Talker's Block

A guest post by fellow sabha.ologist  who says we should just get going already.

Imagine you’ve just been told by your sanchalaks that you’re doing a talk. Eager to start, you go on your laptop and pull up Microsoft Word. While thinking of the topic, you sit there, deep in thought (or so it seems), while your cursor blinks away on the blank Word Document.

Ten minutes pass...

You get a quick snack to recharge yourself...Nothing is coming....  Is it writer’s block? Is there such a thing?

Seth Godin doesn’t think so. He compared writer’s block with talker’s block.

He says, “No one suffers from talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, and discovers he or she has nothing to say and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down.”  

Seth’s point is, we should write like we talk. The best way to speak in sabha is to start speaking and/or writing your thoughts down, then refine them. “Writer’s block” is due to the censor part in your brain. To start preparing, we must forget about judgement. Just start writing. Out of your nonsense and ramblings, believe something good will come.  Using the three step success model, you can get your presentation going in no time!

1. Synthesize your personal statement
2. Start with a shakeup (something unexpected)
3. Support the simple statement with stories filled with concrete details and validity.

Additionally, each time we prepare for a presentation, Maharaj & Swami have given us a change to delve deeper into the topic, select related prasangs, and gather up appropriate research so that we can draw connections, insights, and simple statements that can benefit everyone in the sabha.

Lastly, it’s important to realize that we don’t have to give up hours each day just to make one effective presentation. It only takes about 10 minutes a day to make one, especially if we begin the week it is assigned!

One great schedule format that could be used to prepare for a presentation was presented in Karcons across the nation, and is shown below:

Understand before making it stick.

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.

Making Katha Stick - the metaphor

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).