Many sabha-ologist have asked what comes after SUS. This is an excellent question since it implies a truth that many sabha-ologist have not really contemplated. SUS is just the starting point. (Gasp!)One of the next step in crafting a great talk is to refine what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. This will require deliberate practice which is a fancy way of saying giving lots of talks and getting lots of feedback (a sabha-ologists version of a good time). There are many excellent speakers who after their SUS write down each word they are going to say line by line to hone their presentation. Evan Puschak (the Nerdwriter) has an excellent example of crafting a message (hat tip Jarvikbhai) by deconstructing a Louis C K joke.
You know, more than anything else I think I’m obsessed with articulation, with the magic of putting things just the right way. There are 207 words in this joke and not a single one is wasted. They’re used either in meaning or in rhythm to contribute to the overall effect, an effect that lets us see the world from a different angle, and more importantly, makes us laugh.
It is this idea of articulation that SUS attempts quantify. SUS is just one of many methods to do this. We don't need SUS to make a great talk, but we need something. Using SUS is infinitely better than using nothing at all. After SUS we need to sharpen the saw. One method is to wordsmith in the manner that Louis CK does with his material - looking at every word we are about to say and evaluating if there is a more concise and impactful way of articulating our thoughts. Put another way: is there a better way to say our story to convey our simple message. We may not be able to script every word, but let's start next week by looking at one story.
"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).
The Harvard Business Review has an interesting post trying to answer this question. They speak with Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, and get his opinion on this question. His answer will not surprise many of our regular readers since they echo the Made to Stick SUCCES paradigm. However Anderson leads with emotion (the E in SUCCES). It is interesting since when we try to learn these techniques we usually lead with unexpected (that Anderson calls surprise), stories (related to what Anderson calls visual), and simple. We focus initially just on these three since they get us out of doing something boring. However to really engage an audience's attention and calls them to action we really do need to engage their emotion. It takes practice and forethought. When reviewing a talk we naturally ask ourselves or others - "what is the SUS?" To get to the next level we need to augment that to - "what is the SUSE?" Here is what Anderson has to say about this.
What makes for a great presentation — the kind that compels people’s attention and calls them to action? TED talks have certainly set a benchmark in recent years: HBR even asked Chris Anderson, the group’s founder, to offer lessons drawn from the three decades he’s run TED’s signature events in an article published last summer.
But experience and intuition are one thing; data and analysis are another. What could one learn by watching the most successful TED talks in recent years (150 hours’ worth), talking to many of the speakers, then running the findings by neuroscientists who study persuasion? I did just that, and here’s what I learned:
Use emotion. Bryan Stevenson’s TED talk, “We need to talk about an injustice”, received the longest standing ovation in the event’s history. A civil rights attorney who successfully argued and won the Supreme Court case Miller v. Alabama, which prohibits mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles convicted of murder, this is a man who knows how to persuade people.
I divided the content of his talk into Aristotle’s three areas of persuasion. Only 10 percent fell under “ethos” (establishing credibility for the speaker); 25 percent fell into the “logos” category (data, statistics) and a full 65 percent was categorized as “pathos” (emotion, storytelling). In his 18-minute talk, Stevenson told three stories to support his argument. The first was about his grandmother, and when I asked him why he started with it, his answer was simple: “Because everyone has a grandmother.” The story was his way of making an immediate connection with the audience.
Stories that trigger emotion are the ones that best inform, illuminate, inspire, and move people to action. Most everyday workplace conversations are heavy on data and light on stories, yet you need the latter to reinforce your argument. So start incorporating more anecdotes – from your own experience or those about other people, stories and brands (both successes and failures) – into your pitches and presentations.
Be novel. We all like to see and hear something new. One guideline that TED gives its speakers is to avoid “trotting out the usual shtick.” In other words, deliver information that is unique, surprising, or unexpected—novel.
In his 2009 TED presentation on the impact of malaria in African countries, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates shocked his audience when he opened a jar of mosquitoes in the middle of his talk. “Malaria, of course, is transmitted by mosquitoes,” he said. “I brought some here so you can experience this. I’ll let these roam around the auditorium. There’s no reason why only poor people should have the experience.” He reassured his audience that the mosquitoes were not infected – but not until the stunt had grabbed their attention and drawn them into the conversation.
As neuroscientist Dr. A.K. Pradeep confirms, our brains can’t ignore novelty. “They are trained to look for something brilliant and new, something that stands out.” Pradeep should know. He’s a pioneer in the area of neuromarketing, studying advertisements, packaging, and design for major brands launching new products.
In the workplace your listener (boss, colleague, sales prospect) is asking him or herself one question: “Is this person teaching me something I don’t know?” So introduce material that’s unexpected, surprising or offers a new and novel solution to an old problem.
Emphasize the visual. Robert Ballard’s 2008 TED talk on his discovery of the Titanic, two and a half miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic, contained 57 slides with no words. He showed pictures, images, and animation of life beneath the sea, without one word of text, and the audience loved it. Why did you deliver an entire presentation in pictures? “Because I’m storytelling; not lecturing,” Ballard told me.
Research shows that most of us learn better when information is presented in pictures and text instead of text alone. When ideas are delivered verbally—without pictures—the listener retains about 10% of the content. Add a picture and retention soars to 65%.
For your next PowerPoint presentation, abandon the text blocks and bullet points in favor of more visually intriguing design elements. Show pictures, animations, and images that reinforce your theme. Help people remember your message.
A young bal sanchalak wrote up how he used the SUS principles to give a talk on yoga (from several months ago) in Bal 2. Notice the creative use of unexpected and using activities along with stories to drive the point home. This sounds like a great Bal 2 sabha.
I started with displaying a quick video of Austin Rivers’s buzzer beater and then another small video of the Top Ten Dunks in the NBA. After these clips we had a discussion on which video was more enjoyable and thrilling. The answer of most of the balaks was what I expected: The Austin Rivers’s video. That was my unexpected. I had them discussing things with me and they were not really sure what the main topic was going to be.
The tough part came next when through the discussion I introduced the SIMPLE of my presentation. First was to understand why the buzzer beater video clip was more enjoyable. One of the older balaks had a very straightforward response, it is harder to do and thrilling to watch. He also mentioned that it was harder to do because in the NBA many people can dunk the ball, but not many people can perfectly time their shot to make it a buzzer beater and beat their rival team. After this answer I asked them as to why Austin Rivers is able to do such incredible feats. Most of the answers were very common such as practice and hard work.
However the simple was introduced through another video clip of Austin Rivers giving an interview in which he mentions that he listens to concentration music to enhance his abilities to focus and to keep his mind calm and collected during pressure situations.
The next section was stories and exercises to enhance this main point of concentration and focus. I asked all the Balaks to list some things people do to keep calm. The foremost answers were concentration music and exercises, leading into my next assignment. I put on some concentration music, and gave them a yogic exercise to complete, the Bee Posture. After the completion of this, I invited a few kids up to the front of the room to attempt to complete some yogic postures. These yogic postures are now also completed monthly during our BST sessions. Lastly, I concluded my presentation by informing the balaks that when you want to do anything, be it play sports or concentrate for studying, it is always best to calm your mind before you start. I also mentioned that the procedures learned were not the only procedures for calming the mind, and that there are many other things one can attempt to do so.
A conundrum we all face is to take powerful prasangs from our sanstha and make them relevant to our audience. In Made to Stick parlance - how do we tie our unexpected and simple message into something that will stick. This is compounded when we are using a story (prasang) that everyone in the audience has heard several times before. Now we need to work twice as hard to keep everyone engaged so we have their permission and attention when making our simple statement. A fellow Sabhaologist offers his ideas on how to do this with this weeks syllabus.
It's very unlikely that any of us with start an organization from scratch, build five mandirs with barely any resources, or travel from gaam to gaam in India to spread the Akshar Purushottam Upasana. So how can kishores and kishoris relate to the hardships that Shastriji Maharaj went through? How can they connect through the harassment he was regularly exposed to? Will they be able to contextualize what Shastriji Maharaj had to overcome to convert BAPS from an idea into a sanstha?
One type of difficulty that everyone can relate to is being bullied. Be it at school for how you look, the tilak chandlo on your forehead as your walking down the street, or anything else, being made fun of for a differing characteristic or belief is an experience that a majority of the population can relate to - and that's essentially what happened to Shastriji Maharaj. The unexpected and simple message is: we can all relate to bullying and this was exactly what Shastriji Maharaj went through.
Here is a video that illustrates the impact of bullying.
But what propelled Shastriji Maharaj to overcome that bullying was his core belief, what he left Vadtal for, what he wanted everyone to learn and weave into the fabric of their life - the Akshar Purushottam Upasana. It's this core that drove his decisions, decided how he'd react, and inspired some many dedicate themselves to such a powerful guru.
The prasangs in this week's presentation correspond directly with the thoughts that run through many of our minds when we're bullied:
Sentiments towards those who bully us: Usually we'll feel like retaliating against those who ridicule us, but regardless how how Shastriji Maharaj was treated by others, he was willing to suffer anything to spread satsang and didn't feel ill will towards anyone
How we feel when we're bullied: A fire can burn within us when we're made fun of, but when Shastriji Maharaj was in a building that was physically on fire, his heart didn't burn with rage towards anyone.
Continually remembering our core: May times we need encouragement if bullied, but even though he was continuously bullied, Shastriji Maharaj remembered his core principles, who he had, and reminded others about their cause to stay firm in their efforts.
So even though we may never live through the same hardships that Shastriji Maharaj faced, we still look into the eyes of adversity everyday. When we do face that adversity, just as Shriji Maharaj explains in Gad I-74, it's only during times of hardship will our faith and true colors be tested. So the next time you're bullied or are challenged by some type of adversity, then remember how Shastriji Maharaj reacted dealing with people who hated and wanted to kill him.
Simple, Unexpected, Stories (SUS) have been the staple elements upon which we have been exploring the method of making talks that resonate with our audience. Many of us are now very familiar with the basics, the past posts are full of them. In this post we want to delve further and see how we can refine these ideas.
We have stated the difficulty in crafting the simple statement as it requires us to consolidate all the material provided to us into one sentence. However it is critical to crystallize this idea since this is the message we want everyone to leave with. We have noticed that when implementing SUS, we start off with a great unexpected and everyone is engaged. We then try to parlay this engagement into our simple and stories and prasangs. However after the initial excitement we find that the audience tends to loose focus.
We believe that the next step in SUS should be: Connecting the simple to the unexpected. This will require thought, but will increase the engagement from beyond the thought provoking idea of funny story of the unexpected to the core of the simple message and prasangs.
Let's look at two examples we saw over the last two weeks.
Example #1
On Superbowl weekend, the kishore/kishori sabha topic dealt with samp, suhradhyabhaav, and ektaa. The presenter opened it up by talking about an Arctic explorer who came across a bag of cheese doodles that he himself had buried prior to his trip and the his reaction. Take a look (note this was also referenced on RadioLab).
After setting up and showing the clip everyone was engaged and laughing. Now the presenter started to tie this unexpected to his simple message. There was a small discussion (question / answer really): when have you ever been this happy before, when we walk into the Mandir and do darshan do we scream like him, five year olds scream like that all the time why don't we, etc. He then mentioned the following: this explorer put himself in this position of being very tired and hungry (walking for over 40 days) all alone so that when he discovered something he already had, something he had put in the ground himself - he experienced bliss. For us to experience bliss in satsang we too need to be put in situations where we face hardships - where we are tested. He then moved on to ask would the explorer's journey have been easier or harder with another person or a group? A group may have given him company, but they may have also got on each others nerves. If you were that hungry would you want to split those cheese doodles? He then moved to his simple: Samp, Suradhyabhav, and Ekta cause us to be in in difficult situations so that we can experience happiness. This line and the reference to the cheese doodles were then used to compare almost every story.
Example #2
Just yesterday in the same sabha, the topic was sadhutaa. The presenter opened it up with a story where he asked everyone to visualize playing in the Mandir parking lot and getting hit by a car. Then a question, "Would you want someone to perform CPR on you?" Of course, the majority of the sabha raised their hands, but the unexpectedness of the question came through when he played the clip (again from from a recent episode of Radiolab) in which the doctors interviewed pointed out that only 8% benefit from CPR (3% regain normal function, 2% remain as a "vegetable," and 2% remain comatose) while 92% die. The interview also revealed that TV shows depict CPR working on average 75% of the time thus shaping the public's opinion of the maneuver and that most doctors would refuse CPR for themselves.
He then tried to link it accordingly:
We did not realize how we had been fed a lie.
Only when we realize the niyams we have can we understand what it means to be a sadhu.
Sadhutaa is about pushing forward,
Unfortunately, the last point, his simple statement, did not connect so well to the unexpected. How could he have done it better?
Sure, doctors would have not wanted it for themselves.
Now let's say their patient was their child.
Would they still elect for CPR despite the data?
They would because it's a deep relationship that they are not willing to forego.
To keep pushing forward out of our relationship with God and our guru - that's sadhutaa.
This relationship proves crucial to the presentation because it is the point that is reiterated over and over throughout the talk.
We can find cool things to use in our presentation, but it's equally important that we take the time to link the elements up, in this case the simple and the unexpected. The stories should also be connected to the simpl and can then be used to drive home the connection.
Many centers had graduation sabha this weekend. We had one. We were asked to give a small 10 minute keynote talk. Awesome. We fired up the SUS engine and also were sent a link to a great commencement talk that has been making its way across the internet. The entire video is embedded below. In it English teacher David McCullough makes the audacious statement to the audience that they are not special. He was looking at the entitlement attitude that pervades high school
His best quote two quotes:
You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you're a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer.
So we read all this and we felt we were set.
Simple: Graduation is the start of trying to become special, even though we are not right now.
Unexpected: Telling all the graduate that they are not special.
Stories: We had a few prasangs that fit the bill.
We gave the talk.
A few people told us - That was a great talk.
Then we asked our board of people who we trust to give feedback. And one person gave us a gem.
"You started off great, but then you went to the you are not special part. I see where you were going with that. It definitely engaged the older kids. There were many shishu and small bal/balikas. When you tell them they are not special, they can really take it the wrong the way."
Think about your audience. We have mentioned it so many times before. But this time we simply forgot about it. A very good learning point. We hope we don't forget it again.
This week there is a Balika/Bal topic on teamwork. This can and should be a great topic for the kids. Lots of interaction and really good values to learn. We thought of some ways to introduce teamwork and realized we need to keep UNEXPECTED in mind.
Initially we thought it would be good to act out the bhodh katha where a king request a strong man to break a quiver of arrows and then requested a weak person to break just one arrow. The kids would love breaking sticks, it would be fun, they will be taken by surprise and really pay attention. Then we did some investigation. We surreptitiously talked to several balikas and balaks about what they are going to do for the summer (just to break the ice) and then very benignly mentioned the starting of this story. Nearly all of them knew the story, and most finished it off for us before we could get to the end.
Now this is a great lesson. We felt that the story would be unexpected, but found that this was not really the case as most already knew it. That is good to know. We may still do the exercise of breaking sticks, but will not start the talk with this example. Also instead of dictating the activity we will request some of the kids who are well versed to lead in the activity and spend more time driving home the point of teamwork making us stronger.
What should we do for unexpected? That is still an open question. If you have any ideas (before Sunday) let us know!
If you have a minute (literally) you should watch this talk. We talked about Wadsworth Constant. You can remove a great deal of our matter and still make our point stick. The talk below is a great example. Simple message, unexpected using the rocks, and a great story. Also Rosling's is passionate about the subject - that always helps. Could you do this same thing with your Sunday talk? It would make for a very quick - yet sticky - sabha.
We have been working with some balaks on speaking skills with a focus on simple, unexpected, and stories. It was interesting that the balaks seem to get tripped up on simple (the other two the get right away). What do you mean by simple? It turns out that this is a really deep questions. In Made To Stick there was a large section of the book that explored this idea. I keep coming back to the notion that you know simple when you see it. For example:
The iPhone interface is simple (but not simplistic).
Today (2/3/2012) is a good day to check out the following simple (but not simplistic) website.
In both these examples the purpose is clearly defined and the interface reflects exactly that. In giving our talks we must first really understand the material and then synthesize what message we want to convey. This takes time and most people skip this step. However it is time well spent since it is really understanding what you want to say that enable you to say things elegantly.
Last we weeks we were working with BST/KST kids on presentation skills. The discussion moved to and centered on how to make the concept of maya stick. We noticed first that we need to understand the concept ourselves. Many of the younger kids said all stuff was maya (somewhat true). We discussed if our phones were maya and they said yes. What if we lost our phones and it did not bother us at all - was the phone still maya? So the discussion went back and forth. The conclusion was that the attachment to stuff was really maya, stuff was just stuff. The key take away that everyone had was that we had to know our stuff before we made our stuff stick.
When we give presentations in sabha we are fortunate to have a syllabus. The most important thing that the syllabus does is give us concise knowledge. We need to read it and understand it so that we know our stuff on whatever the topic is.
Once we know our stuff, then we can try to make it stick (simple, unexpected, stories, emotions, credible and concrete). The syllabus might help with this part, but really it's on us to get that done. Once we have the knowledge and know our stuff, the syllabus has done its main job.
How can we make the concept of maya stick. Going back to the our phones, here is a great article that shows that the we love our phones. Literally love our phones. By imaging the brain (using fMRI) the researchers discovered that the same areas of the brain that signify love were lit up when people were shown pictures of their phone. Now that's maya.
A few insights from a fellow Sabha.ologist. After listening to several talks from P. Mahant Swami he noticed they stuck with him. He started to look at why and found the following gem.
One way he [makes hist talk stick] is by giving simple analogies that everyone could understand. Here are just a few of them I picked up from his visit:
How can we become connected with Swamishri? By simply following his agna. Swamishri is like a kite and his agna is the string. When the string is cut you no longer have a connection with the kite. Similarly, if we disobey Swamishri's agna we will be disconnected from him. Let us always follow the commands of our beloved guru, and please him to the best of our ability.
Out of the 365 days of the year, these 5 days are considered the best. Out of these 5 days, Diwali is the "king". The same way, out of all the janams that we take, this manushya deh is the most important.
We have to realize the importance of Bhagwan, Sant, and Haribhaktos (gun grahak drashti).
You got your presentation two weeks ago, thought about it and synthesized a great simple message you want to share with your sabha. You listened to some katha and read some books and found some great prasangs you can tell as stories that provide concrete and credible evidence to highlight your simple message. You practiced saying these stories with feeling so it is engaging and emotional. Now it's the Friday before you have to present on Sunday you have everything you need from the Made to Stick model (SUCCES) except the dreaded U - nothing unexpected. If this Sunday you start kishori sabha by saying, "Today we will be talking about seva." or start bal 3 by saying, "The definition of punya is xxxx," then Houston we have a problem. Starting off without something unexpected will cause us to lose our audience, our sabha, before it even starts. They will start thinking about the Walkathon or what they are going to eat for dinner instead of seva and punya. So what do we do? We need an unexpected.
Unexpected Idea
If you are in this boat, then all of us at Sabha.ology want to congratulate you and we would really want to sit in a sabha where a presenter went through all this. It is going to be great sabha. You just need the missing piece. The thing is the answer to what most people do now sometimes may not work. We found (in a very unscientific, but still pretty interesting survey of presenters) that most people in this situation will turn to the Internet to find a video. A video that is within maryada, but a video none the less. There is nothing wrong with this but a video (or sometimes erroneously called a bang presentation - a topic for another post) may not always be the answers.
If in every sabha everyone were to begin their presentation with a video, then after a few weeks this would not be very unexpected. Everyone knows that a video is coming.
Also it is idea that needs to be unexpected. Initially just the act of showing a video - since we usually do not show it - causes everyone to wake up and say, "Wow this is new." However after the novelty of the showing the video wears off, then we are just left with the idea that the is in the video. That idea has to stand on it's own legs to be unexpected.
Now, if you see a video with an unexpected idea that you can put to great use in a presentation, then by all means use that idea. However, how you present the idea (a video or drawing on an iPad or saying a story) really depends on your situation and can help make an idea even more unexpected. It is still the idea that is important. In fact you can find these unexpected ideas everywhere - books, talking to people, etc. Starting with a bang or starting with something unexpected involves starting with an idea that nobody is expecting. So with the Kishori./Kishore presentation on seva for this week, starting with a prasang of Bapa cleaning the bathroom after the Gurujayanti samaiyo would not be very unexpected. The MC has introduced that you are going to talk about seva (maybe seva and Shastriji Maharaj), so everyone is expecting something about seva, related to the Mandir. The key is to find an idea, any idea that will support you simple message regarding seva (iK) or punya (B3).
Lies my Teacher Told Me How did Newton discover gravity? (Apple fell on his head, and he had an epiphany.)
What did Washington do after chopping down the cherry tree? (Told his parents he could not lie)
What are the primary colors? (Red, Yellow, Blue)
Each of the three questions above are things that people believe since most people say they were taught this either in school or by parents. It turns out that all three of these things are not true.
Newton was never hit by an apple, nor did a falling apple lead to him "discovering" gravity.
Washington never chopped down a cherry tree. After his death his biographer made up this story to exemplify his honesty.
And finally the subtractive primary colors are red, blue, and green (look at a video projector) and the additive primary colors are magenta, cyan, and yellow.
The idea: each of these things are something we believe without question, but upon further analysis we realize that we may not know this exactly.
Applied to Kishori/Kishore Shastriji Maharaj's Seva Presentation
The topic starts out by defining seva and looking at why we do seva and how to do it perfectly. In the same way that we think we knew the "facts" above about Newton, Washington, and colors, we may feel we know the facts about seva. Start with an unexpected. Ask these questions and have audience members stand up if they think it is false. Or make up multiple choice questions and have audience stand up for each answer. Drop the shoe by saying that each of those were false and that we believe we know certain things that maybe we do not. In the same way we believe that cleaning bathrooms is seva and anybody can do it. (or even add that as one of the questions) it turns out that this is not the case. Cleaning the bathrooms is only seva if we do it for the right reasons. Also not everyone gets the opportunity to clean the Mandir bathrooms - look at how many people drive by our Mandirs and never even go in. Now you are on your way. The sabha is awake and listening to your talk on seva.
Applied to Balika/Bal -3 Punya Presentation
Same idea and same process as above. This time add the question what is Karma? Now we can explain that sometimes we are confident we know some facts, but we can always add to our knowledge. In fact Newton was never hit with an apple, Washington never chopped down a cherry tree, magenta, cyan, and yellow are the primary colors, and there are really three types of Karma.
While reading Psychology Today, one of our fellow Sabhaologists passed us this article, and just while we had said before that the three S's resurface again and again in all these articles, we also gain a better understanding of speaking mechanics.
This article notes seven principles that we've explored below.
People love stories. Children plea for them at night, and adults crave them, too. Stories make us wonder; we want to know what happens next, which keeps us engaged, even enthralled.
Yep: simple/shakeup/stories, and from last week's post, we know this principle all too well.
People don't want to be impressed. They want to be respected. Rookie speakers feel tempted to impress an audience, assuming that this will make their ideas sound impressive, too. But if your words or actions suggest "I am better than you," people won't care what you say...
Don't try to impress them. Try to touch them.
Speaking is all about humbling ourselves to the audience.
People care if. If you truly want to help your listeners--by informing or motivating them, or improving their lives--they will care and listen. But they will care only if you do.
This recalls a favorite tip: "If you really care, notify your face."
When we feel connected with our concepts, our sentiments show through. Thus, we need to take the time to design our stories/shakeup/stories.
Your eyes mean everything. We mistrust people who won't look us in the eyes--even if our eyes are among over 200 sets in a room. We regard peoples' eyes as windows to their souls, and it's from our eyes that people assess us.
If you look each person in the eye for a few seconds, you make each person feel important--a feeling that every person craves. It also makes each audience member feel involved; it makes your presentation feel like a conversation rather than a recitation.
For this reason, minimize visual aids. They break eye contact and make it appear that you are talking to the screen and not to your listeners.
Wow, minimizing visual aids strikes at the power of Powerpoint, but sometimes, a well delivered presentation doesn't need a Powerpoint. Think supercharged storytelling.
Preparation matters. But not for the reason you suspect. Preparation does more than make a presentation appear polished--and a too-polished presentation actually can feel inauthentic, even souless. If you've spent hours learning about the people to whom you are speaking, you will communicate the most compelling message you can deliver to a person: You are important to me.
This principle goes without saying - again be humble.
If it's worth saying, it bears repeating. The old rule--"Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them"--reflects the limitations of our memories. Plus researchers have shown repeatedly that people are more apt to believe something they hear more than once--even if they hear it from the same person, and even if they question that person's credibility.
We call this the simple statement, the core of our presentation that we hope to impart to our audience.
People love music. An outstanding speech is musical; it ebbs and flows, hits a variety of notes, and makes beautiful use of pauses and silence. Just as in humor, speaking's key ingredient is timing.
Allow some gaps between your notes.
Going back to stories, remember to own the story. When we experienced the world for the first time as toddlers, we couldn't stop talking about how green the grass was or how fast the ants moved. Infuse that energy in your presentations to make an impact.
One Sunday morning, January 6th, 2008 I was attending religious services when my cell phone vibrated. As discreetly as possible, I checked the phone and noticed that my phone said "Caller ID unknown". I choose to ignore.
After services, as I was walking to my car with my family, I checked my cell phone messages. The message left was from Steve Jobs. "Vic, can you call me at home? I have something urgent to discuss" it said.
Before I even reached my car, I called Steve Jobs back. I was responsible for all mobile applications at Google, and in that role, had regular dealings with Steve. It was one of the perks of the job.
"Hey Steve - this is Vic", I said. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn't pick up".
Steve laughed. He said, "Vic, unless the Caller ID said 'GOD', you should never pick up during services".
I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important?
"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow" said Steve.
"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"
Of course this was okay with me. A few minutes later on that Sunday I received an email from Steve with the subject "Icon Ambulance". The email directed me to work with Greg Christie to fix the icon. Since I was 11 years old and fell in love with an Apple II, I have dozens of stories to tell about Apple products. They have been a part of my life for decades. Even when I worked for 15 years for Bill Gates at Microsoft, I had a huge admiration for Steve and what Apple had produced.
But in the end, when I think about leadership, passion and attention to detail, I think back to the call I received from Steve Jobs on a Sunday morning in January. It was a lesson I'll never forget. CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday.
I am sure we will be inundated with many of these types of stories in the coming weeks. Yet one of the things Jobs was able to do was convey a sticky message but more than that really believe in what he was doing. Sunday sabha is something worth believing in. And one way to make our sabha into something everyone wants or falls in love with (like an iPhone 5) is to pay attention to the details. They really do matter.
Simple Shortcuts is a new series of posts geared towards synthesizing that not-so-simple yet crucial simple statement (i.e. main point of our presentations).
Our next shortcut may not seem as straightforward as substitution, but it's not impossible.
Shortcut #2 entails asking, "How can I combine <insert Satsang item here> with <insert non-Satsang item here>?"
In our last post, we looked at the following video and how it might apply to the age-old concept of agna.
However, through combining this video with other topics, we may in fact find more intricacies that span the breadth of our Satsang presentations.
Related to agna is the topic of faith vs. logic, and while the birds may have perched in a logical musical pattern, it required a leap of faith to see if that pattern did exist or not.
Perhaps these birds are a breath of fresh air into our otherwise boring, mundane lives; it's something we need to apply to our Satsang (i.e. nitya navin rakhvu). In Vachanamrut Kariyani-3, Shriji Maharaj explains, "This Shuk Muni is a very great sadhu. From the day he began staying with Me, his enthusiasm has been ever increasing; in fact, it has never diminished." If we seize the right moments, we too can experience the flourishing of our Satsang.
However, do all people find birds perched in a pattern entertaining? Eccentric musicians aside, maybe not. Thus, we need to engage in a modality that suits our preferences, like one of nine types of bhakti.
For a musician, birds sitting in such a coordinated pattern is a rare opportunity - slim odds - yet it's in these encounters we can remember God as sarva-karta (all-doer), one of the four aspects of our upasana and feel empowered by the one we've met.
Rather than continue along with this free-for-all, let's see what simple statements we may have generated.
Faith freshens up our Satsang.
The nine types of bhakti are there to keep our Satsang fresh.
Understanding God as the all-doer keeps our Satsang fresh.
Here, we've combined topics in ways we may not have otherwise thought of before, and the more we do it, the better we get at it. Think about that the next time we encounter something extraordinary.
The three-point recipe for a coherent presentation - simple/shakeup/stories - has been introduced in our posts and applied in past presentations, but we realized it was no fun. Why should we be the only ones enjoying ourselves when we should be sharing the wealth? Now we're taking one step backwards in helping fellow Sabhaologists create these elements from scratch on demand beginning with the first element: the simple statement.
The importance of a simple statement cannot be underemphasized. Ever. Without a simple statement, our presentations are nothing more than a lifeless mass of words passing in one ear of the listener to the other. Thus, we need to unite this mass with a message or main point. It's what we call simple though the process by which we synthesize it is not so easy.
Hence, Simple Shortcuts, a new series of posts, will help us with developing that core of our presentation through a host of different perspectives that help us synthesize that not-so-simple yet crucial simple statement.
Shortcut #1 entails asking, "What can be substituted in <insert non-Satsang item here> with <insert Satsang item here>?
Ok, let's break down what we saw - straightforward of course:
Birds sitting on wire in no observable pattern.
Observer sees how the birds fit together in a musical pattern.
Now, let's see how substitution takes effect.
We may perceive the Satpurush's agna to be random and gloss over them without much thought.
However, the Satpurush sees how they fit together in a spiritual pattern.
Um, spiritual pattern - how does that benefit us? Does that mean we are all supposed to become atma-realized? Or is how we can inspire others if we ourselves become inspired? Or is it how we can establish Satyug in Kaliyug?
And that's how we unleash the torrent of thought which we otherwise find difficult to awaken when we're given a presentation. Sometimes, we just need the starting spot to brainstorm ideas, and using Shortcut #1 on what we perceive as non-Satsang suddenly breathes life into concepts we have otherwise grown to consider stale.
Everyone seems to have a take on what it takes to make a great speaker, so we try to take the shining lessons of all and see what patterns seem to stand out. In a recent article over at Productivity501, we saw the following.
Be visual.
Tell stories.
What people hear vs. what you say.
While #2 is no different from what we've been stating in our posts, #1 & #3 caught our attention because they were different.
The article used this story to illustrate #1,
I once ran an IT department for a non-profit with about 200 employees. In the work room we had a large color and a large b&w printer. The cost on the color printer was about $0.15 per page. The cost of the b&w was $0.015 per page. I kept trying to ask people to use the b&w unless they had a compelling reason to print color. When you are printing 50,000 toe 100,000 pages per month the $0.015 vs $0.15 made a big difference on the budget. A few casual visits to the work room made it clear that no one was listening. A good percentage of the paper being printed on the color printer was b&w or had unnecessary color.
I had my assistant get me 165 pennies to prepare for a meeting where I was going to try once again. I took 10 sheets of paper, put them on the table and said, “Here is how much this costs to print on the b&w printer.” Then I dropped 15 pennies on the table. ”Here is how much it costs to print these same 10 sheets on the color printer.” I then dropped 150 pennies on the table, making as much noise as possible and letting them roll all over the place and onto the floor.
After that, people started being more careful. Behavior didn’t change overnight, but there was a noticeable drop in the usage on the color printer. Dropping the pennies on the table made an impression–something I hadn’t been able to do before using just my words. Showing is nearly always more effective than saying.
Made to Stick calls this concrete - taking something abstract and translating it to the tangible.
As for #3, another story was used to illustrate the point:
After Obama won the election, the news crews were talking to people who were very excited about his success. One person interviewed was a woman who made the statement that now she wouldn’t have to worry about putting gas in her car. Now she wouldn’t have to worry about her mortgage. I didn’t watch everything Obama said, but I don’t think he made any promises to pay mortgages or give away free gas. I do know he did a pretty good job of conveying a message of hope, but what that lady heard and what Obama said were not at all the same thing.
While this may be a bit of an extreme example, it is vitally important to remember that what you say isn’t the important thing. What matters is what people hear. In many cases those to things can be miles apart. All of us hear things through our own set of biases, assumptions and personalities. When you are communicating it is easy to be so focused on what you say, that you overlook what people will hear.
With the summer series on ghosti, we may have struggled to deal with a format that seems completely different from a traditional presentation.
Whereas in a presentation we have control, here we outsource it to our fellow audience in a ghosti. Hence, if we've put our audience to sleep, we'll know with the lack of responses garnered from them - maybe a reason why we fear a ghosti.
One tool though can put this fear to rest: curiosity. Curiosity is what gets a ghosti going naturally. People will speak up if they are genuinely interested in the topic at hand. In a ghosti, thus we need to compare each prasang to something our audience can relate.
For example, let's say we want to depict the difference between paroksh gnan and aparoksh gnan to an audience full of gamers. Simply asking our audience about the difference will not make an impact especially since many of them won't know. Wet their appetites by contrasting a specific game, like Resident Evil, with perhaps reading a strategy guide (i.e. cheat manual). Just because we may know the full parameters of the game means nothing in the way of how our heart stopped at the sight of a bloody zombie.
To a crowd full of b-ballers, describe the crossover in the form of a step-by-step recipe. Compare that to what actual players feel when they pull off the move. Suddenly, the concept of paroksh & aparoksh becomes that much more concrete.
We can extend this idea to all of our prasangs as well, but it requires that we read over them and think about how our audience might relate to them. To butcher the prasang, read it out and ask, "What do you think?" To breathe life into the prasang, link it up to a concrete scenario, like we did with Resident Evil and the crossover.
Success or failure - let us know of other tricks of the trade to get a ghosti going.
Proving that good writing and presentation can be found anywhere, writer Nancy Friedman points to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett’s annual reports as examples of excellent copywriting. These points are very much in lock step with Made to Stick and Resonate - this gives another point of view.
Tell stories. Reading a Berkshire annual report is like sitting across a booth in a diner with a great conversationalist possessed of both intelligence and insatiable curiosity. The second S in the Made to Stick SUCCES model.
Use vivid language. This makes thing both concrete and credible.
Talk about people. It’s one thing to say, as almost everyone does, that business is about people. It’s another thing entirely to portray those people fully fleshed and full of foibles.
Be generous with humour. Every Berkshire annual brims with jokes (including some groaners), drollery, and wit - this makes things unexpected.
Get to the point. “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,” Buffett writes. That’s an entire business philosophy in twelve words. Simple statement.
Write with a specific person in mind. When writing Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report, I pretend that I’m talking to my sisters. I have no trouble picturing them: Though highly intelligent, they are not experts in accounting or finance. They will understand plain English, but jargon may puzzle them. My goal is simply to give them the information I would wish them to supply me if our positions were reversed. To succeed, I don’t need to be Shakespeare; I must, though, have a sincere desire to inform.
That’s the key; picturing your audience as intelligent non-experts. I think this is the same key idea when dealing with our kishores and kishoris - they are also intelligent non-experts. Thoughts?
