Despite obstacles that we can face, it is important about how we handle the ways in which it can affect us for the destiny that we have for our future if we stay stuck in the same "pattern". For our next Toastmaster guest that we are featuring this month, Rich Hopkins shares how nothing stops him from being his competitive self and how it has allowed him to be on the World Championship of Public Speaking stage of Toastmasters numerous times and inspire a generation of storytellers and public speakers. Through his reluctance and well-placed individuals in his lives, he recounts his awesome journey to get to this point through the meticulous opportunities that have been presented through not only his professional endeavors, but how it has given him a creative outlet for all of us to achieve as well, as long as we have the right mindset.

Guest Bio

A Toastmaster since 1999, Rich continues to pursue his dream pastime as a professional speaker and presentations coach. He's spoken to Toastmasters groups all over the world, took 3rd in the world in the 2006 World Championship of Public Speaking, spoke on the Big Stage again 2008, and is a featured player in the documentary SPEAK. In 2017, he took his WinAnyway message to the TEDx Stage. Additionally, he's authored three books: Win, Place & Show, Go Ahead and Laugh, and Go Ahead and Laugh Vol II. In his 24th year of marriage, he's the father of six, and balances his speaking and coaching with his day job, selling advertising for the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper.

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/SpeakAnyway

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/rich.hopkins

@winanywayguy on Instagram

@richhopkins on Twitter

YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/richhopkins

Website: https://www.richhopkins.com

• Toastmasters International -Home (https://www.toastmasters.org) - Join a local Toastmasters club today by checking out what this nearly century old organization has been able to do to so many talented individuals! Click the "Find A Club" button to locate the closest club to you today!
• SPEAK Documentary Movie Streaming Options - To watch the documentary anywhere you stream, rent, or buy movies online, check out this link for a list of available options.

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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 57 of Speaking From the Heart, where in the

month of November, we've been honoring Toastmasters that have made a positive

contribution overall to not only people in society, but also to fellow Toastmasters,

because if it wasn't for Toastmasters, I would not be where I am today, your

podcast host and business owner, so I will leave a link in the episode notes in

case you are interested in checking out a local Toastmasters club that is near you,

and today we have a very special person that really has taken storm from all the

things that I have personally learned throughout the years and indirectly have

a connection with this guest too, which we talk about quite a lot in this episode.

His name is Rich Hopkins, and Rich has been a Toastmaster since 1999,

and he continues to pursue his dream pastime as a professional

speaker and presentation coach.

He's spoken to Toastmasters groups all over the world and he took third

in the World Championship of Public Speaking, the pivotal competition that

took place in 2006, and he also again spoke on that big stage in 2008, which

at that time he was featured in a documentary, among other competitors,

in what was called SPEAK, which we talk about a little of that experience.

In 2017, he took his Win Anyway message to the TEDx stage, and additionally,

Win, Place and Show; Go Ahead and Laugh;

and Go Ahead and Laugh Volume Two.

He's been married for over 24 years.

He's a father of six children and he balances his speaking and coaching with

his day job in which he sells advertising for the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper.

I know that for many of us, we can think about the fact that we normally just

hear from our guests what is going on and what are some of the things that we have

happened in our lives, but Rich brought a unique perspective immediately when we

started this episode that I really felt helped us to understand a little bit more

about him, but for me, knowing about his experiences because of the movie SPEAK,

it allowed me to have an insight, and I think really changed everything about not

only my experiences with that indirect person, but actually knowing a little

bit more about Rich and who he truly is.

But with that, let's go to the episode.

All right.

We're here with Rich Hopkins.

Rich, thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

I'm glad to be here.

Yeah.

Hey, thanks so much for being here too.

Rich, I shared with the audience a little bit about yourself and even personally.

I shared with the audience too about my connection with you indirectly because

of Toastmasters and how to get involved with that great organization that my

listeners really listened to, but Rich, I really want to start with your story

because your story is so profound and personal and it even started before

Toastmasters in itself, and I was wondering if you could share a little

bit about that with the audience.

I was really curious about the fact that you actually are missing

some important body parts on you.

I am.

I am.

I was born with a birth defect that affected my left leg.

They never figured out exactly what it was.

They were never able to diagnose it.

They did 10 surgeries on me before I was the age of 10 to enable me to be able

to walk and most of those surgeries, they weren't sure if they would work and

some of them they had never done before.

They tried them on me.

Now, this was the early seventies, so we didn't have

quite the technology we have now.

It'd be interesting to see where I would be now if I had been born in 2005 or so.

Of course, where I'd be now, I'd only be 18.

That'd be nice.

Anyway, so I grew up with a limp, a left leg that was always smaller than my right

leg which meant that I always had kind of a challenge, but we all have challenges.

We all have different things about us that people like to look for,

that people will pick on, that people will judge you for, put you in a box

surrounded by the thoughts that are focused on that part of who you are.

Mine was just a little bit more obvious than some other people's, and really, it

didn't bother me because, I mean, when you grow up with a birth defect, when you grow

up with a disability, it's normal for you.

It's abnormal for everybody else, and so you just deal with it.

It's a lot different than when you are able-bodied and then at some point in your

life something happens to you and suddenly you now have a disability, because then

you have to deal with the shift in who you are and I never really had to deal

with that until 2006 when the leg that I had pretty much just stopped working

at the ankle and I ended up having to make a tough choice to kind of let go of

the lower left leg and replace it with what I call the super deluxe robot leg.

That was an adjustment because as disabled as I may have been, it was a lot less

disabled than I am with a prosthetic.

I made the choice to get the prosthetic because I was going to

be in a better position than I was in, but your life changes a lot

when you get up in the morning and there is some assembly required.

Did you think that really impacted you though, especially

growing up having this birth defect?

Do you think that other people judged you differently?

Of course, but they would've judged me differently for any number of

things if that wasn't what was going on.

I mean, I like comic books.

I was a Star Trek fan.

Oh, I love Star Trek too, so we're in the same camp.

My mom turned me on to Star Trek.

So there's always going to be things people find.

For me, they just had something very obvious that they didn't have to

be too creative about to pick on.

In terms of how it affected me, it turned me into somebody who wanted

to prove himself at various points; made me more competitive, probably.

I did things that I probably shouldn't have done physically at that time;

did a lot of sports that my doctor said I should be careful about doing,

and I did them anyway, especially in college I played a lot of basketball.

I actually tried out for basketball in my high school and couldn't get a

doctor to sign off on the team situation because he thought it was going to

be bad for me and maybe it would've been, but I always thought I'd rather

remember when I could do something than always wonder what it would've been

like to have tried to do something.

That is profound in itself for me.

I had lived in a life of fear for many years trying to decide whether I should

really do something or not, and I know for some of my listeners that I have talked

to personally, they have been through some similar exercise too, where that

is really difficult to decide whether fear should take control or not, but I

love the fact that you don't let that happen to you and I think that has really

defined a lot of the success that I have seen even from a one of those giddy fan

boys that we're talking about before we started recording, but Rich, I love the

fact that you have persevered through that, so I guess with that said, and

we'll get into the competition part of it because you have an interesting story in

itself that not many people get to tell, but I know that you joined Toastmasters

in 1999, which full disclosure, I was 12 years old when that was happening, you

were joining Toastmasters, which is for people that aren't familiar, for people

that are 18 and older, you can officially join a Toastmasters club, so Rich,

what led you into wanting to do that?

Why did you want to join a bunch of people that are working on

communication and leadership development?

Well, I definitely didn't think about either of those

things when I joined Toastmasters.

Most people don't.

When I first joined Toastmasters, it was 1995, and I had a friend invite me.

She happened to be president of her club, so I went to Toastmasters

with her and joined and went for about six months and then did not.

I ended up joining again four years later for social reasons;

just wanted to be around adults.

I don't drink, I don't party, so I thought Toastmasters, having remembered

going to it a few years before, would be a good opportunity for me, and

that was when I really started to get into it: to do the speaking portion,

to start going through the program we had at the time, and finding success,

getting validation, affirmation; I mean, there's nothing like Toastmasters to

make you feel good about yourself even if you get up and give a bad speech.

They're going to applaud and they're going to give you ideas on going forward.

Now, for me, I had been in drama in college.

I'd always been kind of extroverted in terms of being a performer, even though

I'm inherently shy and don't like social situations outside of Toastmasters, but

when I get a chance to perform, something clicks in my brain, and I just turn

into somebody else when I'm up on stage or behind the lectern, whatever it may

be, on a podcast to a degree and after the first year of Toastmasters, I had

my mentor come up to me and ask me if I was ever going to say anything, because

she knew that I was just kind of winging it, that I was going on in an inherent

ability to talk, to be a salesman, because I was in sales, been in sales most of my

life, and at that point I was 30 years old, had been in sales professionally for

a decade, so I knew how to communicate with people, but I wasn't providing

messages that had tremendous value.

Yeah.

And she said, "I could see you on the world championship stage

if you would just learn to say something", and that really changed

my journey from that point on.

Do you think that some of the nervousness might have been from not just

the; let me say this before I even go into my question, because I was thinking about

the fact that there's a little bit of maybe that fear of what other people might

say or glossophobia, as we have talked about even in Toastmasters, that fear of

public speaking, which I don't think that was really the case for you because you

maybe had some of that ability to do so.

I have social anxiety myself when it comes to dealing with different people

and a networking situation, and I've taken many years, even in my own Toastmaster's

journey to work on that to get to where I'm at, so with that background said, do

you feel that the president, that person that was mentoring you, really helped you

to overcome that in the long run then?

Perhaps.

I don't know if I really had a fear of any kind, as much as I didn't have a focus.

Mm.

You know, people don't really fear public speaking as much as they fear

being made fun of when they public speak.

Yeah.

You know, they're worried about the consequence of them

getting up and not doing well.

It's kind of overrated, this fear of public speaking that we have, it's

more of an anxiety, and that anxiety is a good thing because it means

you care about what you're doing.

You care about your audience, and you just have to learn to channel it.

Understanding how that anxiety works is a lot more crucial than people think.

I mean, people will quote the old, "I just try to get my butterflies to fly

in formation", as if it's that simple.

It's not.

You have to really acknowledge your why for being up there, and that was what

she was telling me was that I needed a better why than to just get up and

win a best speaker ribbon at the club.

I needed to give something of value beyond just being funny or being

smooth as a speaker and having better delivery than everybody else.

You certainly have proven that being that you have been on the world

stage yourself, which for my listeners not familiar, Rich has been able to go

all the way to the highest levels when it comes to the International Speech Contest,

more specifically, the final round, which is the World Championship of Public

Speaking, which you took third in 2006.

You spoke on that stage again just two years later and, ironically

enough, and where I actually learned much more about you is through the

documentary that was done called SPEAK, S P E A K, which for anybody that's

interested, it's widely available.

You can go and check it out and follow the journey of not just Rich, but

some of those contestants that were featured, including somebody that I

knew, the late Charlie Wilson, who's unfortunately no longer with us.

God rest his soul and I have been mentored by him personally, and he was

really a great person in itself, but Rich, I was wondering, can you tell

us a little bit about that experience of not only being on the world stage,

but even being part of a documentary where a group of people followed you

as you were going through that process.

Can you talk a little bit about how that influenced you, how that changed

you into who you were back then, because I'm sure that had a profound

impact in what you are today too; made up who you are today, I should say.

Well, I started competing not too long after Billy, my mentor, had that

conversation with me and the very first year in 2002, I went all the way to the

semifinals and ended up taking second.

The next year I lost at the division round.

The year after that, I lost at the division round again, and then I

moved, went to a different area, a different district, and won that

district so I went back to the semi-finals where I went over time.

Wow.

And the person who won that contest took second at the World

Championship Public Speaking.

In 2006, I went back to the semifinals and that's when I finally broke through, and

that also was the year and the time frame that I was letting go of my lower leg.

Mm-hmm.

So at the area contest, I was standing and delivering.

At the division contest, I was on crutches and delivering, and

I actually lost that contest.

I took second, but I was in a small enough district that first and

second went to the district final.

At district, that was post-surgery, so I'm in a wheelchair with one leg.

I changed up my speech.

I won district.

I went to the semi-finals, still in a wheelchair, and managed to pull that

off, and then between the first week in June, when I won the semi-finals, and I

think the third week in August when the finals were in Washington DC, I got a

prosthetic leg and I learned to walk so that I could walk on that stage in 2006.

Wow.

That entire 2006 year was a transformative year for me, physically,

emotionally, from a speaking perspective in my Toastmaster's career.

Coming up third, it was frustrating, but it was also a great accomplishment and it

really obviously pushed me to keep trying.

In 2007, I took second at the semi-finals, again.

I then went back in 2008, and as you just said, that's when

the movie SPEAK was beginning.

Managed to make it through the semi-finals in 08, and they followed

me and several of us back to our hometowns, followed us around as

we practiced clubs, did interviews.

If you watch that movie, I'm the really fat guy with a beard and mustache opposed

to who I am now, which is just the really fat guy without a beard and mustache,

but, I mean, I like watching SPEAK pretty much once a year just to see what my

kids looked like way back then, because they were also tiny compared to where

they are now, but getting a chance to be in that documentary was kind of a

two-edged sword because when I agreed to be in it, I was still in that rather

overconfident, perhaps arrogant stage where I was thinking, "Great, you're going

to make a movie about me winning the World Championship", but in fact, of course,

it turned into a movie about me not winning the World Championship, not even

placing and finding myself at a crossroads as to what I was going to do next.

Watching that, and again, for those that are looking for it, it

was released in 2011, correct Rich?

I believe so.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I've been finding.

I was just looking it up just to double check and I saw that it was something

that came out just a few years later after that, so there was a big gap in time in

between when that filming happened to when the final editing was released then.

Out of all those contestants, I heard a lot of stories personally about

the bond that those contestants, yourself included, had afterwards.

It was almost like having that support group, even after that whole

documentary and having that ability to share experiences and the successes.

My first question is, do you still stay in touch with the people that are still

around, which I know there's been a lot of those past people that shared that stage

with you that are no longer with us, but more importantly, out of the people that

were in that group, that final stage, who would you say had the most significant

influence on you during that time and why?

Boy, that's a tough question.

In that particular year, I think that group, our dynamic was unique among any

group of finalists because we were at a point where communication was a lot easier

than ever before via email, social media.

I had been there before and nobody else had been there before.

Jock Elliott, of course, had been there before, but he wouldn't find out he

was going to be in the finals until two days before the finals because of the

way they did the semi-finals for the international speakers back then, so aside

from Jock, everybody else was brand new.

I kind of took the lead and started emailing everybody and encouraging

people, and suggesting we get together for a dinner, which Martin Presse

actually ended up organizing because he was living in Canada and had the

ability to do that because the World Championship was in Calgary and

he was able to set everything up.

No group of finalists had ever done that before.

Wow.

I just want to make sure that audience really understands this.

You really were the pioneer and Martin kind of carried it

through to execute it, right?

Yeah.

Wow.

That's awesome, Rich.

I don't think I even knew that, so that's incredible.

And it was a unique situation.

Some of the other contestants really embraced it.

Some of them just played along with it, because when you get a group of people

at that level, it's almost like being on Survivor, where you get the side

eye like, "How good is this person?

How good is that person?

Can I beat that person?", or you're just not that competitive and you're

just having fun and you're talking to people, and that was Charlie.

Charlie was just having fun and appreciating the moment.

I was in more probably the competitive mode and I was trying.

I didn't set up the dinner or communicate with these people to try to get an edge.

I was in fact trying to change who I was to a point so that I wouldn't be that

overly competitive person, but that I would be more social and more positive

about the situation overall, but some of the people that I was interacting with

did not always go down that same road.

Now, am I still friends with people?

Martin Pressey?

Yes.

Colin William?

Yes.

Colin and I were friends long before that just through like Google Groups.

Yeah.

Old, old time stuff with Toastmasters.

Yeah.

Obviously Lashunda has passed.

Robert passed.

Charlie passed.

Loghandran; he and I still communicate.

I mean, in one sense, I still communicate with as many finalists as possible.

I created, on Facebook, a finalist group, which only finalists can

join, so we all communicate to a point, but am I still friends?

I'd say Colin and Martin are the people that I would say are close

to the best versus anybody else.

Would you say that both of them then would be the greatest

influences still to this day?

No, they're the greatest friends.

Yeah.

The greatest influence was Lashunda herself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The woman who won, because she and I, she would admit this, we

had an adversarial relationship to a point, and one of those reasons was

that I didn't know what she was going through until I saw the movie SPEAK.

Mm-hmm.

Had no clue, and she was just a different type of person than I was

and I don't think she quite appreciated my wanting to get people together and

create the situation that I was trying to create but it was because of everything

she was going through personally, and so how our relationship was pretty World

Championship, and immediately after she won, was different than our relationship.

After I found out what was really going on, and in fact in 2012, she and I had

some discussions about going out and speaking together showing the movie SPEAK,

doing Q&A, having those opportunities together, and then she passed away just

a couple of months after that, so I ended up going to a few places showing

the movie SPEAK and doing some Q&A, but it was never quite what it would've

been if LaShunda and I had been able to do that because of obviously the fact

that she was a world champion, but the relationship, even the movie set up

between us, where she was the protagonist and I was the default antagonist

in the movie for dramatic purposes.

It would've gone over really, really well, but LaShonda and what I learned

by learning about her and how it made me look back on our relationship prior

versus our relationship after really helped me grow in terms of understanding

other people and just being a better human being, regardless of being a

speaker or a Toastmaster or competitor.

I think that for me personally, hearing this Rich, it brings a different

perspective that even Charlie, when he was around and even talked to me about

the documentary and the movie itself and how it got to that point too, because

he would talk about it just as you were going to with LaShunda, I learned so

much about his perspective of how he got through that journey and what that

meant and I wish I remember word for word exactly what he said about you, but I

think it was only good stuff too when he was around saying the same things about

the things that we go through in our lives, especially that sort of moment

where most people don't get a shot like that, and it doesn't matter what kind

of competition it is of significance.

Not many people get to be down to that wire, especially with a group, which at

the time, had hundreds of thousands of people still across all over the world

wanting to compete for that title, so for you to be able to have that, and

even rebuild part of that too, I think it speaks a lot to your character.

Rich, I want to talk a little bit about the three books as we get

closer to the end of our time here.

You've written three books.

One of them is called Win, Place and Show the other one, Go Ahead and

Laugh, and the other one is, Go Ahead and Laugh Volume Two, and I'm really

curious which one of those is your favorite one to have written and why?

Well, it's interesting for me because people always tell me about

these books I've written and I don't feel like I've written any books because

all three of them are compilations.

Win Place and Show has the top three speeches that we needed through Ed

Hearn, Douglas Wilson and myself needed to get to the World Championship, so it

has nine total championship speeches.

Each one of us wrote background material as to what we went through.

Writing each speech, delivering each speech, and there's kind of an aftermath

of the world championship for each of us, so that was a fun book to write being my

first book, but I only wrote my stuff.

I edited the book.

I'm a graphic designer by college education, so I composed the book,

created it, and went to a printing shop in Utah where they actually printed up

real copies because back then you didn't have Amazon doing it all for you, which

is how I did Go Ahead and Laugh, which is another compilation book of a bunch of

humorous speeches that people sent to me.

They paid to be in the book.

That's how I basically paid to go to the World Championship in 2008, and

Charlie Wilson was one of those who put his story in that book, and again, they

provided the speech and the background material that went into creating it

and then I did a section after each speech talking about why it's funny.

How you can use humor; I've got tips on humor in the book.

I've got an interview with Darren LaCroix, the 2001 World Championship,

to open up the book, but perhaps funniest of all in this humor book is I

didn't include one of my own speeches.

Wow.

Which is why I did Go Ahead And Laugh: Volume Two, albeit 12 years later,

and I put in one of my speeches and this time because there's a difference

in the way books are done and how easy it is to be able to do it, I didn't

charge anybody to be in the book.

I just asked people to send me their stories and we did

what I did in volume one.

Volume two is more real world speeches, whereas volume one

was a lot of Toastmasters, humorous championship speeches.

Volume two includes a eulogy, tall tale speeches, kind of more professional

level speeches that maybe wouldn't be considered humorous, but use

humor as part of the speech because learning how to use humor doesn't mean

learning how to be hilarious on stage.

It means learning how to use humor to make yourself a better speaker

whether you are a humorous speaker or an inspirational speaker, or

even a trainer, humor can help you.

All three books have their own journey and I can't say I have a favorite one,

unless you want to say that Win, Place And Show is connected to my ultimate

greatest victory in Toastmasters.

Well, if that's the case, then I guess that's the favorite book, but

no, that's okay to have more than one, and I love that you love all three of

them for each of the reasons that you identified, because I think that it

does provide, and I even do this, and I was even talking about a little bit

about my own business with you before we started, about the fact that I tell

people you need to have something that gives you that story or something that

allows you to connect the point to what you're trying to share with an audience

no matter what that audience is, because that's really important to know the

audience, but to be able to connect with film is so vitally important, and having

humor is just one of those tools in your toolbox that you can have, so I love

that you've written about that as well.

Rich, I want to ask you this one final question and I want to say thank you

because this interview for me personally has been something that has been

eyeopening for me, but more importantly as I mentioned, it brings a lot of

emotions back up because of Charlie and really his influence on my life and I

love the fact that he's had an influence on yours, and I feel like I'm talking

a little bit to him today, to be honest with you and I know that sounds a little

weird for me to say, but it really does.

It really brings back some good stuff, but I feel like we are losing the art

of storytelling for some people, like it's really hard to sometimes convey

a message these days because we often get attacked for what our viewpoint

is and maybe what we're trying to share isn't clearly communicated.

You've been a competitor.

You have literally displayed that history for us today, and I didn't realize how

many times you've been in the semi-finals, which in that self, especially with how it

was back then with Toastmasters and how it rolled up to be what it is, you definitely

have done a lot of work to get to this point in your career with speaking.

What would you say to somebody starting out that might be struggling to just

find their voice or find their messaging?

What would you say to them is a good first step for them to just get out

there and like you said, just doing it and just not being afraid of the

anxiety that comes along with it?

Is there any piece of advice that you would give somebody?

There's a few different layers to that.

If you want to just get started speaking, obviously get out and join

Toastmasters because you're going to get that supportive environment, and it's

not really going to matter so much what you say, as much as how you say it and

Toastmasters will teach you how to say it.

Toastmasters does not, unless you work at it and use Toastmasters to your

advantage, it does not necessarily talk to you about what to say.

That's just not its role unless you find mentors and people within the

organization that can help you with that.

I was encouraged to find my message, to find something to say by a

Toastmaster, but it was my own efforts, my own decision, that I wanted to

say something of importance that made me look at it within myself,

and that's what you have to do.

You have to look at your values.

Look at what's important to you.

There are trainers out there, there are coaches that'll say, "If you only had

one speech to give, if you could only give one message, what would that message

be?", and I don't think that that's bad advice, and the message that you

come down to delivering is going to be potentially different 20 years ago then

it will be 10 years ago, then it will be five years from now, so never stop

looking at that, but also keep looking for ways to whatever that message is that

you have decided upon giving, see how it continues to work in your life so that

it's not the same message 20 years ago.

I'm kind of going in circles.

It's a very personal thing to do, and a lot of people struggle because they're

so worried about finding the right message instead of understanding that

the right message is their message.

It starts with what's right for them, not what's right for everybody else,

then once you have the message that is right for you to give, that's when

you find a way to make it right for everybody else if you ever want to give

it outside of Toastmasters at least.

Does that make sense?

It does make sense.

It makes a lot of sense and I don't think you were talking in circles at all.

I think it building upon the fact that sometimes we don't even know

what that message is that we have inside of ourselves and I've even

had guests that have talked about the importance of doing that, and I think

you've made it much more clearer than even sometimes what I say to other

people, so thank you for that clarity.

Rich, we're at the end of our time, but before we end, I want

to give you the last few minutes.

I know that you are a coach, you help people yourself with

speaking and all kinds of things.

I want to give you the last few minutes, tell people how they can reach out to

you, how they can connect with you if they're interested in being coached with

the great and the legendary Rich Hopkins.

Oh, I suppose I need to get that website, legendaryrichhopkins.com.

I think that I gave you an idea.

You can have that.

That's my gift to you too.

There we go.

I am at richhopkins.com.

I've been fortunate enough over the years to be an early adopter

of technology so on any platform you can just find Rich Hopkins on

LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram.

I'm WinAnywayGuy on Instagram.

You can Google me and you can find me, but the best way is to go to

richhopkins.com and you can email me.

If you're looking for a speaker to come to an event, give an inspirational keynote.

If you're looking for a trainer to do presentation skills, I do that as well.

I work with companies and individuals to help them discover, develop, and

deliver their best messages, whether they're doing a keynote or doing sales

presentations or just got told by their boss last week that, "Oh yeah, you're

going to go to this convention and do a 45 minute talk about our company."

Those are the people I love to work with and that I have found over

the years love to work with me.

We come up with their message and their best way to deliver.

Email me; richhopkins.com, or if you just want use my Gmail,

I'm richhopkins@gmail.com

I'll put all that in the episode notes for my listeners

in case they need to see that and they want to reach out to you that

way, but Rich, I really mean this.

It was really good to reconnect in a way that we, although we

have never met before, in terms of having this conversation.

I feel like I had already met you because of the documentary, because

of Charlie and for those reasons.

It is incredible to see the story that you have shared with us today and

that it continues to be a story worth telling and it's helping to support

even your fellow individuals that you have grown bonds with over the years

so for all those reasons, thanks for being on Speaking From the Heart Today.

It was real joy to hear your story, and thank you for inspiring me and

my listeners with your incredible opportunities that you've had and continue

to do that in your career as well.

I think it's about doing things that we normally don't do.

That's the thought that keeps running through my head as we

wrapped up this interview with Mr.

Hopkins, which I really appreciate his time and being willing to be

able to share some of his experiences being in Toastmasters before

and even during the whole ordeal that he has gone through in life.

I think what really struck me about this interview more than anything else

is that he's very humble about not only the experiences that he's been

through, but just understanding that people go through things, but it's about

just growing through that and pushing those different boxes that we have to

push into the places that we need to be in order to become who we are and

I think that's what it is with him.

It's about just dealing with it.

Hmm.

Just dealing with it.

It sounds like sound advice for somebody like myself, especially since I know that

sometimes I wish I had that sort of advice from a fatherly figure growing up, let

alone even mentors for that matter and I know that Rich really was saying that from

a place where within his heart he really convictly believed in that because it

has gotten him to where he needed to be, being that competitor that he is, being

able to learn so much more about what his experiences have been going through the

competition circuit and still doing so in many respects, helping other people

hone their message and become something that they never thought possible and I

think that's really what this is about.

It's about learning how to channel yourself to understand that we're doing

things that we really don't want to do, but really it's helping us to push

to the next level; to make us realize that within ourselves, we can evolve.

Now, I know that for many of us, you didn't have the context of maybe

watching the documentary SPEAK, which if you have never watched it, I

would encourage you to listen to it.

I'll put a link in the episode notes so that you could follow that journey

that Rich went on all these years ago, along with some of the people that we've

talked about in this podcast episode, but it's about really building that bond.

It's about building those connections with people.

LaShunda, Charlie, Martin; all those people, and so much more really made

an influence in his life, and I could tell that even with some of the things

that he was saying and looking into what he was saying too, it made me

realize that it isn't just words on a paper, it isn't just words on

the article that I can read online.

It isn't just about the things that we capture as details about those events.

Rich lived it; matter of fact, he lived it so much that I saw that he really

enjoyed those moments where he was able to bond, where even though there was a

competition happening, he still wanted to have other people to be around to

share in those experiences, to understand instead of getting that side eye, which

sometimes we get when we're trying to do something that we normally think is the

cool thing to do, but I think for Rich, it wasn't just about doing the cool thing,

it was about looking within yourself.

It was about looking into the values that we truly have about each other in

order for us to create that messaging, to be able to understand where some of

those people are that are in our lives.

When we hit the stop button on this episode, Rich mentioned to me that he

forgot to mention one thing that I wanted to mention to you too that slipped my mind

when we were talking about this subject matter is about the death of Catherine

Morrison, one of the other competitors that were featured in the movie SPEAK.

It made me think about the fact that Catherine, Charlie, LaShunda; these

are people that are no longer with us.

They have made an influence in just one moment of time that happened to

be captured by producers and directors that wanted to see and showcase what

it really takes to get to the World Championship of Public Speaking, and that

for some people, it's not an easy ride.

For some people, it is an easy ride, but there's a few steps along

the way that you have to overcome.

For some people, it's the very first time that we ever have to meet

somebody and we meet somebody going through some of these experiences.

I think about the fact that it's been a long time now.

I think about the fact that it's been over three years since Charlie

Wilson, the person that I mentioned directly that I knew because of Rich

and knowing a little bit more about Rich as a result of that, because of

knowing him and growing up with him.

You see, I had the opportunity early on in my Toastmasters journey to meet

the remarkable Charlie Wilson who lived in the State College area, and then

he also did a lot of theatrical arts.

He did a lot of storytelling.

He was one of those people that served Toastmasters with a big heart.

It didn't matter what time of day, it didn't matter what

sort of things were going on.

What he did wasn't about proving himself or proving anything

about what he needed to prove.

It was about understanding that a choice needed to be made.

He learned how to channel that ability that he had to speak to others through

the creative storytelling that he had and no matter what you might think about

Charlie, especially if you were able to capture some of the things that he has

spoken at with many conferences that are available on YouTube, but he was able to

build a bond with others just like myself that saw the light of so many different

people coming together and seeing what we're truly all about because he had a

message that he wanted to share, just like how today Rich shared his message

of being willing to create some of the best things that he's ever created in

his entire existence because he didn't let some sort of disfigurement, or

some sort of disability, hold him back.

We talked about the word disability in many episodes which all originated from

Tracy Tienken, one of the guests that we had early on in this show, that talked

about the value of the fact that we need to rethink that conversation of not

being disabled, but being differently enabled, and that episode still rings

so loudly even now, talking about Rich.

Talk about somebody that has really proven himself time and time again, wanting to

just show what his true character is.

Being able to show that there's a lesson in everything and that it

doesn't matter what we go through, it's about how we get to the other side.

It's about really understanding and looking within ourselves the

values of creating that message.

It's about understanding what we can do with our voice, whether it's without the

voice, the nonverbal voice, if you will to create some of the best works that

we could ever create in our entire life.

Charlie believed in me.

Charlie believed in so many different types of people when it came to that.

The list goes on and on and on about the different people

that we touch in our lives.

It makes us to understand and create some of the best things that we could ever

imagine and I think that for many of us, we need to build that bridge that connects

us to the other side of being able to share that message, no matter how weak

you think it is, or how overly confident that you are because if we're able to

do that messaging, no matter what it is, we can start to work on the mechanics.

We can start to work on the different types of viewpoints

that we could go alongside of it.

We could become the best storytellers, not just to tell a legend, not to just tell a

myth, but to actually help us understand how that person, place, thing, whatever

subject matter it could be, had profound influence, not just in our personal

lives, but our professional lives as well.

At the heart of Your Speaking Voice, LLC is about public speaking.

It's about being able to share a story that's so incredible, that is so profound,

that you're able to really get something out of it, and that's always been my

aim as your podcast host of this episode or even this series, Speaking From

The Heart, of sharing those authentic conversations with people that really

push it forward, no matter how much it might be a pain, no matter how much pain

creates the obstacles, and no matter how many obstacles there are, and no matter

how many disfigurements you might have, and no matter how many filler words

that you might use, it's about the fact that you have to acknowledge the why.

Why am I doing this for what it truly is all about?

I think Rich really shows that.

When you listen to even some of the things that he said in this episode,

it makes me question whether it's really all about just me, or is it

about all us, because we could build that bond by using those stories that

we have inside of ourselves to share something that we never thought possible.

We could share something that we never thought we could ever share.

As long as we're able to realize that the true value that stays within it

isn't just about humor, isn't about entertainment, it isn't just about

inspiration or even being informational or persuasive for that matter.

It's about doing the things that we really do not want to do that really helps us

to get to that next step, because really, it's about getting to that next stage.

I don't know about you, but I think Rich has been on that stage and has been

continuing to move to various other stages as a result, and for that reason alone,

that makes him something quite special, almost as special as Charlie Wilson.

Charlie, if you're listening to this up there, I want you to know one thing.

Thank you for inspiring an audience, a generation that's still being inspired by

the words that are coming out of my mouth and for all the things that you continue

to do all up there in those pearly gates.

Thanks for listening to episode number 57 of Speaking From The

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

Thanks for listening.

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