I love using toasts and tributes to celebrate special and important people in my life.
In fact, toasts and tributes have been a consistent theme throughout my career — and in my personal life — I’m known as the “Toast Master”.
It is in my DNA, but also something I’ve honed over the years in my various leadership roles; delivering presentations, emceeing events, celebrating team successes and a being member of a Toastmasters club.
I see the completion of a project, or the milestone birthday or anniversary of a friend, colleague or family member as an opportunity to pause and reflect on accomplishments and good times together.
Of course, it’s not easy coming up with meaningful toasts and tributes.
Having just gone through the planning and hosting of a 20-year tribute celebration where I co-delivered an entertaining toast, I thought I’d share what’s worked for me in the past while the topic is still fresh.
- Find a partner (or committee) to help you with the planning and brainstorming. Having more than one mind increases creativity exponentially, and helps gauge how ideas will land for bigger groups – something you think is incredibly funny might land flat for others, but something two or more of you come up with is more likely to have a better outcome. I’ve also found the planning sessions (aka happy hours) to be as much fun as the actual event! Especially when you choose the right planning partners!
- Create a folder to store notes, pictures, quotes, cartoons, etc. that you might want to use someday. Periodically jot down notes about the highs/lows of a project or team experience and save them in this folder, then when the time comes, flip through it for inspiration.
- Use pictures, cartoons and/or graphics to depict the challenges, conflict, heroes or solutions. Visual graphics are way more interesting than words and can evoke meaning and emotion in just a glance. I once used a cartoon scene of Mothra fighting Godzilla to depict the negotiation process of a big deal I was part of. The two leaders involved found it hilarious, a fun way to represent their interactions without revealing sensitive details.
- Build off the classics – “Twas the night before…” or “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”, or “Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was…” are all great opening lines and themes for telling your story.
- “A Top Ten List” is always a good starting point, and if you’re short on time can also be a great toast. Think about what the person is most known for, their actions, their sayings, their accomplishments. For a favorite colleague’s birthday, I photocopied a cartoon drawing of a conference room setting, removed the original words and pasted in her top ten classic lines. She was tickled by how it captured her personality and proudly displays it on her wall.
Of course one of the best tributes I can think of is to capture a person’s legacy and preserve it in a book. Obviously this is another whole level of tribute, one that is fitting for a retirement or significant life event. And that requires time, planning and expertise.
If you are looking for a unique, meaningful way to honor or pay tribute someone you work with or a special loved one, I offer Complimentary Curator Sessions to see if our working together is a fit.
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You might also enjoy my FREE GIFT — “The Hidden Power of Story Telling”.
