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SPEAKERS DIGEST CSF, Club No. 2009282 November-2012
1
After becoming a TM and participating in few CSF
meetings I felt how I have missed this great
organization that provides a platform and an ideal
friendly atmosphere to shape ones outlook towards
every aspect of life. Though there may be several
changes in a person’s mental make-up over the
period, the greatest of them all one can experience
is ‘courage and self- confidence’, to face the world.
When self-doubt rules the mind, to take simple
steps forward would be a greatest challenge, it is
the achievement of others that shows us the light
that it is possible and this is our world too to chase
our dreams and make our ideas turn into a reality.
CSF is such a place where ideas shape reality. And
we are all witness to this great phenomenon, week
after week seeing our fellow TMs break all barriers
to reach their pinnacle.
To achieve this state of mind and action there are
three essential things required: a) Sādhanā b)
Abhyāsa and c) Kriyā (borrowed these words from
Sanskrit). What do these words mean and how
does it impact a person’s life if practiced?
Simply said Sādhanā means in pursuit of a goal or
achieving something. How to achieve a goal and
what is the critical action that makes it possible?
The answer is: Abhyāsa and Kriyā!
Abhyāsa and Kriyā allow a person to shape a
person’s ideas and goals and turn them in to reality.
This brings us to understand what Abhyāsa and
Kriyā are!
Abhyāsa is repeated practice performed with
observation and reflection. We all know ‘practice
makes a man perfect’ but Abhyāsa stresses on
observation and reflection while practicing and this
shapes us towards reaching perfection.
Kriyā simply means action with perfect execution.
We all know how important execution is and without
that all actions may fall flat. As John Doerr (a
venture capitalist who supported and funded Google
when none of us knew what Google is) said ‘Ideas are easy, execution is everything and great teams win’.
Sādhanā, Abhyāsa and Kriyā are vital in our life and
as I can see, this has been well implemented in the
journey of CSF, where we have been witnessing the
growth in the last one year. After the idea has taken
shape for a new TM forum every member of the
successive management team in CSF has raised
the bar in the last one year and exemplified how
great teams should work. Finally the team’s
execution speaks it all and I am sure the day is not
very far that we will be heard at international level.
Like every TM in CSF, I am equally excited to know
and welcome another great CSF management team
to lead us to greater heights in the near future.
TM Ramesh K TM Ramesh Thandav
2
President’s Desk
As always, it gives me immense pleasure to
reach you all through this column. We join
Toastmasters to improve our communication
and leadership skills. But over a period of time
we realize toastmasters is more than that. The
recent visit to Kochi proves this more than
anything else. Our members brought laurels to
the club. It was for the first time a member
from CSF won the 1st runner up at the District
Level Evaluation Contest and it was done in
style by our very own founder president TM
Arna Chugani and she also received the Golden
Gavel award for our club for the year 2011-
2012. Our DTM Saro Velrajan received the best
Division Governor in District 82 award. Our
DTM Sastharam led his team and created
history at Reverberations 2012 and also
managed 187 registrations in less than 24
hours for Ovation 2013. We not only received
awards but also appreciation for energy and
enthusiasm shown by our members.
I strongly believe any member can achieve
anything if good exposure is given and that
responsibility lies in the hands of the leaders.
As we all know Chennai Speakers Forum
officers election is coming up, I request you all
to take part in the same and take the club to
the next level. By doing so, you are not only
taking the club to the next level but in the
process you will also take
yourself one step higher. By being part of the
executive committee one will get great
exposure. The Interesting part of toastmasters
is that the more you give, the more you get.
They say “The mediocre teacher tells, the good
teacher explains, the superior teacher
demonstrates, the great teacher inspires.” Here
in Toastmasters, you can
become the great teacher by taking up
leadership roles. So I request you all to tap the
leadership skills buried in you.
I thank all the members of the club for taking
the club to greater heights.
Look forward to a fantabulous farewell month.
Wishing you all Godspeed!
TM Pravin Mani
3
It was the year 2010; I was serving as the
President of Chennai Toastmasters Club. A
guest in his mid-20s approached me at the end
of the meeting and asked, “Sir! I’m completely
impressed by the meeting. Can I complete the
entire course in just 1 year? I’m very busy with
lot of other activities and I want to complete this
course soon”.
He is not an exception. Very recently, I was
approached by a young toastmaster who said
“Sir! I am doing my under graduation now and I
have lots of spare time. I want to complete my
DTM in the next two years”.
I have seen several toastmasters who want to
complete their speaking projects, soon. Public
Speaking and Leadership are skills that are
developed by practicing, participating and
performing. There are absolutely NO
SHORTCUTS. If there is one magic pill that you
can swallow before going to the bed and wake
up as a competent speaker the next day
morning, everybody will be a competent
speaker today.
So, how can you get the maximum out of the
toastmasters program? This article describes a
3R technique that you can use to become a
successful toastmaster. The fullest benefit of
toastmasters program can be achieved only
when you follow the 3Rs:
1. Regular Being regular is the most important trait of a
successful toastmaster. What happens to an
athlete, does not exercise regularly attend
practice sessions regularly? Mastering the art
of public speaking is very similar to sports – it
requires regular practice. What better platform
can you get to regularly practice your skills than
a toastmasters club?
Regularly attend club meetings
Regularly take a diverse set of roles in the club meeting
Regularly deliver speeches in your club and in other clubs
Regularly participate in contests and benchmark your performance
Regularly take leadership roles in your club and outside your clubs
SPEAKERS DIGEST
4
2. Research
Performing adequate research is important for
any assignment that you do – not just in
toastmasters. Charles E. Jones, a famous
author said "Five years from now you'll be the
same person you are today except for the
books you read and the people you meet”. It is
very true. As a toastmaster, we need to develop
habits of reading books, reading newspapers,
attending educational programs, attending
contests and continuously learning new things
by research. Research helps us to discover
new ways of doing things, it helps us to
constantly innovate and discover a BETTER
YOU!
3. Rehearse
Our District 82 Champions TM Alexandar Babu,
and TM Guruprasad delivered a 7 minutes
humorous speech to win the prestigious 1st and
3rd positions respectively in Reverberations
2012. Can you imagine how many times they
would’ve rehearsed before their most
memorable performance at the District? They
would’ve rehearsed at least a 50 times for
months together, before their final performance
at the district. If great champions have to
rehearse for at least 50 times before their
performance, how many times should we
rehearse before giving our speech at the club?
A successful toastmaster rehearses multiple
times before they perform in toastmasters.
A chicken that pops out from an egg is special,
not because of the 1 minute that it spent
breaking the shell, but because of the several
1000 minutes that it spent in hatching.
Fellow toastmasters, let us take the following
resolution to become a successful
communicator and a leader.
I’m a toastmaster…
I participate in meetings, but don’t precipitate
I’m always prepared, so I’m not afraid
I help others to perform, so that their skills
can reform
I give everyone a pat, that’s the best way to
get them to act
I’m a toastmaster …
I remain positive, even if my blood group is
negative
I treat everyone fair, they being a guest or a
DTM doesn’t matter
I’m ready to serve the club, because my heart
says so with every single lub-tub
I’ll follow the rules, as it helps the club to
reach its goals.
I’m a toastmaster!!!
By
DTM Saro Velrajan
5
whole year is over. Wishes fulfilled. Dreams shattered. Promises kept. Resolutions broken!
Yet another new year is here. New year. New beginnings...
Here are my Toastmaster resolutions for 2013.
1. To attend Toastmaster meetings regularly. (Well, this one's the absolute usual..er essential!!)
2. To take every prepared speech and role seriously and look-out for the learning it is supposed to
bring.
3. To give my fullest effort, to the preparation and performance every role and prepared speech.
4. To volunteer for table-topics sessions when needed.
5. To watch-out for fellow Toastmasters, and help them in their journey of self-development, with
useful and encouraging feedback.
6. To spread the Toastmaster spirit of personal-leadership, learning and sharing, beyond the
portals of Toastmaster meeting.
7. To always be on the look-out for opportunities for learning.
8. To improve personal relationships and professional competencies.
9. To make the way I live my life, and not just my spoken words, do the talking for the world to
hear.
10. To listen to and trust the gentle hopes that love, faith and life whisper.
11. Now this is one set of resolutions I hope not to break :-)
A toast to all the Toastmasters out there!
Wish you a Happy New Year!
ATM Pon G Nithya
SPEAKERS DIGEST
6
Few things taste as good as
freedom. Success is one of them.
Joining Toastmasters, regularly
attending meetings, actively
participating in contest, taking the
CC manual seriously and giving
speeches and practicing in front of
mirror till you are satisfied...wow
where these all take us..
This is the recipe for being a master
communicator.
Success is never a hit or miss!
There is a recipe for success. There is always
a recipe for success.
I am a result oriented person like everyone
and when I joined Toastmasters, I asked a
fellow 3-yr- toastmaster, how long does it take
to become good in communication skills and
the answer I got was 1 year. He said, “attend
the club regularly and in one year you will be a
good speaker. “
That was the best answer I could have
received. I had a concrete answer that I could
trust. He said that with such conviction that it
looked like he was giving a guarantee and I
completely bought it. My intuition said, yes..it
is true and i decided to give it a shot and stick
with it for one year and see .
I have the habit of evaluating my
progress. Initially it was “bad to
okay” and soon it became “okay”
and suddenly one day I could give a
“fair” to it.
I felt okay with the “okay” and “fair”
feels good and just thinking about
how “good” will feel makes me feel
too good.
Don’t wish to be a good speaker just
desire to be a good speaker..don’t
just desire to be a good speaker but
decide to be a good speaker. Once
you decide, follow this recipe and
success is a sure shot.
SPEAKERS DIGEST
Wi sh?
Desire?
7
How often have you heard the importance of
non-verbal cues in your speech? The most often
quoted research says that for any speech or
conversation or discussion, the meaning of the
message is carried more by the voice and the
body language than by the actual spoken words.
Your words 7%
Your tone of voice 38%
Your body language 55%.
For anyone who has been part of any
communication group, this may not be news.
That your body language and vocal variety is
much more important than the content of your
speech is a widely accepted and repeated
mantra. But the numbers are fascinating, almost
unbelievable; I wondered why words carried
only 7% while we spend more than 70 % of the
time writing those words for the speech. Is that
even possible?
How can someone explain such disparity?
Though I agree that I’m much more impressed
by Obama’s enthusiastic animated speech than
Manmohan Singh’s dull recitation, I had difficulty
in agreeing to the sheer insignificance assigned
to words in a speech.
The content may not be the king when it comes
to a speech, but it is no worse than the soldier
who faces the enemies up front with courage.
What was this research that gave such accurate
numbers? How did they measure this? Thanks
to the internet, my research was not as
cumbersome as the research under question.
Who did this research? Albert Mehrabian came up with this research in the
late ‘60s, but there are few important points to
note before confirming the direct implication of
his research to a speech.
THE STUDIES
Mehrabian and his colleagues were seeking to
understand the relative impact of facial
expressions and spoken words.
Study 1
In Mehrabian and Wiener, (1967), subjects
listened to nine recorded words,
Three conveying liking (honey, dear and
thanks)
Three conveying neutrality (maybe, really
and oh)
Three conveying disliking (don’t, brute and
terrible).
Non Verbal Cues are not Important
A new thought on effective communication…. by Nijil Chandran
SPEAKERS DIGEST
8
The words were spoken with different tonalities
and subjects were asked to guess the emotions
behind the words as spoken. The experiment
finding was that tone carried more meaning than
the individual words themselves.
Study 2
In Mehrabian and Ferris (1967), subjects were
asked to listen to a recording of a female saying
the single word 'maybe' in three tones of voice
to convey liking, neutrality and disliking.
The subjects were then shown photos of female
faces with the same three emotions and were
asked to guess the emotions in the recorded
voices, the photos and both in combination.
The photos got more accurate responses than
the voice, by a ratio of 3:2.
They cautiously note:
These findings regarding the relative
contribution of the tonal component of a verbal
message can be safely extended only to
communication situations in which no additional
information about the communicator-addressee
relationship is available.
Let us analyze his experiments with a
speech in mind?
1) Mehrabian arrived at the ratio 7:38:55 through
two independent experiments.
2) Mehrabian used only words, not a speech,
not even a complete sentence for conducting
this experiment.
Can combing results of two complex
experiments on human behavior be sufficient to
arrive at such a conclusion? Mehrabian’s
disclaimers are proof enough to confirm that we
cannot draw an accurate parallel from his
research to any meaningful discussion between
two human beings. If that is not enough, the
research was done only using words not
complete meaningful sentences.
Of course, there is no denying the importance of
voice and body language in any communication
situation. They are as important as the words.
But for a complete speech, a ratio of 33:33:34
makes much more sense than Mehrabian’s
7:38:55. Words cannot stand alone all the time,
Mehrabian's research in itself is a perfect
testimony to this fact. His research was probably
tweaked by innovative individuals to attain their
own goals. The more people accepted the
misinterpretation of his theory, the more people
joined the bandwagon of 7:38:55. With time, his
theory developed a credibility that will be very
hard to break.
All this reminds of a Siddhuism, “Statistics are
like miniskirts, they reveal more than what they
hide.”After all Obama owes as much as to his
catch phrase “Yes we can” to all the emotions
he showed while making that historic speech.
The title may be slightly misleading, but I know
you wouldn't read if not for such controversial
title. It is not too far away from the central idea
of this article; although we can ill afford to
neglect non-verbal cues, they are not as
important as you thought them to be.
SPEAKERS DIGEST
9
TOASTMASTER’S RESOLUTION –
MY TAKE ON IT
TM Karthikeyan Balasubramanian
We’ve come to that phase of the year where good moments alone are remembered and unpleasant
incidents are erased off from our memories considering them as bad dreams. Its time to take up
promises, be it NEW or OLD, after all we need to keep up our promises and live up to it.
At this juncture, I would like to pull in an incident that happened couple of years ago between two
toastmasters. The topic was about RESOLUTION FOR THE NEW YEAR 2009. It was on that
Sunday evening after Chennai ToastMaster Club’s last meeting for the year 2008, myself and
another toastmaster cum good
friend of mine were chatting for
long time. Our conversation
extended upto 9 pm and we
discussed about many issues
before finally touching on the
topic of New Year Resolution.
Both of us took the same
promise and that is, to attend all
meetings of Chennai TM Club in
the year 2009.
Did we keep up our promise, eventually?
NO. Both of us failed to live up to our promise, however, I did some justice though. My friend had to
leave Chennai for pursuing his masters abroad. While, Year 2009 happened to be the best year in
my calendar as I bagged the Best Speaker Ribbon for 7 times (3 of which coming from TM clubs in
Bahrain), Best Evaluator Ribbon for 15 times (8 of which coming from TM clubs in Bahrain) and
striking my maiden Best Table Topic Speaker Ribbon from Manama TM Club (the first and oldest
club in the Pearl Island).
SPEAKERS DIGEST
10
On the whole, I had attended 85 Toastmaster Meetings and 1 District Conference Meet in Bahrain.
12 out of 85 meetings were attended in Bahrain TM Clubs.
Attended 44 out of 48 meetings of the Chennai TM Club.
Attended 27 meetings of TM Clubs situated in different parts of Chennai and,
Participated in 2 Demo TM Meetings during the year.
It was a magnificent year for me, as I had ribbons pouring in.
However, I am still finding it really tough to revive the same spirit in me as I took a long break in the
year 2010 from TM activities.
Coming back to the topic though, I’ve my stand clear on whether to or not to take resolution this
year. Without giving any work to my mind, my clear reply is NO as I’ve decided to walk in the path of
another good friend of mine since; I am inspired of his MANTRA and desiring to adopt the same. It’s
a tough challenge though, however, on Day 1, 2013 the adopted MANTRA will be put into action.
WHAT IS THAT MANTRA?
WHY I CALL IT A TOUGH CHALLENGE?
HOW THE MANTRA INSPIRED ME?
Answers to all these will be voiced out in Jan 2013 Newsletter Issue.
I take this opportunity to wish all my friends from the Toastmasters family a very Happy,
Prosperous, Joyous and a Successful New Year 2013.
SPEAKERS DIGEST
11
TM Ramesh Thandav Life will be banal if it is without happenings; the
charm of life is change. Incidentally, most of us
dread the very word change and find comfort in
our own shell. Life gives numerous occasions to
everyone to embrace change and question the
statuesque. One such occasion is New Year
and New Year’s Resolution.
Let us try to understand what Resolution means
and trace its historical significance. Resolution is
derived from the word ‘resolve’ means breaking
into parts, reducing things into simpler forms,
and holding it firmly. A simple fact is if we want
to achieve something, a) we should believe in it
b) hold it firmly and practice it.
Historically speaking, resolutions during
important occasions and events are quite
prevalent from ancient civilizations especially
from Babylonians, Romans and Medieval
period.
Many a time resolutions are not necessarily a
life changing effort. It might come from a simple
reasoning and change the way things are and
this change may be something to do with a
person’s life or something that impacts the well
being of the society.
A study by Richard Wiseman shows that 88% of
the people who make New Year resolutions fail
even though 52% of them were confident that
they will succeed. It is said, men achieved 22%
more when they get into goal setting. This
basically helps to form small measurable goals
like indulge in sweets once a week rather than
stop eating sweets, lose weight by one pound a
week rather than lose weight. Women appear to
increase their success rate by 10% when they
share their goals with their friends.
Why is this astounding failure percentage
reported? Lets us examine what causes this.
Most important of all is one should believe that
resolutions are for us to make our life better. It
creates a basic conviction to pursue it against all
odds. The best way to begin is to believe that ‘I
hold the power than any other outside influence’,
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Always bear in
mind that your own resolution to succeed is
more important than any one thing.”
Did you know that before being elected the 16th
President of the United States of America, he
lost 8 elections? How many of us would lose 8
elections and keep going? Many of us would
quit at the first sign of adversity. But Lincoln had
a “resolution” to succeed.
I found four proven ways to succeed in
achieving resolutions: a) Keep it simple b) Keep
it realistic c) Don’t let the set back discourage d)
Make it accountable.
SPEAKERS DIGEST
12
Keeping it simple: To say I want to exercise this
year is bit vague and not specific, instead to say
it simply that I am going to exercise 30 minutes
three days in a week. By making it simple will
help us clearly see and follow what we are
accomplishing and make course correction if
necessary.
Keep it realistic: A goal that is realistic will be a
good partner in our endeavour. Setting
unattainable goals will lead us to failure. A
realistic goal can be a good motivator.
Don’t let the set back discourage: The idea is to
progress on the goal we want to achieve. In the
event of failing on some occasion we should
avoid being hard on oneself. Consider it as a
slight set back and try to come back on track.
Let’s not get discouraged.
Make it accountable: It is a good idea to have
partners in goals. Husband and wife can jointly
have some goals or find a friend with whom one
can have goals together. This will bring in some
sense of accountability. End of it all it brings in
lot of fun and also a sense of fulfillment in one’s
life.
SPEAKERS DIGEST
13
Deepavali Celebrations at CSF
SPEAKERS DIGEST
President
VP-Education
VP-Membership
VP-Public Relations
Secretary
Treasurer
Sergeant at Arms
: Pravin Mani
: Vivekanandan B
: Nijil Chandran
: Kiran Sarma
: Ram Kumar
: Ramesh Karunakaran
: Padma Prabha V
Meets every Sunday
10am to 12pm
Ruby Hall, Presidency Club,
Egmore, Chennai, India
www.chennaispeakersforum.com
Chennai Speakers Forum Editorial Team
Ramesh Thandav
K Ramesh
Office Bearers
Please write your feedback to our VP-PR: kiransarma88@gmail.com