Dear Fellow Toastmaster,

I’m really pleased to hear you are practicing for table topics.  I find table topics very challenging because I have a strong preference for control.  Table topics does not offer a lot of control, which I guess is how life really is.

However, I have developed some strategies that are useful for table topics that I call frameworks.  Frameworks allow you to place any type of content into a frame so it has some logical organization.  This helps reduce the thinking needed to plan what to say and helps increase confidence.

Here are some of the frameworks:

- Past, present future
– Why, what, how
– Situation, action, result
– Accomplishments, obstacles, next actions
– I believed this before, but I don’t think that way anymore because
– What I like and don’t like about this
– Dreamer, realist, critic

If you apply the frameworks to any topic, you can quickly communicate for 1 to 3 minutes about that topic without having to give much thought.

For example, using past, present and future if someone were to ask me what I think about grass (lawn grass) I could say:

In the past, I hated grass because my Mother made me mow a huge front lawn every week.
Presently, I watch the people I pay mow the grass for me, and enjoy the fact that I’m not mowing it.
In the future, I look forward to lying in the grass and enjoying the sun while not caring if it is mowed or not.

I just typed in quickly what came to mind because I used the past, present, future framework.

Give it a try.  Just select some random words or subjects.  Write them in index cards and then select (or have someone else select) a random card.  Then practice using some of the frameworks and see how it works for you.

Again, thanks for your support and I’ll talk to you soon.

Kind regards,

Ed