Project 10: INSPIRE YOUR AUDIENCE
Objectives:
* To inspire the audience by appealing to noble motives and challenging the audience to achieve a higher level of beliefs or achievement.
* Appeal to the audience’s needs and emotions, using stories, anecdotes and quotes to add drama.
* Avoid using notes.
* TIME: Eight to ten minutes.
Neil Armstrong lands on the moon.
Hillary and tenzing climbs mount everest.
Sachin tendulkar scores his 100th century.
Viswanath Anand wins yet another world chess championship.
ARRahman wins two oscars.
And my friend and colleauge next door gets promotion hike and a beautiful girl.
Respected president, TM of the day fellow and future toastmasters Good evening. These are some good news about great people.- Super achievers. When I hear such news I feel happy for a second , jealous for a moment, ambitious for a while and then run for lame excuses on why Its fine for me to not attempt any such things. I always draw a line of demarcation between me the common man and they the super achievers. Even if have dream or desire to step in to moon inherently there is a voice saying to myself “No Deepak .. You cannot..You aren’t born to a astronaut.!” You dont have the magical talent to compose Jai Ho!
Ladies and gentleman whats going on in my mind is a Talent crisis. A crisis which has arised because we are not tapping our individual strengths and that we do not yet have enough faith in each person’s ability to punch above his or her weight. We love reading many such news about super achievers. We love being spectators when such super achievements are made but when it comes for us to enter the arena we have doubts on our own ability. We doubt our ability to attain a goal of such heights. We dream big but hardly do believe in them.We are afraid of failures.
People fail more often than they succeed. Hence they say its good to learn from failures. But at the same time we overlook success and read very little from them. Rather misinterpret success and attribute their success to a abstract term called talent.
Now say if I have a dream of being a astronaut, what stops me from entering a ISRO or NASA. I dont have good grades at college. But little did I know that Neil Armstrong the moon man was also an average student while at college. He secured admission into MIT the temple of knowledge. But he happens to be the first graduate from his family and the only engineer whom he know advised him not to go too far for his studies and hence he took up a school near to his place which offered him a scholarship on a condition that he has to serve three years in navy after completing his studies. That made him chose aeronautical engineering and that how he started flying. But he didnt have an iota of ambition to Land on moon. Do you know that the man who stood on Mount Everest was the weakest kid in his class?
They were all in diverse fields spreading across various countries but there was a common denominator which divides successful people from unsuccessful. Practise. Practise Practise. On a average it takes 10 000 hours to make a successful grandmaster.
A good practice is something where you have a well defined goal to aim at, the task should neither be too easy nor be totally out of your reach. And you should have the opportunity to make and correct mistakes. And some kind of feed back mechanism to correct your faulty steps.Above all a desperate need to succeed.
You dont get this inside paid classrooms or in the cosy comfortness of a multi millionaire .SlumDog millionaire AR Rahman started flirting with the keyboards when he was 11. His dad who run the business of renting music instruments died when ARR was young and hence ARR came in to the trade. He was in the crew of illaya raja. There were so many who were so in those days. But what made arr stand apart. It his passion for music and the rigurous practice he put in. In his book “OutLiers” Malcom Gladwell mentions that it takes on an average 10000 hours to make a grandmaster.
Same is the case with super achievers.Their practice would be slow, painstaking and error-focused.Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.
You hardly can err after having such a practice.With a focussed vision and deliberate practice you are sure to hit the success. Oh 10000 hours to be a grandmaster , typing programs from age 5 and keyboard from age 11 cricket from age 4 .. Does it what takes for a super achivement. I am 24 and I dont have a concrete vision? Is my life doomed because I dont have a vision? Am I going to be a looser till death.
No a vision is an enlightenment. Things remain the same before and after this lightning. But its we who get changed by this sudden enlightenment. There is a famous zen saying “Before enlightment Chop wood carry water” After enlightenment chop wood carry water. No matter what you do do it with perfection and consciousness. Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. Success is when preparation meets opportunity. Be ready with the ticket called practice so that you dont miss the opportunity bus which takes you to the destination called success. No matter what you do today , you can take something out of it for your tomorrows work.
There are people who work hard and stay mediocre. Its because they work hard within their comfort zone taking predictable steps. When you have a big dream you must be prepared to bet on certain unpredictables. Victory or Success doesnt happen all the time. But yet its those failures which increases your value for success. Life is a roller coaster ride.Not a merry go round.
But no matter whats going around. Apply yourself to what you do fully. Going to bed everynight with a feeling that I am better man than what I was in the morning gives you a healthy sleep. Practice not only makes us perfect but confident. Toastmasters is a testimonial to it. I would like to mention a little about TM Anupam here. Public Speaking is a challenge to all of us. But for this man even speaking was a challenge. People were apprehensive about his speaking skills and raised their eyebrows whenever he took the stage. But he used every opportunity to hone his skills and we raise our eyebrows even now in awe and inspiration.
For those who had been part of your cultural shows you will be aware of the rigorous practise they would have put in before the show. A musician practices his scores over and over again. A dancer goes over and over the steps necessary for fluidity. An actor plays his part till he masters his dialogues. What we see at the end is just the refined final output. We the audience arent aware of the umpteen rehearsals which went beyond the screen.
It is perhaps attitude, not aptitude, that gives us altitude in life. Practice beats skills. Think of the never die attitude of Rocky, Think of the perseverance of Mahatma gandhi, think of the tolerance shown by Mother Thersa. Thats what makes them what we are and that is what it takes for us to be a super achiever. Practice makes 0000you to utilise your potentials to the fullest which can transform your self. People aroud get inspired and emulate you.The next time when you hesitate to take some thing give a thought on how much you have practicer. Talent is overated .Practise is overlooked.. Anything is possible. Nothing is out of the reach of our hands…! No matter where you are the opportunity rests on your shoulders to change your lives and change the world we live in it.
Posted by Deepak 
Nuggets of nonsense 