There are a lot of people with a lot of talent who fail to establish credibility with their audience because they’re afraid to brag about themselves or because when they brag about themselves, they look like jerks. They dig themselves into a hole which sometimes they get out of, sometimes they don’t.

This Saturday I’ll be giving a mini-session at the District 2 Toastmasters Conference, in Bellevue, Washington on “The Art of Bragging.” In addition to the standard hour long educational sessions, this year our District is running mini-sessions. I’ll give my talk for ten to twelve minutes four times during the course of an hour along with a number of other presenters. Attendees will circulate around to whatever topics they’re most interested in.

I’ve given it as a talk to my club already and (not to brag) it was well received, so I’ve taken the feedback I got and further refined it. It’ll be fun and informative I promise. If you’re at the Conference I hope we can meet up.

I didn’t want to give a talk on bragging without calling some attention to myself - and away from the other mini-session presenters I’m competing against. So I’ve whipped up a simple white board showing some of my favorite bragging quotes. I modified the idea from my good natured beauracrat.

And no, I don’t plan on bragging about my penmanship!

Finally, I actually listened to my own advice and realized that I’m doing a lousy job bragging about myself on this blog. Ah, irony! Rest assured that I’ll fix it in time - as soon as I master the “Art of Not Being Lazy.”