Episode #57 - Getting To The Big Stage More Ways Than One: An Interview With Rich Hopkins

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Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

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determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

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This is Speaking From The Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:11

Welcome back to episode number 57 of Speaking From the Heart, where in the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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and he continues to pursue his dream pastime as a professional

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speaker and presentation coach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

he's authored three books: 00:01:38

Win, Place and Show; Go Ahead and Laugh;

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and Go Ahead and Laugh Volume Two.

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He's been married for over 24 years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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bit more about Rich and who he truly is.

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

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All right.

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We're here with Rich Hopkins.

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Rich, thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

Rich: 00:02:46

I'm glad to be here.

Joshua: 00:02:47

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:02:47

Hey, thanks so much for being here too.

Joshua: 00:02:50

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

Joshua: 00:02:54

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

Joshua: 00:02:58

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

Joshua: 00:03:03

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

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

Joshua: 00:03:13

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

Joshua: 00:03:17

bit about that with the audience.

Joshua: 00:03:20

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

Joshua: 00:03:23

some important body parts on you.

Rich: 00:03:27

I am.

Rich: 00:03:28

I am.

Rich: 00:03:28

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

Rich: 00:03:33

They never figured out exactly what it was.

Rich: 00:03:35

They were never able to diagnose it.

Rich: 00:03:38

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

Rich: 00:03:43

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

Rich: 00:03:48

some of them they had never done before.

Rich: 00:03:51

They tried them on me.

Rich: 00:03:52

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

Rich: 00:03:55

quite the technology we have now.

Rich: 00:03:58

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

Rich: 00:04:06

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

Rich: 00:04:09

That'd be nice.

Rich: 00:04:11

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

Rich: 00:04:18

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

Rich: 00:04:25

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

Rich: 00:04:30

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

Rich: 00:04:36

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

Rich: 00:04:43

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

Rich: 00:04:50

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

Rich: 00:04:59

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

Rich: 00:05:05

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

Rich: 00:05:12

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

Rich: 00:05:19

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

Rich: 00:05:24

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

Rich: 00:05:30

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

Rich: 00:05:38

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

Rich: 00:05:47

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

Rich: 00:05:55

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

Rich: 00:06:00

disabled than I am with a prosthetic.

Rich: 00:06:05

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

Rich: 00:06:08

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

Rich: 00:06:15

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

Joshua: 00:06:21

Did you think that really impacted you though, especially

Joshua: 00:06:25

growing up having this birth defect?

Joshua: 00:06:27

Do you think that other people judged you differently?

Rich: 00:06:32

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

Rich: 00:06:35

things if that wasn't what was going on.

Rich: 00:06:38

I mean, I like comic books.

Rich: 00:06:40

I was a Star Trek fan.

Joshua: 00:06:42

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

Joshua: 00:06:45

My mom turned me on to Star Trek.

Rich: 00:06:48

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

Rich: 00:06:51

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

Rich: 00:06:55

be too creative about to pick on.

Rich: 00:06:58

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

Rich: 00:07:02

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

Rich: 00:07:10

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

Rich: 00:07:15

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

Rich: 00:07:20

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

Rich: 00:07:26

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

Rich: 00:07:30

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

Rich: 00:07:35

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

Rich: 00:07:40

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

Rich: 00:07:45

like to have tried to do something.

Joshua: 00:07:48

That is profound in itself for me.

Joshua: 00:07:51

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

Joshua: 00:07:56

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

Joshua: 00:08:00

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

Joshua: 00:08:06

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

Joshua: 00:08:11

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

Joshua: 00:08:15

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

Joshua: 00:08:21

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

Joshua: 00:08:27

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

Joshua: 00:08:32

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

Joshua: 00:08:36

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

Joshua: 00:08:42

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

Joshua: 00:08:46

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

Joshua: 00:08:51

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

Joshua: 00:08:55

what led you into wanting to do that?

Joshua: 00:08:57

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

Joshua: 00:09:01

communication and leadership development?

Rich: 00:09:04

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

Rich: 00:09:07

things when I joined Toastmasters.

Joshua: 00:09:09

Most people don't.

Rich: 00:09:11

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

Rich: 00:09:17

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

Rich: 00:09:21

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

Rich: 00:09:28

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

Rich: 00:09:34

just wanted to be around adults.

Rich: 00:09:36

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

Rich: 00:09:42

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

Rich: 00:09:49

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

Rich: 00:09:54

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

Rich: 00:10:01

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

Rich: 00:10:08

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

Rich: 00:10:12

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

Rich: 00:10:20

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

Rich: 00:10:23

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

Rich: 00:10:30

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

Rich: 00:10:39

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

Rich: 00:10:46

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

Rich: 00:10:51

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

Rich: 00:11:02

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

Rich: 00:11:13

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

Rich: 00:11:19

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

Rich: 00:11:26

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

Rich: 00:11:36

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

Rich: 00:11:43

messages that had tremendous value.

Joshua: 00:11:46

Yeah.

Rich: 00:11:46

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

Rich: 00:11:50

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

Rich: 00:11:55

my journey from that point on.

Joshua: 00:11:58

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

Joshua: 00:12:04

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

Joshua: 00:12:09

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

Joshua: 00:12:13

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

Joshua: 00:12:18

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

Joshua: 00:12:21

maybe had some of that ability to do so.

Joshua: 00:12:25

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

Joshua: 00:12:30

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

Joshua: 00:12:34

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

Joshua: 00:12:40

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

Joshua: 00:12:44

to overcome that in the long run then?

Rich: 00:12:47

Perhaps.

Rich: 00:12:49

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

Joshua: 00:12:56

Mm.

Rich: 00:12:57

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

Rich: 00:13:01

being made fun of when they public speak.

Joshua: 00:13:04

Yeah.

Rich: 00:13:05

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

Rich: 00:13:07

getting up and not doing well.

Rich: 00:13:10

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

Rich: 00:13:14

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

Rich: 00:13:19

you care about what you're doing.

Rich: 00:13:20

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

Rich: 00:13:24

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

Rich: 00:13:31

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

Rich: 00:13:35

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

Rich: 00:13:38

It's not.

Rich: 00:13:39

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

Rich: 00:13:46

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

Rich: 00:13:51

win a best speaker ribbon at the club.

Rich: 00:13:54

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

Rich: 00:14:04

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

Joshua: 00:14:09

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

Joshua: 00:14:12

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

Joshua: 00:14:17

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

Joshua: 00:14:22

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

Joshua: 00:14:26

Speaking, which you took third in 2006.

Joshua: 00:14:30

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

Joshua: 00:14:34

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

Joshua: 00:14:38

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

Joshua: 00:14:44

interested, it's widely available.

Joshua: 00:14:46

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

Joshua: 00:14:51

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

Joshua: 00:14:54

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

Joshua: 00:14:58

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

Joshua: 00:15:03

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

Joshua: 00:15:08

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

Joshua: 00:15:12

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

Joshua: 00:15:17

as you were going through that process.

Joshua: 00:15:19

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

Joshua: 00:15:23

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

Joshua: 00:15:26

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

Rich: 00:15:34

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

Rich: 00:15:39

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

Rich: 00:15:44

semifinals and ended up taking second.

Rich: 00:15:50

The next year I lost at the division round.

Rich: 00:15:55

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

Rich: 00:16:01

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

Rich: 00:16:07

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

Joshua: 00:16:12

Wow.

Rich: 00:16:14

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

Rich: 00:16:17

Championship Public Speaking.

Rich: 00:16:20

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

Rich: 00:16:28

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

Joshua: 00:16:36

Mm-hmm.

Rich: 00:16:37

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

Rich: 00:16:43

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

Rich: 00:16:49

I actually lost that contest.

Rich: 00:16:51

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

Rich: 00:16:55

second went to the district final.

Rich: 00:17:00

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

Rich: 00:17:08

I changed up my speech.

Rich: 00:17:10

I won district.

Rich: 00:17:12

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

Rich: 00:17:18

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

Rich: 00:17:25

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

Rich: 00:17:31

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

Joshua: 00:17:38

Wow.

Rich: 00:17:39

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

Rich: 00:17:45

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

Rich: 00:17:51

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

Rich: 00:17:59

really obviously pushed me to keep trying.

Rich: 00:18:03

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

Rich: 00:18:09

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

Rich: 00:18:17

the movie SPEAK was beginning.

Rich: 00:18:20

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

Rich: 00:18:24

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

Rich: 00:18:30

we practiced clubs, did interviews.

Rich: 00:18:33

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

Rich: 00:18:38

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

Rich: 00:18:45

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

Rich: 00:18:50

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

Rich: 00:18:55

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

Rich: 00:19:02

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

Rich: 00:19:09

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

Rich: 00:19:14

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

Rich: 00:19:19

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

Rich: 00:19:24

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

Joshua: 00:19:31

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

Joshua: 00:19:35

was released in 2011, correct Rich?

Rich: 00:19:38

I believe so.

Rich: 00:19:39

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:19:39

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

Joshua: 00:19:41

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

Joshua: 00:19:45

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

Joshua: 00:19:50

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

Joshua: 00:19:54

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

Joshua: 00:19:58

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

Joshua: 00:20:03

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

Joshua: 00:20:07

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

Joshua: 00:20:13

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

Joshua: 00:20:18

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

Joshua: 00:20:22

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

Joshua: 00:20:27

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

Joshua: 00:20:33

influence on you during that time and why?

Rich: 00:20:38

Boy, that's a tough question.

Rich: 00:20:41

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

Rich: 00:20:47

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

Rich: 00:20:54

than ever before via email, social media.

Rich: 00:20:58

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

Rich: 00:21:04

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

Rich: 00:21:08

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

Rich: 00:21:12

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

Rich: 00:21:20

from Jock, everybody else was brand new.

Rich: 00:21:23

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

Rich: 00:21:30

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

Rich: 00:21:39

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

Rich: 00:21:45

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

Rich: 00:21:49

he was able to set everything up.

Rich: 00:21:52

No group of finalists had ever done that before.

Joshua: 00:21:55

Wow.

Joshua: 00:21:56

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

Joshua: 00:21:58

You really were the pioneer and Martin kind of carried it

Joshua: 00:22:01

through to execute it, right?

Rich: 00:22:03

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:22:04

Wow.

Joshua: 00:22:04

That's awesome, Rich.

Joshua: 00:22:05

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

Rich: 00:22:08

And it was a unique situation.

Rich: 00:22:10

Some of the other contestants really embraced it.

Rich: 00:22:14

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

Rich: 00:22:19

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

Rich: 00:22:26

eye like, "How good is this person?

Rich: 00:22:29

How good is that person?

Rich: 00:22:30

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

Rich: 00:22:34

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

Rich: 00:22:38

Charlie was just having fun and appreciating the moment.

Rich: 00:22:43

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

Rich: 00:22:47

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

Rich: 00:22:54

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

Rich: 00:23:01

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

Rich: 00:23:07

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

Rich: 00:23:12

did not always go down that same road.

Rich: 00:23:18

Now, am I still friends with people?

Rich: 00:23:20

Martin Pressey?

Rich: 00:23:21

Yes.

Rich: 00:23:22

Colin William?

Rich: 00:23:23

Yes.

Rich: 00:23:24

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

Joshua: 00:23:30

Yeah.

Rich: 00:23:30

Old, old time stuff with Toastmasters.

Joshua: 00:23:33

Yeah.

Rich: 00:23:35

Obviously Lashunda has passed.

Rich: 00:23:37

Robert passed.

Rich: 00:23:39

Charlie passed.

Rich: 00:23:41

Loghandran; he and I still communicate.

Rich: 00:23:45

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

Rich: 00:23:50

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

Rich: 00:23:56

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

Rich: 00:24:01

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

Rich: 00:24:05

to the best versus anybody else.

Joshua: 00:24:08

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

Joshua: 00:24:11

influences still to this day?

Rich: 00:24:14

No, they're the greatest friends.

Joshua: 00:24:16

Yeah.

Rich: 00:24:16

The greatest influence was Lashunda herself.

Joshua: 00:24:19

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:24:19

Yeah.

Rich: 00:24:19

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

Rich: 00:24:25

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

Rich: 00:24:32

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

Joshua: 00:24:39

Mm-hmm.

Rich: 00:24:40

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

Rich: 00:24:47

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

Rich: 00:24:53

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

Rich: 00:24:59

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

Rich: 00:25:08

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

Rich: 00:25:14

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

Rich: 00:25:21

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

Rich: 00:25:27

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

Rich: 00:25:36

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

Rich: 00:25:43

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

Rich: 00:25:46

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

Rich: 00:25:51

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

Rich: 00:25:57

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

Rich: 00:26:03

in the movie for dramatic purposes.

Rich: 00:26:07

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

Rich: 00:26:16

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

Rich: 00:26:22

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

Rich: 00:26:29

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

Rich: 00:26:33

speaker or a Toastmaster or competitor.

Joshua: 00:26:37

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

Joshua: 00:26:42

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

Joshua: 00:26:46

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

Joshua: 00:26:50

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

Joshua: 00:26:55

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

Joshua: 00:26:59

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

Joshua: 00:27:04

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

Joshua: 00:27:09

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

Joshua: 00:27:13

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

Joshua: 00:27:17

of competition it is of significance.

Joshua: 00:27:19

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

Joshua: 00:27:23

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

Joshua: 00:27:28

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

Joshua: 00:27:33

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

Joshua: 00:27:38

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

Joshua: 00:27:42

closer to the end of our time here.

Joshua: 00:27:44

You've written three books.

Joshua: 00:27:45

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

Joshua: 00:27:48

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

Joshua: 00:27:53

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

Rich: 00:28:00

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

Rich: 00:28:03

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

Rich: 00:28:07

all three of them are compilations.

Rich: 00:28:09

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

Rich: 00:28:15

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

Rich: 00:28:21

has nine total championship speeches.

Rich: 00:28:24

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

Rich: 00:28:28

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

Rich: 00:28:32

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

Rich: 00:28:38

first book, but I only wrote my stuff.

Rich: 00:28:43

I edited the book.

Rich: 00:28:44

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

Rich: 00:28:50

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

Rich: 00:28:55

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

Rich: 00:29:01

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

Rich: 00:29:05

humorous speeches that people sent to me.

Rich: 00:29:12

They paid to be in the book.

Rich: 00:29:14

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

Rich: 00:29:20

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

Rich: 00:29:28

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

Rich: 00:29:32

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

Rich: 00:29:38

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

Rich: 00:29:41

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

Rich: 00:29:45

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

Rich: 00:29:51

didn't include one of my own speeches.

Joshua: 00:29:54

Wow.

Rich: 00:29:55

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

Rich: 00:30:02

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

Rich: 00:30:06

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

Rich: 00:30:11

charge anybody to be in the book.

Rich: 00:30:13

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

Rich: 00:30:16

what I did in volume one.

Rich: 00:30:19

Volume two is more real world speeches, whereas volume one

Rich: 00:30:22

was a lot of Toastmasters, humorous championship speeches.

Rich: 00:30:26

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

Rich: 00:30:36

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

Rich: 00:30:40

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

Rich: 00:30:47

learning how to be hilarious on stage.

Rich: 00:30:50

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

Rich: 00:30:54

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

Rich: 00:30:59

even a trainer, humor can help you.

Rich: 00:31:03

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

Rich: 00:31:08

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

Rich: 00:31:13

greatest victory in Toastmasters.

Joshua: 00:31:18

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

Joshua: 00:31:21

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

Joshua: 00:31:24

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

Joshua: 00:31:29

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

Joshua: 00:31:32

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

Joshua: 00:31:36

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

Joshua: 00:31:41

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

Joshua: 00:31:46

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

Joshua: 00:31:48

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

Joshua: 00:31:53

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

Joshua: 00:31:57

that you've written about that as well.

Joshua: 00:32:00

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

Joshua: 00:32:04

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

Joshua: 00:32:08

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

Joshua: 00:32:12

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

Joshua: 00:32:17

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

Joshua: 00:32:21

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

Joshua: 00:32:25

weird for me to say, but it really does.

Joshua: 00:32:27

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

Joshua: 00:32:34

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

Joshua: 00:32:39

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

Joshua: 00:32:43

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

Joshua: 00:32:49

You've been a competitor.

Joshua: 00:32:51

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

Joshua: 00:32:55

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

Joshua: 00:33:00

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

Joshua: 00:33:05

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

Joshua: 00:33:10

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

Joshua: 00:33:15

find their voice or find their messaging?

Joshua: 00:33:19

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

Joshua: 00:33:23

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

Joshua: 00:33:29

anxiety that comes along with it?

Joshua: 00:33:31

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

Rich: 00:33:35

There's a few different layers to that.

Rich: 00:33:37

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

Rich: 00:33:40

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

Rich: 00:33:46

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

Rich: 00:33:52

Toastmasters will teach you how to say it.

Rich: 00:33:55

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

Rich: 00:34:02

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

Rich: 00:34:09

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

Rich: 00:34:14

organization that can help you with that.

Rich: 00:34:17

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

Rich: 00:34:22

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

Rich: 00:34:29

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

Rich: 00:34:34

and that's what you have to do.

Rich: 00:34:36

You have to look at your values.

Rich: 00:34:40

Look at what's important to you.

Rich: 00:34:44

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

Rich: 00:34:47

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

Rich: 00:34:52

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

Rich: 00:34:58

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

Rich: 00:35:06

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

Rich: 00:35:11

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

Rich: 00:35:20

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

Rich: 00:35:28

it's not the same message 20 years ago.

Rich: 00:35:30

I'm kind of going in circles.

Rich: 00:35:32

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

Rich: 00:35:40

so worried about finding the right message instead of understanding that

Rich: 00:35:46

the right message is their message.

Rich: 00:35:50

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

Rich: 00:35:56

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

Rich: 00:36:00

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

Rich: 00:36:05

it outside of Toastmasters at least.

Rich: 00:36:07

Does that make sense?

Joshua: 00:36:08

It does make sense.

Joshua: 00:36:10

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

Joshua: 00:36:13

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

Joshua: 00:36:16

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

Joshua: 00:36:20

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

Joshua: 00:36:23

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

Joshua: 00:36:28

people, so thank you for that clarity.

Joshua: 00:36:31

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

Joshua: 00:36:34

to give you the last few minutes.

Joshua: 00:36:35

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

Joshua: 00:36:39

speaking and all kinds of things.

Joshua: 00:36:41

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

Joshua: 00:36:45

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

Joshua: 00:36:48

the great and the legendary Rich Hopkins.

Rich: 00:36:53

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

Joshua: 00:36:57

I think that I gave you an idea.

Joshua: 00:36:59

You can have that.

Joshua: 00:37:00

That's my gift to you too.

Rich: 00:37:02

There we go.

Rich: 00:37:04

I am at richhopkins.com.

Rich: 00:37:06

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

Rich: 00:37:09

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

Rich: 00:37:15

LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram.

Rich: 00:37:18

I'm WinAnywayGuy on Instagram.

Rich: 00:37:20

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

Rich: 00:37:24

richhopkins.com and you can email me.

Rich: 00:37:27

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

Rich: 00:37:33

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

Rich: 00:37:39

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

Rich: 00:37:44

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

Rich: 00:37:48

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

Rich: 00:37:54

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

Rich: 00:37:58

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

Rich: 00:38:02

the years love to work with me.

Rich: 00:38:04

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

Rich: 00:38:09

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

Rich: 00:38:14

I'm richhopkins@gmail.com

Joshua: 00:38:17

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

Joshua: 00:38:20

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

Joshua: 00:38:23

way, but Rich, I really mean this.

Joshua: 00:38:26

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

Joshua: 00:38:29

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

Joshua: 00:38:34

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

Joshua: 00:38:37

of Charlie and for those reasons.

Joshua: 00:38:40

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

Joshua: 00:38:45

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

Joshua: 00:38:50

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

Joshua: 00:38:55

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

Joshua: 00:38:59

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

Joshua: 00:39:04

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

Joshua: 00:39:09

to do that in your career as well.

Joshua: 00:39:12

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

Joshua: 00:39:16

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

Joshua: 00:39:19

wrapped up this interview with Mr.

Joshua: 00:39:20

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

Joshua: 00:39:25

able to share some of his experiences being in Toastmasters before

Joshua: 00:39:29

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

Joshua: 00:39:35

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

Joshua: 00:39:39

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

Joshua: 00:39:43

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

Joshua: 00:39:48

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

Joshua: 00:39:52

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

Joshua: 00:39:57

I think that's what it is with him.

Joshua: 00:39:59

It's about just dealing with it.

Joshua: 00:40:02

Hmm.

Joshua: 00:40:03

Just dealing with it.

Joshua: 00:40:05

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

Joshua: 00:40:09

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

Joshua: 00:40:13

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

Joshua: 00:40:19

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

Joshua: 00:40:24

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

Joshua: 00:40:29

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

Joshua: 00:40:34

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

Joshua: 00:40:39

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

Joshua: 00:40:44

think that's really what this is about.

Joshua: 00:40:46

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

Joshua: 00:40:50

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

Joshua: 00:40:54

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

Joshua: 00:41:01

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

Joshua: 00:41:04

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

Joshua: 00:41:08

would encourage you to listen to it.

Joshua: 00:41:09

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

Joshua: 00:41:13

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

Joshua: 00:41:17

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

Joshua: 00:41:23

It's about building those connections with people.

Joshua: 00:41:26

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

Joshua: 00:41:33

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

Joshua: 00:41:36

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

Joshua: 00:41:40

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

Joshua: 00:41:44

the article that I can read online.

Joshua: 00:41:47

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

Joshua: 00:41:52

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

Joshua: 00:41:58

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

Joshua: 00:42:03

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

Joshua: 00:42:08

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

Joshua: 00:42:13

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

Joshua: 00:42:17

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

Joshua: 00:42:23

it was about looking within yourself.

Joshua: 00:42:26

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

Joshua: 00:42:30

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

Joshua: 00:42:34

those people are that are in our lives.

Joshua: 00:42:38

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

Joshua: 00:42:41

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

Joshua: 00:42:45

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

Joshua: 00:42:50

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

Joshua: 00:42:56

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

Joshua: 00:43:01

are people that are no longer with us.

Joshua: 00:43:04

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

Joshua: 00:43:07

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

Joshua: 00:43:11

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

Joshua: 00:43:15

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

Joshua: 00:43:19

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

Joshua: 00:43:23

the way that you have to overcome.

Joshua: 00:43:25

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

Joshua: 00:43:29

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

Joshua: 00:43:35

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

Joshua: 00:43:38

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

Joshua: 00:43:41

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

Joshua: 00:43:46

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

Joshua: 00:43:51

knowing him and growing up with him.

Joshua: 00:43:54

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

Joshua: 00:43:58

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

Joshua: 00:44:02

he also did a lot of theatrical arts.

Joshua: 00:44:05

He did a lot of storytelling.

Joshua: 00:44:06

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

Joshua: 00:44:11

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

Joshua: 00:44:14

sort of things were going on.

Joshua: 00:44:16

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

Joshua: 00:44:20

about what he needed to prove.

Joshua: 00:44:22

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

Joshua: 00:44:26

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

Joshua: 00:44:30

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

Joshua: 00:44:34

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

Joshua: 00:44:37

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

Joshua: 00:44:42

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

Joshua: 00:44:47

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

Joshua: 00:44:53

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

Joshua: 00:44:58

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

Joshua: 00:45:01

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

Joshua: 00:45:06

some sort of disability, hold him back.

Joshua: 00:45:10

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

Joshua: 00:45:15

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

Joshua: 00:45:19

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

Joshua: 00:45:24

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

Joshua: 00:45:29

so loudly even now, talking about Rich.

Joshua: 00:45:33

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

Joshua: 00:45:37

just show what his true character is.

Joshua: 00:45:41

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

Joshua: 00:45:44

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

Joshua: 00:45:48

It's about really understanding and looking within ourselves the

Joshua: 00:45:51

values of creating that message.

Joshua: 00:45:53

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

Joshua: 00:45:57

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

Joshua: 00:46:02

we could ever create in our entire life.

Joshua: 00:46:06

Charlie believed in me.

Joshua: 00:46:08

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

Joshua: 00:46:12

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

Joshua: 00:46:15

that we touch in our lives.

Joshua: 00:46:18

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

Joshua: 00:46:21

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

Joshua: 00:46:26

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

Joshua: 00:46:30

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

Joshua: 00:46:36

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

Joshua: 00:46:40

We can start to work on the different types of viewpoints

Joshua: 00:46:42

that we could go alongside of it.

Joshua: 00:46:44

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

Joshua: 00:46:49

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

Joshua: 00:46:57

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

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lives, but our professional lives as well.

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

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

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

Joshua: 00:47:21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I think Rich really shows that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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inspiration or even being informational or persuasive for that matter.

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

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

Joshua: 00:48:49

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

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

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

Joshua: 00:49:05

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

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

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

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to do all up there in those pearly gates.

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Thanks for listening to episode number 57 of Speaking From The

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

Outro: 00:49:34

Thanks for listening.

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For more information about our podcast and future shows, search for Speaking From

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The Heart to subscribe and be notified wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Visit us at www.yourspeakingvoice.biz for more information about potential

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services that can help you create the best version of yourself.