Poetry

Waqt ke dariya mein humne

Na jaane kitne gote lagaaye hain

Kabhi paar hokar doobey

To kabhi doob kar bhi paar ho paaye hain

Aarzoo kabhi bahaaron ki to thi hi nahin

Par kambakht kaatein bhi humein

Kahan sukoon se mil paayein hain

Baandh paayi hai bhala kab

Sarhadein khud sarhadon ko

Pal pal ki jubaani mei 

Kissse khud hi simat-te chale aaye hain

Sargoshiyon ke aalam mei

Chalki un yaadon mein teri

Ubhare har ik rang ki panaahon mein

Ye pal-o-palchchin bitaayein hain

---to be continued..??..may be...!!

Playing Presentations..!!

Recently, I saw a community post where somebody asked about Powerpoint Presentation or in general Formal Presentation skills. Tips on building content for it, which may keep the target audience engaged, thereby leaving a powerpack impression as an effective communicator rather than being just a gross disengaged orator.

Personally, I was (and I guess I still am) pretty much fascinated about going to the dias and putting my points forth, be it any form of public speaking, both in Schools & College and enjoyed it thoroughly, be it a solo or a team thing, but had a very few experiences of doing so in last few years, after I started working. The medium keeps changing over time, becomes more fancy, sophisticated and high-tech, but the basics remain the same I guess,

1. Keep your audience engaged, making it as much interactive as possible. Don't give them a chance to sleep :)
2. With the advent of social networking, there are more chances of them enjoying the live feed criticism than your presentation, if it fails to grab and hold their attention.
3. Put in interesting content by adding relevant images, audio, video etc. and as less text as possible.
4. Keep it Simple, Concise and Short. Check Out for Rule of 6/7 basics.
5. Please do not read out your slides as it is. If that was the purpose, audience could better sit at home and read it.
6. Don't keep hovering over the same points for too long.
7. Stay confident and be honest to acknowledge if you are not sure.

Just put yourself in their shoes or ask someone else who could give you a constructive plus honest feedback and present your content, this may help in realizing normal human reaction and improving it and yourself for better.

There may be some anxiety for the first few seconds if you are there on stage for the first time or after a long time or if the audience size is too large or too small, highly scattered with nobody on first few rows, but everything will be normal after a while and you will find yourself enjoying it.

If it is a group or team thing, make sure each of you go through the whole content and are capable enough of taking it over, either presentation or questions or both, in case your fellow presenter feels choked. Pitch in to help. Have never seen this happening in corporate presentations or seminars but I have had such experiences in Schools & College. Only your quick wit, presence of mind and being collaborative with your fellow team member without making him/her uncomfortable will pave the way. Believe me it's a difficult situation since you need to make sure that the show must go on but your teammate is not demoralized or discouraged. At the end, you get a lot of appreciation and feel a lot very contented when you succeed in doing so. Personal Experience :)

Don't be flattered by that, go see your companion first after it is over.

These are a few things which I can think of right now. May be you have some more points or may be the ones above do not make sense to you based on your experiences, just drop them here as comments/feedback.

 

A Rough Day..!!

Sometimes we start our day with full enthusiasm and then observe ourselves doing things differently, not in a pleasantly different way. And you know deep down within you:

This is not your style of working,
This is not how you do things usually,
This is not how you respond to things,
This is not how you perceive things,
This is not how you have ever done anything,
Suddenly you have lost your quick-wittedness,
Your presence of mind is blown away.

 

And this is certainly not the way you have ever spent your day and you would even ever wish to. This day and most moments in that day are a little different, different in some way, different in the way than all of your days passed by so far, there is something that makes you worried. You want your thoughts and mind to run in a different direction, to leverage something positive out of anything you think, anything you do, anything you sense around, the way you perceive things, comprehend and respond to external stimuli and  just be back to your normale. But your thoughts are just stuck somewhere, that too unknowingly, around something unknown, around something you do not want to waste your time on and you are still there, thinking of a way to get out of it. You find yourself very ineffective and inefficient compared to what you have always been and then you realize this is not you.

I don't know if anyone among the people out there, who would ever open this link and read this post, have felt this way.

I think there is something which is troubling my mind at this moment, at this very day. I realized this as the day passed by and now I think that I need a break, I need a brisk walk out on the road and inhale some fresh, soothing & relaxing breeze, to let it seep in, rejuvenate me & my soul and make everything else seep out.

Most of the times, an evening walk or a morning one, is more than a medicine to get rid of anything and everything, to unoccupy your mind and make a fresh start again! Atleast it works that way for me, just find out something that works for you.

Impulsive Plus Compulsive

Genuine, most Obvious, certainly Visible and Unfruitful traits of people belonging to my generation plus those who will follow, means the generation thereon...is most of them always live at the edge of being Impulsive and Compulsive..They don't think and do, rather they do and repent..and then later on prove the theory 'A bad workman always blames his tools'.

Yesterday, while coming out of a mall, we just stood next to the entrance and talked for a while, when we noticed that a group of people were assembling near the main gate (barely visible from the place we were standing). The group then slowly turned into a mob. Curiosity level among all the people around us increased for obvious reasons, for the mob there was not giving away positive vibrations at all.

A few seconds later, what we noticed was a youngster being beaten by 2-3 people of almost the same age. Surprisingly, the security guards at the entrance closed the door so that this guy could not escape and he was being beaten quite badly with helmets for reasons best known to them! No-one stepped in to resolve the issue, no one tried to help them talk over whatever conflict they had because they did not seem to be in a position to talk, Amygdala Hijack probably!

It did no good to anyone, may be one or both the parties wanted the other or each other learn a lesson, but I could hardly imagine any of the two using Neocortex (thinking brain) ..

I cannot comment on the need or the trigger of the situation because I do not know anything about the reasons it happened for but it was not a pleasant experience either for them nor for anyone around the place for sure, except a few people who probably enjoyed it as a free source of entertainment.

Choosing Right & Realistic Baselines is Critical!

If you don't set a baseline standard for what you'll accept in life, you'll find it's easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that's far below what you deserve

-- Anthony Robbins

Excellent quotation and applicable to all walks of life I believe!

A pretty disappointing fact which I have observed is whenever people discuss about improving anything, may be the things around, people or our own self, either under our direct or indirect control, whenever there is something which requires an effort from their side, it usually ends up in selecting a benchmark of lower quality and say ‘See, we are better than X, Y, Z and so on..!”  Surprisingly, people often take pride in saying/mentioning this.

Why don’t we look up at say A, B and C which are better, refer to them as a baseline, analyze & find out the difference and work towards improving the things around for the sake of better. Constantly refining the baseline and getting inspired by better things around is certainly one of the best and most challenging things to do!

Contrarily, when there is a similar situation but involves something which requires just a critical edge/opinion from person X and there is an effort required from a person/group Y, or something which affects us but there is nothing we may do about it, then we would always set up a baseline, much higher than the initial point, too higher than the point where the things currently are. Of course, it’s good to look for things which are much better but it would be a much better idea to constantly revamp the baseline and encourage someone of achieving the previous perceived level of improvement. This would not only increase the level of motivation but also a sense of achievement in someone who is trying hard to do something good. Small victories are equally important as winning a great big battle as they say to let one keep up the spirit!