15 Things to do before a Presentation

"The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public." —George Jessel

It is uncanny how public speaking can make almost anyone feel uncomfortable. In the past we have explored how preparation (Simple, Unexpected, Story) can make a world of difference. However even the most confident of speakers can feel butterflies before a talk - even a talk they have given hundreds of times. The key is to harness these feelings and make the butterflies work for us. The following Business Insider article looks at 15 things we can do to make that happen. The entire article is worth a read. We wanted to touch on a few of the points. 

Remember and live up to the 3 Audience Truths

• "This audience believes I am the expert."  This is especially true in Balika and Bal Mandal. However even in Kishori/Kishore/Yuva Mandal this can apply. You have read the syllabus, done your home work (SUS). So at the very least, the material is fresh for you. You are also the expert in your opinion and point of view.
• "They want me to succeed." Nobody wants a boring sabha. Everybody wants you to do well because that means they are engaging in something of value. Samp is not relegated to basketball and team building activities. Samp is also rooting for you to give an amazing talk. Even the apathetic of audiences will be happy if your talk goes well.
• "They don't know what I'm going to say." If you forget a prasang or don't say everything exactly as you planned - nobody will know. (Yes the karyakars that previewed your talk will know, but they REALLY want you to do a great talk - it's their seva - so they will be the ones who are most forgiving).

Take several deep belly breathe
Pranayam - it works.

Practice the first (few) minutes of your talk
Nerves tend to dissipate as our talk goes on. If we are going to choke it is going to be right at the beginning (I once messed up the Jai Naad when giving a talk). If we nail the first five minutes - the rest of the talk should follow with flow.

Smile

We never believed this one until we tried it. Smiling relaxes us when we are most stressed. Guy Kawasaki has written a whole book about it, which expounded the idea that true (duchenne) smile is indicated by crows feet at the side of the eyes. More recently Kraft and Pressman replicated an earlier study showing that forces smiling reduces stress. (They made subjects bite chopsticks whereas the previous study had them bite pencils).

Vachanamrut Sarangpur-7

Step 1: Synthesize the simple statement. Below are a few ideas taken from the syllabus.

• Naimisharanya Ksheta exists wherever the Satpurush resides.
• Our greatest enemy is our own mind. 
• Understanding the mahima of God & His Sant naturally reduces our desires.

Step 2: Start the presentation with a shakeup. 

• Identity Theft - Alright, so it's not the kind that happens with stolen credit cards, but start off by describing a challenging situation. The point is to choose a challenge in which we were then inspired by another individual or entity. If that's too hard to decide upon, just use the example provided by the author. When we refocus our identity and realize that we prisoners of our mind, we too can overcome any challenge.
• Help! - This entire episode is filled with examples of people who overcame their weaknesses. In the first segment of this episode of Radiolab, a woman describes her shortcomings with quitting smoking until her friend threatened to donate money to the KKK every time she picked up a cigarette. The frightening thought of the KKK shook this woman out of her addiction. In the second segment, scientist Oliver Sacks experienced difficulty with finishing his book and ended up setting a deadline for himself - one that would result in his death if he failed to meet it. In the third segment, Dr. Vyacheslav Davidov, helps alcoholics overcome their addiction by giving them a pill called "the torpedo" that induces disturbing symptoms if they ever chose to imbibe again.
• Clocky - Getting out of bed can be a drag, but what if there was an alarm clock that forced us out of bed? Clocky does just that and is available for purchase on the market today. To fight the bad habit of not getting out of bed, we force ourselves to fight our sleep, and to fight our other bad habits, we need to force ourselves to fight our mind. 

Step 3: Support the simple statement with stories filled with detail (concrete) and validity (credible). For example, we chose the second simple statement, "Our greatest enemy is our own mind."

• The Force of 99 - Before the money, look at what the neighbors had: little money, time to sleep, eat, or pray. After money, look at the neighbors had: Rs. 99; no time to sleep, eat, or pray. What was the cause of the breakdown of their easygoing lifestyle - money? Not quite. Warren Buffet is the wealthiest man on the planet as of 2011, yet drives his own car without driver or staff and enjoys coming home from work to eat popcorn and watch television. It's not money, but it's our mind's reaction to it. He says, "The happiest people do not necessarily have the 'best' things. They simply appreciate the things they have." If we can defeat our mind, we too can become the man that Warren Buffet is. 
• Without a Blanket - If we've shared a blanket with someone else, we know what kind of tussle erupts in claiming ownership. On that basis, we would figure Pramukh Swami Maharaj to have lost by simply handing the blanket over. However, there is another tussle that happens within our us - the tussle for tolerance. Swamishri tolerated the cold and shows us through this example that we too can withstand our mental limits if we choose to do so.
• The Pumpkin Boy - In Shriji Maharaj's time, there was a Koli boy who wanted to donate a pumpkin to Shriji Maharaj Himself. Shriji Maharaj was happy with this act of bhakti and rewarded the boy with five kilograms of sugar crystals; a nearby Bania saw this exchange and brought a cartload of pumpkins the next day. However, he did not receive the sugar crystals - why? While the boy used devotion to fight his craving, the Bania used devotion as a means to satisfy his craving. Our mind is an enemy that not only deceives but can shift the very nature of our thoughts, so defeating it is vital to our success.

While it may not be easy to fight our mind, we can certainly captivate it with a memorable presentation. Let's take some time to prepare and present accordingly.

Man Dhaaryu Mookvu - Mind Control and Marshmallow

When you were four years old, would you have been able to wait fifteen minutes with a marshmallow staring you in the face for the chance to get another one? This was a classic experiment conducted in late sixties by Walter Mischel a Standford psychology professor. The same experiment was recreated in the video below.

Impossible is Nothing

What can we achieve if we put our mind to it? We have heard this many times in sabha. Many people start with that exact question, which usually is meant to be rhetorical, and in many cases is not, but in general serves no purpose (we do not like those questions).

Presentations dealing with: power of the mind, what we can achieve if we have mahima and nishta in Satpurush, great heights achieved by satsangis throughout history, what our Guru Parampara was able to accomplish to please their own guru - all could benefit from an unexpected and concrete example to set the tone. Enter David Blaine.

Honestly when we read about many of his stunts in the past we thought this guy was a tool. This talked changed our minds. The talk itself is sticky - tells a story with lots of unexpected images and concrete and credible examples. He is emotional about this subject - you can see it means a great deal to him. But the real key in our minds is that he has a simple message: I wanted to accomplish something so I set my mind to it and did it.

This is universal and can be used in almost any presentation. For example when discussing niyams if we start by saying: Bapa has never given us a Chaaturmaas niyam to shove a pipe down our throats so we could stop breathing. But image if he did. Great way to start, we can then talk about how hard that would be, what would it take for us to do it, in fact who in their right minds would do such a thing. Boom - show video (or parts of it). Come back with some concrete examples that show that if we have a focus to break a record we would do it AND if we had the same focus to please Bapa we could do it. Tie in past examples wherein people in the sabha (collectively or individually) did exactly that - both for Satsang and personal goals. You are on your way to a very sticky presentation.

Looking for a sticky ending? Try this. Sing a few lines of Ame sau Swami na balak. Then move to the following. We just sang: marishu Swami ne maate. Looking around this room and the achievements we had in the past, I am sure, no I am certain that everyone here would be willing to die for Swami. But the question is are we willing to make Sabha Sticky for Swami? Are you?

That's a Rap

In this week's presentation, one aspect of panchvishays that we're tasked with explaining is how powerful their influence truly is.

We feel that this point is better illustrated than explained, so show the following video of how one Southwest steward decided to switch things up.



Or this one.




We all have flown before so we know what he is going to say, but the fact that the audience (and we) won't be able to direct their attention elsewhere stands testament to the power of vishays. In this case the steward only engages two vishays: sound (he is talking/singing) and touch (he wants everyone to clap). Notice also that many people cannot even see him so no sights. When all five vishays come at us, kiss self-control goodbye. Panch vishays can be engaged in any activity - good or bad. In this case it is good that everyone reminds themselves of the emergency procedure. However it would be even better if we can engage the panch vishay on Bhagwan and the Satupurush.

With respect to the presentation, Tulsidas could not have been anymore correct. Try using this as an unexpected start to this weeks talk.

How Long is a Football Field?

With the Superbowl racing up and the fate of the mighty match-up between the Saints and Colts hanging in the air, football fever is high, which is why it may seem silly to ask,

"How long is a football field?"

Duh, 100 yards, but is it?

In fact, our perception of distance can be distorted by none other than desires for the panchvishays as evidenced by a study conducted at Cornell University.

In the new study, 90 undergraduates were made to sit at a table across from a full bottle of water. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the "thirsty" condition, and given a serving of pretzels to eat. The rest were placed in the "quenched" condition, and told that they could drink as much of the water as they wanted. Both groups were asked to indicate how long it had been since they last had a drink, how thirsty they were and how appealing the bottle of water was. Finally, they were shown a 1-inch line as a reference, and asked to estimate the distance between their own position and the water bottle.

Here's the kicker.

The participants who had been given pretzels to eat during the experiment reported feeling thirstier than those who drank the water, as would be expected. They also rated the bottle of water as being more desirable, and estimated the distance between themselves and the bottle to be smaller than did the quenched participants. Their state of thirst had influenced their perception of distance, such that the water bottle was perceived to be closer than it actually was. 

Bottom line: Their thirst distorted their perception; the thirsty thought they were closer to the water than they actually were!


In spirituality, we see the same effect. The more we indulge in panchvishays, the farther we begin to perceive ourselves from Satsang and the Satpurush. What began as a small indulgence results in a downhill decline.


Controlling desires proves key to avoiding this disastrous outcome.

So try this example out Sunday, and see how far it goes in explaining this abstract topic.

Attending to the Call of Nature

Distractions are the bane to any sticky sabha be it cell phones, texting, or the random uncle/auntie who walks in only to realize they are in the wrong place. But for some, it's a much more basic problem to which even a balak can relate - the bathroom run!

Now, let's imagine they could only use the stall below - would they even consider it? Suddenly, it can wait.

No joke, this stall is 100% legit in the name of art and was shared by a fellow reader. However, it's not all that bad because in reality, nobody can see you from the outside. The picture below shows a woman about to enter this bathroom. Basically you can see outside but everyone on the outside can only see their own reflection. Now ask yourself a questions - would you still go?

Going to the bathroom is one of the most basic things, we have been doing it literally all of our lives. But if we change the setting even a little - it becomes difficult, we become uncomfortable. We become aware of our body and ourselves. This is the power of maya.

A fellow sticky sabha presenter sent us the following link about this bathroom. It turns out that this viral email claiming that this bathroom is in Houston is a hoax. We find it interesting that the fake story of the bathroom is making the email forward rounds, but the real story of the bathroom as an art installation does not get any email forwarding love.

In the same way we hear about maya many times in sabha, but it does not get forwarded to our memory, it does not stick. Try showing this bathroom to explain maya - it may stick.

Akhand Vrutti - One year in 60 seconds

Akhand Vrutti is mentioned in the very first Vachnamrut. It is also mentioned in next weeks Kishore/Kishori syllabus regarding one of the qualities of Gunatitanand Swami. The idea of always having all your sense at any time on Maharaj and Swami is key to many things we talk about. How do you make that idea stick. Here is an analogy that you may want to use. It will take about a minute to show (there is a two minute version as well).


Here is the link to the page with other version as well as a tutorial on how to do time lapse videos.

So what is the link between these two. Our idea was that over time you see the changes happening but if you concentrate you always see the trees, you never say that tree is not a tree. Yogi Bapa used to say (it's in the Yogi Gita, this is not an exact quote - anyone know the exact quote?) that mango trees change but even if they loose their leave and branches we never loose faith (nishchay) in that it is a mango tree. In the same way over time things change, but we should not loose faith in Maharaj being Bhagwan and Swami being the Sat-purush. Things may change over time but our vrutti needs to remain with them.

This is a subtle "unexpected" so you may need to play to that. This was what we came up with this week, do you have something else? Also let us know if there is a better way to tie this in, it would really help us out. Happy presenting.

We're Only Human: Savoring the passage of time (12/17/09)

Time flies when we're having fun, but it drags on when we're not. What gives? Since time doesn't pass any faster or slower irregularly, Dr. Aaron Sackett, a professor of marketing at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, sought an answer.

In one experiment, for example, Sackett and his colleagues put a group of men and women in two rooms, each without any clocks or watches or cell phones. They had them do a timed test, in which they had to read a text and underline certain words—so not particularly fun-filled, but not particularly aversive either. The scientists told the volunteers the test would take exactly ten minutes, and made a big show of starting a stopwatch as they left the room.

But the test didn’t take exactly ten minutes. For some, the scientists reentered after just five minutes, but acted as if the full ten minutes had passed; they even left the stopwatch conspicuously in view. For others, they didn’t reenter the room until 20 minutes had passed, but again they left the volunteers with the idea that ten minutes had passed. In other words, for some ten minutes seemed surprisingly long, while for others it seemed short—the lab equivalent of making time fly.

Then all the volunteers rated the experience for enjoyment, challenge, fun, engagement, and so forth. And the results were clear: If the ten minutes passed surprisingly quickly, volunteers found the word search task more pleasurable than if time seemed to drag. This doesn’t mean they found it exhilarating, or that the others found it crushingly boring—but their subjective experiences were definitely different on the pleasure scale.

But what if they had to tolerate something irritating or annoying?

In a second study, the scientists forced the volunteers to listen to a tape recording of a dot matrix printer for 30 seconds. Thirty seconds is not a long time, but apparently this was a really irritating noise. While they listened, they watched the elapsed time tick off on a screen-- except that, unbeknownst to the volunteers, the elapsing time was either too slow or too fast. So again, for some time flew, while for others time dragged.

And again, time perceptions shaped emotions. When time flew, the tedious listening experience seemed less tedious, more bearable. When it dragged, it was worse; these listeners said they would rather listen to an electric drill if given the option. They also ran the experiment with a pleasant audiotape—of a favorite song—and once again time distortions determined the pleasure of the listening experience. That is, a pleasant experience became more pleasant.

Basically, our perception of time controlled our emotions. If we thought time flew, the activity became enjoyable, but if we thought time dragged by slowly, the activity suddenly became atrocious.

Talk about food for thought the next time we sit in katha or a boring sabha!

Full Story: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/2009/12/savoring-passage-of-time.cfm

Psyblog: Ads For Unhealthy Foods Increase Children’s Consumption 45% (11/24/09)

So snack food advertising makes most people eat more. After viewing them children eat almost twice as much, adults (if they're women on a diet or men) eat around a third more and this effect carries over to foods other than those being advertised and after the adverts have finished. Simply avoiding snacking while watching TV isn't going to cut it.

Curious? Read onwards. The first experiment involved kids.

In their first experiment 118 kids, 7 to 11 years old, were sat down to watch a cartoon with advert breaks at the usual intervals. Each child was randomly assigned either to be shown four adverts for snack foods or four adverts for other non-food products aimed at children. The commercials used were taken from actual children's programming and the snack food adverts were all for unhealthy foods like sugary breakfast cereals and potato chips.

While they watched the cartoon, children had a bowl of cheddar cheese "goldfish" crackers in front of them which they were told they could snack on if they wished.

The experimenters were very thorough and collected all kinds of other information about the children like how hungry they were, how much television they normally watched, whether they happened to particularly like the snack that was used to measure eating behaviour, whether they were overweight, whether they had a TV in their room at home and a host of other variables.

Afterwards the experimenters measured how much of the snack the children had eaten and compared the two groups. Children who had watched the cartoon which included adverts for snack foods ate 45% more of the "goldfish" crackers than those who saw non-food adverts.

None of the other variables measured had a significant effect on how much the children ate, except their like (or dislike) of cheese crackers. It didn't matter if they watched more or less TV at home, were over- or under- weight, or how big their appetite was usually. Over and above anything else it was clear that the snack food advert caused children to eat much more of an unhealthy snack.

The second experiment involved adults, specifically college students aged 18 to 24 years old, some of which were also on diets. As one would figure, the dieters would be more likely to eat more.

For this experiment a more sophisticated set-up was required in which participants didn't have snacks in front of them while they watched TV, but snacks were presented to them afterwards in what was apparently an unrelated experiment.

This time instead of cartoons the participants were shown 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', an improvisational comedy show. They were told the adverts had been left in because the psychologists were interested in the effects of TV on mood and they were in the 'comedy condition'. Actually, of course, everyone saw the same comedy show, it was just the intervening adverts that were different.

All the participants were randomised into one of three groups. In the first they saw adverts for snack foods, in the second they saw adverts for nutritional foods and in the third they saw adverts for non-food products. After watching the show they were taken to another room for what they were told was a different study involving tasting and rating some snack foods. The snack foods offered varied in healthiness: there were vegetables, multi-grain chips, cookies, trail mix and snack mix. Participants were told to taste each one but left to eat as much or as little as they liked. Afterwards the experimenters measured exactly how much each person had eaten.

Once again the snack-food ads had weaved their magic as those who had seen the snack ads ate significantly more than those who had seen either the nutrition ads or the non-food ads. But when the experimenters looked more closely at who had eaten more they found two particular groups were responsible: the restrained eaters and men (but not unrestrained women). Both had eaten, on average, about one-third more snack food if they had seen the snack ads compared with those who had seen either the nutrition ads or non-food ads.

Perhaps surprisingly the ads for unhealthy snack foods didn't only boost how much of the unhealthy snacks people ate, they boosted how much people ate across all the options available, healthy vegetables and semi-healthy trail mix included. The only exception was women who weren't on a diet who ate no more after being shown the snack food ads than other non-food ads.

Here's the kicker.

The vast majority of adults in the second study, when asked later, had no idea that watching snack food ads would make them eat more, despite the relationship being unremarkable in retrospect. And this is exactly what Harris and colleagues suggest is the key to defending oneself against adverts: understanding the powerful influence they can have on our behaviour, even without our knowledge.

Full Story: http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/11/ads-for-unhealthy-foods-increase-childrens-consumption-45.php

The Frontal Cortex: The Tiger Woods Effect (11/17/09)

We know what happens when we get psyched out by the competition. Well, it's quantifiable as shown by Dr. Jennifer Brown, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Brown demonstrated this psychological flaw by analyzing data from every player in every PGA tournament from 1999 to 2006. The reason she chose golf is that Tiger Woods is an undisputed superstar, the most intimidating competitor in modern sports. (In 2007, Golf Digest noted that Woods finished with 19.62 points in the World Golf Ranking, more than twice as many as his closest rival. This meant that "he had enough points to be both No. 1 and No. 2.") Brown also notes that "golf is an excellent setting in which to examine tournament theory and superstars in rank-order events, since effort relates relatively directly to scores and performance measures are not confounded by team dynamics." In other words, every golfer golfs alone.

Despite the individualistic nature of the sport, the presence of Woods in the tournament had a powerful effect. Interestingly, Brown found that playing against Woods resulted in significantly decreased performance. When the superstar entered a tournament, every other golfer took, on average, 0.8 more strokes. This effect was even more pronounced when Woods was playing well. Based on this data, Brown calculated that the superstar effect boosted Woods' PGA earnings by nearly five million dollars.

Why might that be the case? Increased self-consciousness, perhaps.

Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, has helped illuminate the anatomy of choking. She uses golf as her experimental paradigm. When people are learning how to putt, it can seem daunting. There are just so many things to think about. Golfers need to assess the lay of the green, calculate the line of the ball, and get a feel for the grain of the turf. Then they have to monitor their putting motion and make sure that they hit the ball with a smooth, straight stroke. For an inexperienced player, a golf putt can seem unbearably hard, like a life-sized trigonometry problem.

But the mental exertion pays off, at least at first. Beilock has shown that novices hit better putts when they consciously reflect on their actions. The more time they spend thinking about the putt, the more likely they are to hole the ball. By concentrating on their game, by paying attention to the mechanics of their stroke, they can avoid beginner's mistakes.

A little experience, however, changes everything. After golfers have learned how to putt - once they have memorised the necessary movements - analysing the stroke is a waste of time. The brain already knows what to do. It automatically computes the slope of the green, settles on the best putting angle, and decides how hard to hit the ball. Bradley Hatfield, a professor of kinesiology and psychology at the University of Maryland, has monitored the brain wave activity of expert athletes during performance. (Because the subjects have to wear a bulky plastic cap full of electrodes, Hatfield can only study golfers, archers and Olympic rifle shooters.) While the brain waves of beginners show lots of erratic spikes and haphazard rhythms - this is the neural signature of a mind that is humming with conscious thoughts - the minds of expert athletes look strangely serene. When they are performing, they exhibit a rare mental tranquility, as their brain deliberately ignores interruptions from the outside world. This is neurological evidence, Hatfield says, of "the zone", that trance-like mindset which allows experts to perform at peak levels. (As the corporate motto says, the best athletes don't think: they just do it.)

Beilock's data further demonstrate the benefits of relying on the automatic brain when playing a familiar sport. She found that when experienced golfers are forced to think about their putts, they hit significantly worse shots. All those conscious thoughts erase their years of practice. "We bring expert golfers into our lab, we tell them to pay attention to a particular part of their swing, and they just screw up," Beilock says. "When you are at a high level, your skills become somewhat automated. You don't need to pay attention to every step in what you're doing."

This is what happens when people "choke". The part of their brain that monitors their behaviour starts to interfere with actions that are normally made without thinking. Performers begin second guessing skills that they have honed through years of practice. The worst part about choking is that it tends to spiral. The failures build upon each other, so a stressful situation is made more stressful.

Full Story: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/11/the_tiger_woods_effect.php

The Frontal Cortex: Fourth Down (11/17/09)

On November 15th, 2009, the Patriots faced off against the Colts, and Coach Bill Belichick made a final call that cost his team the game though his call made sense statistically.

On 4th down, with 2 yards or fewer to go, New England has gained a first down on approximately 66% of its attempts with Tom Brady as quarterback. The Colts had one timeout. If the Patriots gain a first down, the game ends; they can slowly walk to burn a few seconds, then take a knee on each down to end the game. If they don't gain a first down, the Colts would still need to score a touchdown to win the game. Let's give the Colts a probability P of getting the six if the ball starts at the 28 yard line. So if the Patriots try for the first, their chance of losing is

(Probability of 4th down failure) x

(Probability of Colts scoring a TD from the 28 Yard line) = 0.33P

The average New England punt nets about 40 yards. Let's give the Colts a probability Q of scoring a TD on a driving starting at the Indianapolis 32. Then, the chance of the Patriots losing is simply Q. For Belichick's decision to make sense, we just have to believe that he gave his team a lower chance of losing. In math terms, that would mean 0.33P < Q. Doing some algebra leaves you with P < 3Q. In other words, for the Patriots to have made the right decision, we only have to believe the Colts odds of scoring a TD on a drive starting 28 yards from the end zone are less than three times the odds of the same outcome starting from 68 yards out. The win probability graph for the game suggests that, given 1st-and-10 from New England's 29, the Colts had roughly a 51% chance of winning in the actual situation. We have to believe that their chances under the punt scenario were above 17% for Belichick to have made a bad good decision. Considering the Colts' have scored touchdowns on 30% of their offensive possessions, my guess is that this was a good one.

However, it felt wrong in the emotional/gut-instinct sense. Many times, we want to follow the rules, but when they conflict with our biases or convictions, we make an exception and hope to follow the rules next time.

Maya anyone?

Full Story: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/11/fourth_down.php

Change Blindness

Our brain doesn't bother to understand most of the time, it just looks. Someone can change a variable right under our nose and we won't notice the difference.

The broader implication of this is that the more we choose to focus on one thing over another (i.e. social life over satsang), the less likely we are to be attentive to the other, notice its intricacies, and appreciate it for what it is. Satsang just becomes a part of the background image -- the part that we conveniently don't really pay attention to even though we think we are (e.g. there is a difference between doing puja and focusing on puja).

In short, our brains are wired to do only so much at once; take a look at this Youtube video.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAnKvo-fPs0