{"id":747,"date":"2017-08-28T15:50:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T19:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/?p=747"},"modified":"2017-08-30T18:05:15","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T22:05:15","slug":"my-mentor-joe-grondin-is-now-an-accredited-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/my-mentor-joe-grondin-is-now-an-accredited-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"My Mentor, Joe Grondin, is now an Accredited Speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmasters.org\/membership\/accredited-speaker\" target=\"outta\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Joe-Grondin-earned-AS-2017-08-26.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"697\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-751\" srcset=\"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Joe-Grondin-earned-AS-2017-08-26.jpg 697w, http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Joe-Grondin-earned-AS-2017-08-26-300x172.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 697px) 100vw, 697px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/mark-henkel-recommends-joe-grondin\/\" target=\"_blank\">Joe Grondin is my mentor<\/a>. When you spend any amount of time with me as a public speaker, you immediately know: I think the man is truly amazing.  He has taught me some tremendously powerful insights and skills as a speaker.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.Toastmasters.org\" target=\"_blank\">Toastmasters<\/a>, the top level speaking achievements are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the DTM (<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmasters.org\/education\/distinguished-toastmaster\" target=\"_blank\">Distinguished Toastmaster<\/a><\/em>),<\/li>\n<li>the Top100 and Top10 of the WCPS (<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmastersondemand.com\/index.php\/buy-now\/2017-products\/2017-world-championship-on-demand-87-detail\" target=\"_blank\">World Championship of Public Speaking<\/a><\/em>), and<\/li>\n<li>the A.S. (<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmasters.org\/membership\/accredited-speaker\" target=\"_blank\">Accredited Speaker<\/a><\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The last one is extremely rare and challenging to achieve and receive.  By the end of last year 2016, only <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmasters.org\/membership\/accredited-speaker\/list-of-accredited-speakers\" target=\"_blank\">69 people had ever earned <em>Accredited Speaker<\/em><\/a> achievement.  That&#8217;s right: <em>EVER.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Joe has made it to the Top100 (SemiFinals) 6 (yes, SIX!) times.  Of those 6 occasions, he made it to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmastersondemand.com\/index.php\/buy-now\/2016-products\/2016-world-championship-dvd-detail\" target=\"_blank\">Top10 of WCPS<\/a>, not once, but TWICE.  To make it to the Top100 is an amazing accomplishment all by itself.  Obviously, Joe has &#8220;blown those out of the water.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Because Joe Grondin has been competing all these years, he was (understandably) not able to commit to the one final requisite of one-year of District leadership service for the DTM achievement.  This year, as he chose to not compete (for a larger reason to which I will get in a moment), he is currently fulfilling that last requirement during this year of 2017-2018.  Hence, Joe will also be a DTM, <em>Distinguished Toastmaster<\/em>, by July 2018.<\/p>\n<p>But more than any of that, Joe has gone way beyond those two great victorious achievements.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, August 26, 2017, at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmastersondemand.com\/index.php\/buy-now\/2017-products\/2017-virtual-ticket-detail\" target=\"_blank\">Toastmasters International Convention in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,<\/a> Joe gave his final presentation in seeking to be allowed to earn the <em>Accredited Speaker<\/em> award.  (This was an obviously considerable reason why he chose not to compete this year!) Anyway, his presentation <em>rocked!<\/em>  When the event was completed, 6 of the 7 candidates had successfully achieved the award.  Thereby, Joe became one of now only <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmasters.org\/Resources\/Member-Spotlight?c=%7B1E8D9398-3FDF-4364-8079-2D27BD9C2A9E%7D\" target=\"_blank\">75 people to have ever earned this prestigious professional speaker award, the <em>Accredited Speaker<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You may see the actual presentation that Joe Grondin gave to earn this award! Simply order the on-demand video of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmastersondemand.com\/index.php\/buy-now\/2017-products\/2017-accredited-speaker-finals-detail\" target=\"_blank\">2017 Accredited Speaker Finals<\/a>.  Of the 7 candidates, Joe was Speaker #4. His introduction begins at 01:16:35 on the on-demand video. <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, Joe is amazing.  Yeah, I know, I keep saying that.  Well,&#8230;.. HE IS!<\/p>\n<p>Congratulations to Joe Grondin for all of his amazing achievements, especially now that he has achieved this truly rare pinnacle.  I am both blessed to learn from and honored to call as my mentor,<br \/>\n<strong>Joe Grondin, <em>Accredited Speaker<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.toastmasters.org\/membership\/accredited-speaker\" target=\"outta\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Joe-Grondin-earned-AS-2017-08-26.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"697\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-751\" srcset=\"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Joe-Grondin-earned-AS-2017-08-26.jpg 697w, http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Joe-Grondin-earned-AS-2017-08-26-300x172.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 697px) 100vw, 697px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Grondin is my mentor. When you spend any amount of time with me as a public speaker, you immediately know: I think the man is truly amazing. He has taught me some tremendously powerful insights and skills as a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[43,42,5,39,38,41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771,"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions\/771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markhenkelspeaker.com\/toastmaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}