#Mylearnings: SPEECHLESS- How to get your communication right?

"Blessed are the creative people: poets, misfits, mystics, painters, troubadours: For they teach us to see the world through different eyes."

- Jacob Nordby

The classroom is light up. A man enters and fifty pairs of eyes lock on to his face. He is later joined by his co-speaker. There is palpable excitement in the classroom. He clears his throat and starts to speak.

What happens next is mind-boggling.

The fifty plus brains in the heads of fifty plus independent individuals start to behave very strangely. They begin to sync up. A magic spell weaved by two men washes over each person. They gasp together. Laugh together. And as they do so, something else happens. Rich, neurologically encoded patterns of information inside the brains of two men are somehow copied and transferred to these fifty plus brains in the audience. These patterns will remain in those brains for the rest of their lives, potentially impacting their behaviour years into the future. 

The two men are weaving wonder, not witchcraft. But their skills are as potent as any sorcery.

The two men I am talking about is Roshan Abbas, one of India's finest orators and storytellers, Managing Director at Encompass Events. And Siddharth Banerjee one of India's leading business Executives and an award-winning global marketer. When I was informed about Roshan Abbas conducting a workshop named SPEECHLESS focused on public speaking. I was super excited to meet him. I have been following him on twitter and I remember reading about him n Miss Malini's book #ToTheMoon- How I blogged my way to Bollywood and the way she explained how he mentored her in her initial years as a Radio Jockey.

The first line by Siddharth Banerjee piqued my interest when he mentioned the 3 R's by the Greeks which are Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and the fourth "R" was rhetoric which was added later, which implied the ability to speak and also to persuade someone with the power of an idea. Followed by Roshan asked all of us our preferred social media handles. The beginning of the session had an element of engagement and we all were excited about more to come.

Roshan spoke about his journey, about his errors and trails and finally how he established himself and thus began SPEECHLESS the workshop.

S- Set Up

While narrating his journey, Roshan emphasized how he was rejected by a producer in Delhi after seeing his pictures and by saying him that his face was meant for Radio. He spoke about how his days in radio enabling him to Set up, which he explained basically to start out strong which can also be applied in Public Speaking. When we are about to speak it is crucial to pay attention to the setup. Making sure that the microphone is set up, that we make an effort to know our audience, etc 

P- Prepared

Siddharth makes a point that gets us thinking. According to him, we take communication for granted. We think about the clothes to wear, the bag to take but How many times do we think about presenting ourselves on a normal day or for a class. He says that this presentation refers to What do you feed yourself every day? What kind of information you consume? Here, Roshan adds an interesting example How he spends two hours every morning searching on random topics to feed his curiosity adding to his repository. Which is indeed a significant learning for each one of us. Here, he emphasizes the importance of being prepared. They refer to Preparation as finding things in terms of homework is crucial.

E- Eureka Moment 

Each one of us has experienced Eureka Moment and both the Speakers explain how this moment, a single thought can lead to a single idea and how everything can revolve around it.

E- Engaging 

Here, the Speakers asked all of us to take out our notepads and write 2 truths and 1 lie and ask our partners to guess the lie. This activity engaged all of us when they asked us to speak the interesting lies that we encountered adding an element of fun leading to a successful engagement. 

C- Clarity

Roshan says that clarity is crucial, that when working in a team, somebody has to take a stand and think about the flow and the clarity in communication. Someone has to become the Managing Editor. Clear in mind and Clear in communication is one of the essential lessons in public speaking. Basically, your communication should be so clear that can anyone can be interested in it.

H- Highlights and L- Listening 

Highlights can be regarded as silent listening or observing or checking out your audience. To make sure that your audience is still interested. throughout our talk, it is imperative to use the lighthouse technique. As the lighthouse keeps moving the lights similarly we need to start moving, making eye contacts, acknowledging and evaluating the audience and their reactions. 

E- Evoke

After Lunch Speech is indeed a deathbed. The audience will hate you but you have a way to make it engaging simply by evoking emotions and according to Roshan the great way to evoke emotions is through music. He points out an interesting observation asking us to look at Hindi Films and the way they use songs and music in films to evoke emotions. There are moments when there are some technical errors during your presentation and this is indeed a golden opportunity to narrate a few relevant anecdotes to evoke emotions and to keep your audience engaged.

S- Summarize and S- Sign Off

Now, you are almost at the end of your presentation or speech it is imperative to summarize it well and to articulate it well but at the same time leave the audience with a thought. One can use a quote or create few lines. It is crucial to have sign off lines which creates excitement for your next talk which can be a call to action.

To sum up

I truly enjoyed this incredible session. It was quite ambiguous initially as to who is supposed to use these tools, is it a person delivering a speech, a person presenting or for a radio jockey, etc but at the end of the workshop I realised that it can be used by everyone in different situations and definitely on a regular basis and this is truly the essence of this workshop. I really admire Roshan Abbas and Siddharth Banerjee for their remarkable intelligence, a keen observation which is my significant learning. I am thankful to Roshan Sir when he spoke about meeting the Wattpad CEO today morning how he had researched about this person by googling it or looking on facebook trying to find out commonalities for breaking of ice and creating that warmth. I liked the interesting point which was made by Siddharth Sir that how in this digital age, we might face challenges in making our interactions in person more interesting and leaving a great impression. Of course, the session was filled with interesting anecdotes from these Remarkable Orators personal and professional life. But, my key learning of this entire workshop and from what I understand and observed is the key to effective communication and creating an impact is possible when you are genuinely interested in people. I cannot wait to read SPEECHLESS by Roshan Abbas and Siddharth Banerjee. Stay tuned for the book review.

Life is fleeting. Ideas, inspiration and love endure.