We all are stuck in Haves and Have-nots. Life is a continuous struggle for most of us, not matter what, we need to work and work hard to overcome our have-nots issues. Look around, and you will find many frustrated faces, while trying to climb fast on their respective ladders, they often meet with surprises. These surprises pause their growth and advancements.
Clueless at that stage, struggle becomes even more challenging, and life becomes hopeless! But why this disappointment when generally, we have the ability to change our destiny? Stuck in the spiral of our thoughts, we disregard our human capabilities.
Imagine your life without both arms and both legs.
There is one man I met in the US, Nick Vujicic who was actually born as a disabled child! He was limbless, missing both arms at shoulder level, as well as legless. Meeting with a man who was born with such sever disability and seeing how he faced the challenges of his life was a lesson for me. A graduate in double major in Accounting and Financial Planning, Nick Vujicic is a renowned motivational speaker who focuses on “Teen Issues”. He has spoken in over 25 countries, engaging a large number. He plays football and golf, surfs and swims, isn’t that astonishing?
When Nick was born his father was so shocked he left the hospital room to vomit. It was difficult to raise a child with this condition, but both parents did their best to give Nick confidence and courage. His father made him swim when he was only 18 months old. He was constantly bullied at school and remained in hyper depressive conditions. At the age of 8, he tried to commit suicide by drowning himself.
The session I attended, Nick talked about failure and disappointments in life. He recalled those when he felt hopelessness, lonely and broken, when life was pointless, going to school was a pain. He said that the feelings were indescribable. His explanation on keep trying was an amazing. He said:
‘There are times in your life you fall down and you feel like that you can’t get up. Look at me, when I was a toddler, I tried standing stable for several hundred times, I failed every time I tried, but I continued trying, I continued gaining some extra strength every next time. I became aware of my abilities and technique; I soon learnt that I have a very low centre of gravity that helps in balancing my body.’
When a man with no arms and legs can gain strengths with his failures, why can’t a normal human being do this? To me it is a matter of making strong commitment towards your objectives that leads you to success, even in most challenging conditions.
Nick is thankful for what he has, not bitter for what he does not have. He tells people to keep on getting up when they fall and to always love themselves. In his views, “if I can encourage just one person then my job in this life is done.’”
If we all, with honesty, do our self analysis, we will realize the blessings we enjoy!
Inspire someone – share this blog.
Further readings: http://hammadsiddiquiblog.com/
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Tools for Making Effective Presentations
I take it as serious business.
After having attended a formal “Effective Speaking” training program in 1996 at the British Foreign Office training center in London, I was quite hopeful to develop my skills as an effective speaker and presenter.
This three day program covered the above techniques in addition to a session on effective writing. I remember our facilitators kept repeating;
“There is only one tool that helps deliver good speeches or presentations – Practice, practice and more practice”.
In the past 15 years, I have delivered uncountable presentations and spoke at numerous public forums, conferences and seminars. And equipped with what I learnt at British Foreign Office Training, I also tried to analyze various fellow presenters.
My observations confirm that particularly case of senior executive that did not go through a purpose-designed program, there always are three common key missing links:
- Control on body movements
- Voice variation
- Expressions
In my opinion, one cannot doubt the knowledge and quality of contents of an expert speaker. However if the above ingredients are missing, it is highly likely that your audience will lose interest. I have also seen that extensive and complicated presentations also cause severe damage to presenter’s ability to engage audience. I have also observed that some presenters keep going in the flow of their thoughts, and in trying to impress their audience forget that a normal human has a short attention time span. In my opinion, if your listeners can not retain 25% of what you have said – “you have failed to deliver your message”.
Let’s discuss the common what can be done to avoid “Presentation Disasters”:
Understand your audience:
Highly important. One must not prepare a presentation without knowing the audience. Try to gauge the level of education, expertise, areas of interest, issues faced, and then only develop your presentation. This is the only way to keep your audience engaged throughout.
Write from your heart:
Often I have seen people delivering presentations or speeches written by others. For trained and experienced presenters, this is okay, however if you have not contributed towards developing the presentation or speech, speaking from your heart will be too challenging, hence creating an impact too will not be possible.
Avoid reading from paper:
I am not a fan of reading from a written paper. Fine to do it only in case of a specific government level speech or expressing point of view, but for any other presentation, if you read from a paper, you are inviting a reputational disaster!
Practice:
Okay, here is the key – as I mentioned above, for making highly effective presentations, extensive practice is unavoidable. And when I talk about practice, I am not only suggesting “speaking practice” but also reviewing the flow and carefully thinking about expected questions and how to respond to these questions. Surprisingly, very few presenters follow this strict rule.
I have also seen presenters struggling with technical glitches, ask yourself:
- How difficult to have an additional soft copy of your presentation and a printed version?
- How difficult it is to check the microphone volume?
- How difficult it is to control the lights at the stage to avoid blindness?
And the final words:
“Your audience do not know what you would tell them next, so if you have forgotten a point, keep moving on, they won’t notice it”.
If you follow these points, you will be repeatedly performing better.
Happy presenting!!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Inspiring Self-made Entrepreneur - Owner of Sadia’s Kitchen – Meet Abid Beli
Sadia’s Kitchen is a popular brand for home made food. Abid and his wife Sadia started this business in 2009 with 10 customers. The business has grown to over 550 clients in two years.
To me Abid is spiritually an entrepreneur. He says that “I have been taking risks, and this is my key to success”.
Again his faith on his entrepreneurial spiritually played its part and in 2009, he and Sadia came with this unique concept of providing home cooked lunches to offices and household customers. This is a 100% online business.
Menu is preset. One lunch contains two vegi and one meat item and his delivered in hotpots, and enough to feed two people. Sadia’s Kitchen Facebook page now has over 2,900 fans. Lunch can be ordered via email foods@sadiaskitchen.com or by making a call. Cost only $2.56 (Pak-rupees 220/-). A business that was started with a total investment of $ 140 only!
Considering the size of the market in Karachi, you would think that the growth has been slow. But remember, there is stiff competition with low quality street restaurants that provide sub-standard unhealthy food at a much cheaper price.
Sadia’s Kitchen is an excellent model with hardly any promotional cost and minimal overheads.
Abid says “I take online business seriously. Facebook, twitter and my blog are my marketing tools. I never market or advertise myself or my business on any other form of media. And I never will, reason is simple this is digital age and my USP is my active online presence”.
I asked Abid, how do people find you? He said, “simple – google me, or search tweets #homemade #freshfood #dailyluch #spices and you will find me”
There are four key lessons from this successful small business:
1. Entrepreneurs have courage to take risks at a very difficult situations. Perhaps most people fail to start their entrepreneurial journey because of their fear “FAILURE”.
2. For an entrepreneur, there is no failure; they only know the word “Learning”.
3. Small businesses can compete only on quality of product or service and by keeping their overheads at the minimal level.
4. Online presence is an essential element for small businesses.
Isn’t that inspiring?
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