What shape should your next year be? Modeling dough as a metaphorical prop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently saw a six-minute YouTube video by Brooke Samples from January 29, 2017 titled Props for speeches. After 3 -1/2 minutes she says:    

 

“And last week, at the Palm Beach Advanced Toastmasters, we had the Play-Doh metaphor, as far as what do you want your year to look like? You have the opportunity to shape it whatever way you want to. You can make it a cookie man or something. This kind of prop makes your point more memorable. 

 

Cathy Frasier could have spoken all night long about the opportunities 2017 allows us. But this one visual of Play-Doh and how you make it this way, you don’t like it, you wad it up and start over.

 

I like that so much that when I was in Houston last week speaking to sixty service managers, parts managers, general managers, and controllers, I got every one of them their own Play-Doh, And I put a reminder on there that your future is flexible, and if it doesn’t work out, start over again, and it’s fun.”      

 At a local Dollar Tree store I found ten-ounce bags of generic modeling dough like the yellow shown above. If you wanted to hand out cans to your audience, then at Amazon there is a pack of ten 2-ounce cans for $7.99.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another way to begin using this as a prop would be to shape the dough into a question mark, as is shown above.