'm still on, and it was

an unfortunate event, but I did what needed to be done, I guess I'll say.

The event itself was, my home club is my corporate club; it's at where

I work, and my boss at the time was heavily involved in Toastmasters.

She's basically the reason why I got involved in Toastmasters, and me and her,

her name was Cindy Ashton, and we had, it was really kind of developing our boss

employee relationship even beyond over work because we had this shared love of

Toastmasters, and unfortunately, Cindy was murdered and that was devastating.

It was devastating on a personal level, on a professional level, but she was,

at the time, she was the President of our Toastmasters club, and before

that, everything was starting to fall apart and she was trying to get it

back on track and I figured in her absence, this is what she would want.

She would want everything to be taken forth and try to rebuild it, and

that's what I did really in her honor, but, in a way, it also taught me

about my own leadership capabilities, and I went on to lead that club.

I went from there, to being asked to be an Area Director; I went from

there to being a Division Director, and with each increasing level of

leadership and for people that don't know Toastmasters, those titles I was giving

out, basically you have a smaller set of responsibilities and then it grows,

and then it grows, so you go from club, to area, division, and in that I was

meeting more people, more people who I had Toastmasters in common with, but there

are so many different types of people in Toastmasters and I was also getting

to flex my leadership skills, and I was finding, I am actually good at this.

You know, I might not be the best leader in the world, but it's because I try

to connect with people and I found that if you can connect with people, you

can motivate them, you can get them to help you what needs to get done.

I'm not all about, "Oh, you do this and you," I'm not a leader that gives orders.

I'm a leader that says, "Look, let's work on this together.

Let's figure out what needs to be done, and then, let's do it, because we can

both learn from the experience of doing it.", and I've made some of my best

friends in the world over the past years.

Josh is one of them.

Erin Bailey is another person that, actually Josh is one of the people that

that put us together because we were conference co-chairs and oh my god, Erin.

Erin has a huge place in my heart, even beyond Toastmasters, and that's the thing

too, is sometimes you're involved in an organization and the reason why you

become friends is because you have that organization in common, but then you

find out you actually like that person as a human outside of that, and really

Toastmasters, it's really, truly changed my life and it's got me over that anxiety

I spoke of; it's given me leadership experience that I actually used to get

promotions at work, and it's made me some wonderful, wonderful friends that

have helped me through thick and thin.

In a way you could almost say, I'm married to Toastmasters.

Toastmasters is my relationship, and I've gotten so many things

out of it and, that sounds cliche in a way, but it's really not.

I feel like no matter what you're involved in, in life, whether it's Toastmasters

or maybe you love golfing, or you, I don't know, you belong to your kids'

PTA, any one of these experiences can help you build connections that really

are going to be able to change your life and help you get through life.

I find that to be wise words and you're too kind.

It wasn't because of me, it was because of your passion for what you want

to do, and that's been resonating throughout our conversation today

that you are really the authentic person that you want to share with

others, and I think that's incredible.

We're getting closer to the end of time with our interview here, but I

want to ask you one more question and then I want to give you a few minutes

of any promotion you like to do.

My final question is, what do you do to not just help people because

you've mentioned a little bit about wanting to be with them, especially

when they're going through a harder time, but, What have you done

personally to help rejuvenate yourself?

Because, I feel that, a lot of, and you're already smiling at me.

I know because this can be somewhat of an interesting question for even myself.

What have you done as therapy, quote unquote, for yourself, or what have

you done to retrain those muscles, because I, I'm sure giving yourself

a lot is an extension of so much of not just time, but also the resources

you have inside of yourself that you could use for other reasons.

I mean, why do this?

You could be a selfish person, Chris.

Why?

Why?

Why aren't you selfish?

That's my question.

Go with that.

Well, it's honestly because I get so much out of the things that

I do, out of Toastmasters, yes, I put a lot of work in the Toastmasters.

I'm now part of the District Trio, which oversees about 150 clubs in

Eastern Pennsylvania and Central and Southern New Jersey, and that's a lot

of work that does eat up a good amount of time, but, I get something out of it.

It allows me to have this pride of helping other people, strengthening those

connections and knowing that I'm doing something that is benefiting other people.

Same thing with the radio show; this has been a dream of mine to

have a radio show ever since I was a teenager and will listen to the radio.

This is, Pre-Internet, believe it or not, I was around before the internet

was around, and so, that to me, that was really my window to the world

was listening to the radio and the person who would talk between songs and

yeah, I'm not spinning records, but I'm actually getting my voice out there

and just spending time with friends, having those experiences that make life

worth it because then, having experience with your friends really strengthens

those connections, and not only can you help them when they're going through

some tough times, they can help you too, and that's honestly a lot of the

conversations I've been having recently as I've been going through some stuff,

I've been drawing on those connections and saying, "Am I doing the right thing?

What do you think I should do here?", and that sort of thing, and people have

been great about giving me their advice, showing me that they've been there for

me and it's awesome and I hope that I can repay that favor back to people, but

take a time for myself, which I know was at the core of what you're asking, I don't

do a lot of that, but I feel like in the activities I engage in within those, I

do get things that are really for myself.

I'm just not a person that really enjoys a lot of downtime.

I don't know if that's going to be eventually to my

detriment, but you know what?

Once I get towards the end of my life, the one thing I'll be able

to say is that I lived this life.

There's a song out there, and one of the lines from the song is, "With every

broken bone I lived"; nobody will be able to say that once I get towards

the end, that I didn't live this life.

Oh, I did.

I took every opportunity I could and I tried to turn it into something for

my benefit or somebody else's benefit, and for me, that's why we're put on

this planet, and I'm trying to make sure that I stay true to that, and if

I can help other people in any sort of way, try to stay tuned as well.

That's why I'm here.

Staying true to yourself I think is something

that we can all resonate with.

Chris, I want to give you a few moments, I know you are a busy guy

with a lot of things happening.

I know you got your podcast, you want to tell our audience about your podcast or

anything else that you got going on and follow you and I'll make sure we'll put

it in the show notes too so that they can take a look and visit you as well.

Definitely.

If a listener or listeners more than one, hopefully-

Oh, there will be more than one.

Well, and I meant like, hopefully there's a listener.

I'm sure you're gonna, you know, plenty of listeners listening to this program, but

hopefully, at least one of your listeners for your program will want to listen to my

program and my program, the name of it is Off The Beaten Path with Chris Hulse, and

as I talked about a little bit, it really, I would call it a travel log show.

I just made that word up.

No, I don't think I made that word up.

I think it actually exists, but what I try to do with each of my episodes is

organize them into some sort of similarity between a few different places, so the

one day I talked about Elvis sites, another day I talked about the world's

largest ball of yarn and the world's largest thermometer and where these

places are, because I think a lot of these places don't get enough credit.

I've also talked about headwaters of rivers.

I mean, I have some unique sort of interest in what I'd like to see, but

you're not going to often hear me talking about those places that everybody goes

to because they already get enough press.

I want to give press to the people or the places that you can stop at

between going from the Eiffel Tower to Disney World, because I think

those places are important too.

Obviously the people that own those places want you to come see them and

I had a good time checking them out.

I do that, and then I also have a guest on my show each week and they get to

talk about what travel interests them, whether it's international travel or

owning a house at the shore, or being a park ranger or canoeing or climbing

a tall mountain, something, everybody seems to have some particular travel

interest, and so I want to give people a platform to be able to talk about

that too, because here's what I found, and whether it's on my radio show or

just in life, you never know what is going to inspire somebody else, and I've

actually had people tell me, which I love hearing, "Oh, the places that you

go see Chris, you actually inspired me to jump in my car and go and check out

the state park a hundred miles away, or check out, the world's largest ketchup

bottle or whatever it is, and if I can affect somebody like that actually does

something for me, it means that something I did actually spoke to somebody else.

My radio shows a a way of doing that, so if you want more information about

my show, go to Off The Beaten Path with chris hulse.com, and that is all one

word, the words Off the Beaten Path with Chris Hulse, my last name is spelled h u

l s e.com; all the information is there.

The radio show is actually on weekly on WWDB AM 860 in Philadelphia, and you can

actually go to their website, wwdb.com, and it holds a database of my episodes

I've had so far, so you can listen to all these different places I've traveled to

and to all my guests, but I would say if your listeners could go there, hopefully

they'll be inspired and benefit from some of the things I've talked about.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about that, Josh.

Absolutely.

Anytime and we will, we'll definitely connect you there, and also, like I said,

it will be on the show notes as well if you want to access the link directly.

We've ran out time, but Chris, thank you so much for being the inaugural

guest on Speaking From The Heart.

It's been really a privilege for you to be here and sharing a little

bit about your authenticity with relationships and connection.

I look forward to hopefully having you back again.

Thank you Josh.

Thanks for this opportunity.

It was great to be your first guest.

Yes, thank you so much.

Wow.

It was a remarkable episode, the very first interview that I've done for

the podcast with Chris Hulse, and I want to, again, shout out to Chris.

Thank you so much for being part of my show and the discussion that we had.

I want to recap a couple of things that were said that weren't clearly set out on

the episode, but, Toastmasters something that Chris is heavily involved in and

I've gotten to know him over the years.

He and I both belonging to local clubs within the state of Pennsylvania, and

for anybody listening all across the world, Toastmasters is international.

There is literally clubs waiting for you to get started in with your communication

and leadership skills it doesn't matter where you're at with your skillset

or your skill level, those clubs are supportive, inviting environments where

you can practice and get better and there's no judgment whatsoever, so if

you're interested in checking that out, go to www.toastmasters.org, and when

you go on the main page, you're going to find a button that says "Find a Club"

in which you can find where a location is and the clubs are physically meeting,

there's also hybrid clubs, which have a mix of people in person and online, and

there's even all online clubs that will help you get started with your journey.

I want to just talk about some of the things that Chris mentioned in the show

that just resonated with me that I hope that you, my listeners, followed along

with too, and I thought the biggest thing that he said that will forever be in

my heart is that it's about the riches of the experiences that we have with

people, it's not about the money, so for my professional friends out there, think

about what your purpose is when it comes to helping others or what you're doing to

help contribute back whatever your trade or skill is, because it isn't just about

the bottom line, it's about what kind of impact that you're making with others,

and I think Chris really stepped up to talk about how some of those travels,

especially in his life, really created some of the opportunities that he has and

making that job out of just being friends with people, those are the people that are

the trendsetters in the world and even are some of my counterparts when doing podcast

episodes too, wherever you listening to.

I really encourage that if you have somebody like that that you can talk

to, especially that Lisa in your life that you could just call up at any time

and have that engagement with, those are the things that we'll talk about

in future episodes, how that can be so impactful and help you just get to that

next level where you really need to be.

It's something that helps all of us go from point A to point B, and I

really love Chris' story behind that.

The one other thing that he mentioned was about the murder of Cindy Ashton and

how that fundamentally changed his life, and I didn't get much time to really

go into it with him, but knowing what Chris is and how much he's taken that

to heart and has been able to project so much positivity in the world, I know

that for some people it takes a traumatic experience that fundamentally shifts the

thought pattern and what you do for the rest of your life, and for those that

have lost a significant other or somebody that has been close to you in your heart,

I mourn for you, but if you're still sitting there thinking, "What do I do?

What do I do to make this different?", you have the power to move forward,

and I hope that Chris' story about how he did that within Toastmasters

creates some of that framework for you.

It helps you to understand how to move forward and how to understand

how to create that value within your own life so that you can help others.

I love the expression of the song that he was starting to say about

with "Every broken bone I lived", I resonated with that because even with

all the trauma and all the things that happen in our lives, we find ways to

project and create confidence within ourselves, and it's about staying true.

It is about creating some of those opportunities in which we're able to

take it from the next level to even a further level, and sometimes being

in that murkiness of the unknown, that swamp, can be very unnerving,

can be very nerve-wracking indeed, and that's why I always encourage

those, especially if you have the opportunity, work with a life coach.

I provide that through the business that I've started, Your Speaking Voice, in

which I help clients realize and get a plan together to help them move to

that next level, wherever they're at.

If Chris's story really resonates with you and how to do that,

that's what's really important.

There's one last thing I have to say that wasn't captured on this

episode, which we were talking about afterwards, is that how you change

your life with making connections.

It is so important, especially in this day and age that even though

that we're so connected with all the different social medias and all the

different ways in which we can exchange thought and exchange opportunity, the

most important thing that we need to remember though is that we're all human.

Chris talked a lot about that in the episode in which he was sharing not just

about what the human factor is, but also how you can create that human factor to

help you be able to have authenticity, and I think that was so important for

Chris to share because a lot of us don't know how to do that, and sometimes it's

very tough to just be able to say and take a step back and think about what

are the things in my life that will help me to just understand and value

what's really important?, And although life coaching is there, all kinds of

coaching, Chris really resonated with me sharing a little bit about shame.

Shame sometimes comes from the fact that when we know that we need to do something

about it and we've put it off and we put it off and we put it off for so long,

we start to develop that thought process of, "Is this really what I want to do?

Is this really how I want to feel?", and I know that I can be very tough for

a lot of different people to be able to say, "I know that this has given me this

feeling, but I need to push it aside and know that I'm still doing this for the

right reasons.", and I think the testimony that Chris was sharing was something

that helps all of us to engage and think thoughtfully about what is really

important in that daily conversation.

If you have somebody that is willing to do that, whether that's a personal or

professional level, that's going to help you so much in seeing the bigger picture.

Overall, I know that for many of us knowing that we can have these

opportunities to do whatever we want in our lives, even if it is travel,

can be opportunity in itself to expand our mindset and create value.

I hope that today's episode with my interview with Chris really showcases

that the opportunities are endless.

If you have the right mindset and you're willing to just keep going no matter

what, that's what this is all about.

This is how we create relationships, create that connection with others,

have that confidence to step forward, but stay determined on the end goal

because when you do all of that, you will have something that is valuable and

cherishable for the rest of your life.

Thank you for listening to episode number two of Speaking From the

Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

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