A half-dozen brief articles about networking in Toastmaster magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fairly recently there have been a half-dozen brief and useful articles about networking in Toastmaster magazine. 

 

One by Maureen Zappala on pages 22 to 25 in the June 2019 issue is titled Building Meaningful Connections: Techniques to try when networking. 

 

A second by Victor David on pages 24 and 25 in the March 2022 issue is titled How to Network Like a Pro: Use your Toastmasters training to make a connection. 

 

And a third also by Victor David on pages 18 and 19 in the December 2022 issue is titled Next-Step Networking: How to develop meaningful and useful connections with new contacts. 

 

A fourth by Shannon Dewey on a web page in the July 2023 issue (but not the .pdf for the entire issue) is titled Be Confident in Casual Conversations: Talk to anyone, anywhere with these tips from the Toastmaster. 

 

A fifth by Jennifer L. Blanck on pages 24 and 25 in the April 2024 issue is titled Preparing for Successful Networking: Take these steps to build your connections. 

 

And a sixth by Matt Abrahams on page 6 in the May 2026 issue is titled Quick Networking Tips: How to calm your nerves before connecting with others.

 

 

Are 99% of people more terrified of public speaking than death?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course not! But there is a three-minute YouTube video by imlaunchguru on August 9, 2026 (featuring Trevor Ambrose) and titled 99% of People Are More Terrified Of Public Speaking Than Death. Here’s How To Beat It in 30 Days.

 

I blogged about a similarly outrageous claim (lacking any backing via surveys) in a post on February 7, 2017 titled Bursting a hilariously overblown claim that 99% of the world fears public speaking. And there was another even worse one in another post on May 21, 2017 titled The most arrogantly overblown statement about fear of public speaking. That one had said:

 

“99% of the population is afraid of public speaking, and of the remaining 1%, 99% of them have nothing original and interesting to say.”

 

 

Figures are an important part of scientific ‘show and tell’

 

 

 

 

  

There is a brief article by Julija Hmeljak and Kirsty Cooper in Disease Models & Mechanisms magazine on November 8, 2023 titled The importance of figures in scientific ‘show and tell’. Its topic mostly is articles for magazines, but it also will be useful for preparing speeches. Eight tips and tricks are discussed in Box 1 and can be paraphrased as follows:

 

Structure graphics logically. Keep in mind that each figure tells a story. Make information flow logically by using a left-to right and top-to -bottom arrangement. Avoid arranging in a circle - unless you are showing a cycle or presenting a mind map (spider diagram).

 

Help readers perceive the graphic structure by using a clear hierarchy in your text. Use larger and/or bold font for headings and sub-headings. Bold is preferable to underlining.

 

Your fonts should be large enough to be easily read and have good contrast with the background.

 

Avoid overcrowding your images, and remove unnecessary details.

 

Minimize text, and include recognizable landmarks.

Use colors mindfully. Use the same color to group objects or show relationships, and use different shapes to distinguish individual elements.

Beware of red-green and blue-yellow color combinations which can confuse the color blind.

Be consistent within and between figures.

An image was cropped from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Living your life sideways - The joy of orthogonality

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page for Orthogonality says that:

 

“In mathematics, orthogonality is the generalization of the geometric notion of perpendicularity. Although many authors use the two terms perpendicular and orthogonal interchangeably, the term perpendicular is more specifically used for lines and planes that intersect to form a right angle, whereas orthogonal is used in generalizations, such as orthogonal vectors or orthogonal curves.”

 

There is an interesting 2026 book by Ian Bogost titled The Small Stuff: How to lead a more gratifying life. A Google Books preview from it goes through page 27. The book has the following sections and chapters:

 

Preface: What If Contentment Were Easy?

 

The Sensory Enchantment of Everyday Life

C01 The Small Stuff 7

C02 Happiness, Satisfaction, Gratification 20

C03 The Problem with Marshmallows 28

 

How You Got Dematerialized

C04 The Decline of Sensory Life 43

C05 Why You Can’t Open Doors 50

C06 You Can’t Control What You Do Not Own 58

C07 Working Anywhere Means Working Nowhere 66

C08 Every Place Is the Same Now 75

C09 Adrift in the Data Sea 83

C10 Automated Away 92

 

The Path Back to Gratification

C11 Reclaiming Sensory Life 105

C12 Heap Wonder on Everything 115

C13 Get a Haircut Every Day 126

C14 Talk About Anything 137

C15 Keep Some Junk Around 147

C16 Live Your Life Sideways 155

C17 Spend Your Day in Its Moments 164

 

Conclusion: Build a Relationship with Everything 177

 

In Chapter 16, Live Your Life Sideways, Ian says on page 157:

 

“A concept from mathematics, which my colleagues in engineering, computer science, and even game design have borrowed, can help explain that feeling and offer lessons for applying it to gratification in your downtime. The idea is called orthogonality, and its just a fancy name for a perpendicular – such as a line intersecting another at a ninety-degree angle. Applied to more concrete domains than geometry, one thing is orthogonal to something else when it contains distinct elements that complement but do not interfere with those of the other.

 

Consider the difference between chess and checkers. Both games are played on the same grid. In checkers, every piece moves in an identical way, forward in a diagonal. Even when you ‘king’ a checker by reaching the other side of the board, it still moves in the same way, just backward, too. But in chess, the pieces move in varied ways. Pawns and rooks can both move forward, but rooks can move forward as much as they want, until reaching an obstacle. Bishops can move diagonally. And knights move in that distinctive, L-shaped way -they can also jump over pieces.

 

The relationships between the different chess pieces are orthogonal. Rooks and pawns move along one axis, bishops along another one, the queen and king across both, and the knights according to a different logic entirely. The combination of all these creates the strategic depth that characterizes chess. Whether it is a better game than checkers is not the point; rather, orthogonality makes chess feel bigger, richer, and more complex.

 

Orthogonality can help explain all sorts of phenomena, even some that are not deliberately designed to be orthogonal. Fashion works well when it is orthogonal. If you want to look good but vary your dress for different styles, seasons, and situations, then you want a supply of separates and accessories that you can combine in creative ways. You can dress down a pair of jeans with a T-shirt and sneakers or dress it up with a shirt or blouse and a jacket or sweater, along with a pair of pumps, boots, or loafers. Capsule wardrobes, which first became popular in the 1970s, have been revived as a way to mix and match more easily, economically, and ecologically. Capsule outfits are composed of core pieces, often in neutral tones, that can be worn alongside colorful or style-specific accents.

 

Food, too, benefits from orthogonality. Sweet things are beneficially offset by saltiness; fatty ones by the freshness of citrus. A gooey or wobbly dish such as flan is improved by a complementary crunchy element, such as a shard of toffee. Delightful though a schnitzel or a steak might be, their brownness benefits from accompaniment by creamy white mashed potatoes and a forest of green asparagus. Contrast is good. A thing is better alongside its complement. Your life is better when it includes a version of itself done sideways.”

 

Page 161

“….Othogonality – the art of living your life sideways – is not meant to create hard rules or unbreakable guidelines. As you search for gratifying complements in your life, focus less on the output of the practices you undertake than on the moment-to-moment experience of doing them. That’s where orthogonality lives, in the sensory encounters, not in the work or leisure itself.” 

 

 

 

Having 17.5% of kindergartners in Idaho opting out of vaccinations is not a victory, instead it is a tragedy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an awful article by Sarah Clendenon at the Idaho Freedom Foundation on September 3, 2026 titled Victory! Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Work in Medical Freedom Shows Nearly 1/5th of Kindergartners Opt-Out of Vaccinations, per CDC. (There also is a brief YouTube video titled Idaho leads the nation in vaccine exemptions!)

 

Why? The Wikipedia page on Herd Immunity says that for measles a threshold of 92 to 94% is needed. Look at the map of which states have various vaccination rates (shown above) from a September 4, 2026 CDC web page about Measles Cases and Outbreaks. Just 11 states have over 95%, 20 states have 90 to 94%, 18 states have less than 90%, and data for the remaining two were not available. Idaho already has less than 90%. We don’t have herd immunity now, and things probably will get worse.

 

The sixth paragraph of the Freedom Foundation article claims:

 

“Measles is a mild, short-term infection. Contracting it naturally creates true, lifelong immunity. This is why our grandparents were all exposed and recovered easily in about 7 to 10 days.” 

 

An article by Jamie Hansen at the Stanford Medicine News Center on May 12, 2025 titled Five things to know about measles, and its risk to the young and old says to the contrary that:

 

“During the current U.S. measles outbreak, nearly one in five children under 5 with measles has been hospitalized.”

 

The about web page for the Idaho Freedom Foundation reveals that Sarah Clendenon also is the Director of Legislative Affairs at another dubious organization, Health Freedom Idaho. It says her education background is not medical, rather it:

 

“…includes an Associate's Degree in Criminal Justice Administration and Bachelor Degree work in Public Law and Political Philosophy at Boise State University.”

 

To learn more about measles, we instead should look at an article by Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine on May 6, 2026 titled Measles Surging As Vaccine Rates Drop. There also is a four-page article by Diego R. Hijano, Walter A. Orenstein, and Carlos R. Oliviera in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society for October 17, 2025 titled Measles Resurgence and the Fragility of Herd Immunity: Implications for Pediatric Infectious Disease Practice. Figure 1 has another map showing both vaccination rates and case counts, including a county map for Texas.

 

And there is still another article by Kevin Richert at IdahoEdNews on July 30, 2026 titled ‘A concern, but not a surprise:’ A resurgence of measles looms over Idaho schools.

 

 

Liquid stage fright and sticky stage fright are discussed in an interesting book from Sarah Ruhl titled Lessons from My Teachers

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, a poet, and a teacher (professor at the Yale School of Drama). In 2025 she published an interesting book of essays titled Lessons from My Teachers: From Preschool to the Present. One essay, on pages 116 to 118, is titled Stage fright and mothers and daughters:

 

“When she was six, my daughter Anna was invited to participate in a small violin recital in our friend’s apartment in our Brooklyn building. Anna waited her turn, walked to the front of the room, picked up her bow, played three notes, looked around, and froze. Then she fled the room, leaving her violin behind, and ran up two floors to our apartment, where she hid behind a chair. I ran up the stairs to follow her. Anna wouldn’t speak to me, but she wrote notes, which she passed to me from behind the chair.

 

After an hour, she emerged, and told me that there were two kinds of stage fright: sticky stage fright and liquid stage fright. She said, ’Liquid stage fright is when you feel scared before you go onstage, but once you begin to act, the fright falls off you like liquid.’

 

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘And what about sticky stage fright?’

 

‘Sticky stage fright,’ she said. ‘is when the fear stays on you in front of the audience and can’t be rubbed out.’

 

‘And you had sticky stage fright just now?’ I asked.

 

She nodded solemnly.

 

I guess sticky stage fright runs in my family. One time a theater threatened to put me on stage in my play Eurydice because the leading lady had vocal-rest issues and we had no understudy. I was the only one who knew the lines. I was beside myself with anxiety. Thankfully a shot of cortisol came at the right moment for our leading lady, and I did not have to go onstage.

 

My father often told us a story about his first piano recital, when he was playing ‘I Got Rhythm’ at the age of seven in Davenport, Iowa. He got onstage, played the first four notes, froze, and ran out of the room. His mother made him come back and apologize to the whole auditorium. Apparently, he never played the piano after that.

 

Stage fright is such a bizarre phenomenon; we do something quite happily without being watched, and then while being specifically watched, we cease to function. Before having children, my mother acted constantly in Chicago, no stage fright. After having children, she would go onstage and her heart would pound and she would feal clammy, like she was going to die. She learned later that these episodes were anxiety attacks. They kept her from the stage for a good fifteen years.

 

When I was twelve, we were about to go on a family trip to New York City on the train from Chicago to see theater and take in the sights. My mother longed to go to New York City and devour plays. But this time, when we arrived at Union Station in Chicago, about to board, my mom started hyperventilating. She sat down and breathed into a paper bag. Her heart pounded, and she felt like she was going to die. It was quickly determined that my father would take my sister on the trip, and I would stay home with my mother, her helpmeet. I gravitated toward the caretaker role even at that tender age. My mom and I ate brownies for breakfast, popcorn for lunch, and watched movies all day. I was a little wistful for Neew York City, imagining my sister roller-skating in Central Park. Now that I’m about my mother’s age, I wonder, more psychologically, what induced her panic attack en route to New York city. Was it that she was anxious to see the theater she probably wished she could have been acting in?  

 

I have a photograph of my mother from her college years, looking glamorous and joyful, visiting New York City, the lights of Broadway on her face. She would have loved to have lived and acted in New York City. When she married my father and moved to Chicago from Iowa, professional theater in Chicago was just beginning, and my mother acted in that fledgling scene with great excitement, doing the work of Megan Terry and Maria Irene Fornes, acting in plays that protested the Vietnam War.

 

She continued to act when we were little, but took a solid break from acting for a decade, because of stage fright. In retrospect, I wonder if she was having hormonally induced panic attacks during menopause; she never suffered from them after her fifties. She started acting professionally again in her seventies, never lacking for roles. No more sticky stage fright.

 

Sometimes mothers watch their daughters perform, but their daughters want privacy; and sometimes daughters want their mothers to perform bring brave.”

 

The cartoon was adapted from pouring coffee and a glue stick at OpenClipArt.  

 

 

Three joys that you can count on to bring you success

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 12, 2001 the Vice President of Boeing, Scott E. Carson, gave a speech at the Washington State University commencement titled Three Joys You Can Count On. The full text by the speechwriter, Andrew B. Wilson, is in a web page at Andrew B. Wilson Communications with that same title. He said:

 

“….What is the opposite of fear of the unknown, or fear of change?

 

You wouldn’t be wrong if you said ‘courage.’ But I am going to say ‘joy.’ Why joy? It matches up with fear of the unknown in the following ways: Where one denies, the other affirms; where one inhibits, the other inspires; where one contains, the other overflows.  

 

Here are the three joys that you can count on to bring you success in your future endeavors. They will never fail you or let you down in any way.

 

The first is joy in work. Whenever I read about some multimillionaire retiring at the age of 35, I shake my head in disbelief. Why would anyone in his right mind want to quit working? Work is, or ought to be a superior form of play – not only useful, but altogether stimulating and fun. I applaud the attitude of Isaac Asimov, the great science fiction writer, who had more than 500 books to his credit. ‘If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live,’ Asimov said, ‘I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.’

 

Next is joy in learning. Regardless of age, learning is always the key to improvement … the key to self-improvement and to the improvement of everything you touch. As the anthropologist Jacob Bronowski has written, ‘The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better.’

 

Third is joy in others, and this is absolutely essential to the other two. For instance, to experience the joy of learning, you must be open to and strongly interested in the ideas and thoughts of others. In much the same way, you will find no joy in work if you cannot communicate and cooperate with others. Nothing is worse than knowing engineering and only being able to talk with other engineers, or knowing accounting and only being able to talk with other accountants. To cause things to happen, you must learn to think and talk in the language of disciplines and professions other than your own.”

 

The smiley emoticons were adapted from this yellow one at OpenClipArt.