Cracking the Public Speaking Code || Acharya Prashant, with NIT-Jamshedpur (2023)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 Good evening, sir. Myself, Rita Kumari, a second year B.Tech student. Sir, you have

00:09 taken so many seminars and sessions. So, sir, my question is that, what do you, what would

00:18 you love the art of public speaking? How do you love the art of public speaking?

00:31 I do not think about public speaking. When you are in front of me, I'm speaking to you.

00:37 And my effort is to communicate what needs to be communicated.

00:48 The manner, the style, the words, the language, the metaphors, all follow.

00:54 The intention is supreme. The intention is that if I'm talking to you,

01:00 I must be looking into your eyes and be gauging all the time whether you are really benefiting.

01:07 That's the only thing I care about. All else, where do the stories come from,

01:17 where do the examples come from, where does the particular manner of speech come from,

01:23 all that comes from the intent to help.

01:27 Equally, if the intent were to be polluted, if I were looking to impress an audience or

01:36 whatever, then everything would be distorted or diluted.

01:43 Public speaking is not about speaking in a way that impresses an audience.

01:47 When you speak, the intention must be to benefit the audience by presenting the truth.

01:54 And if that intention is right, everything else falls in place.

01:59 Trying to impress someone, think of it, is a bit like violence.

02:12 I have come to you so that I deliver an imprint on your consciousness.

02:21 Is that not very self-centred of me?

02:25 I want that when you walk out after the session,

02:30 you should be carrying my memory and an impression of my superiority.

02:40 Is that not violent?

02:41 But unfortunately, that's what most of this public speaking thing has come to be.

02:49 Impress your audience.

02:51 Speak in a way that leaves them speechless.

02:56 The real speaker speaks to give voice to his audience, not to leave them speechless.

03:08 Today you have so many people, they say we'll teach you the art of public speaking or the art

03:14 of conversation. And in all that, what is it that they want to teach? How to confidently

03:23 throw garbage at an audience and mesmerise them.

03:34 Be confident and just keep speaking even if you have no substance, no content at all.

03:40 You have to look confident. No, you don't have to look confident. You have to be honest.

03:49 If you don't know, then ask.

03:53 If you must listen, then keep your trap shut if needed for hours altogether and just listen.

04:05 Public speaking is not a vocation. Public speaking is not an art.

04:10 Public speaking is an expression of your truth and your love.

04:15 I reiterate, if you go to an audience to impress them, that's violence.

04:23 You have to go to an audience to uplift them.

04:31 And never try to throw jargon or vocabulary at people. Even if you know

04:40 a bigger word, a heavier word, which is more accurate yet archaic, try to find a simpler

04:52 substitute. Even if that substitute is a bit approximate, try to find a simpler substitute.

05:01 Not fully accurate. Yet use a word that your audience will be able to relate to and understand.

05:08 Your job, I repeat, is not to leave them spellbound.

05:14 Your job is to pull them out of the spells they are already caged in.

05:29 Are you getting it?

05:34 When the word pain can suffice, why say angst? It sounds cool. Don't do that.

05:43 And it's a practice that you often pick up in college.

05:54 And it's a habit that gets reinforced because of feedback from deluded people.

06:06 If they could not understand what you said, they'll say that you spoke brilliantly.

06:18 So you take that as a habit. Let me use words and phrases and metaphors and idioms

06:24 that nobody knows of. And then they will get impressed. And when they get impressed,

06:30 my ego feels elevated. Your job in front of an audience is not to burnish your own ego.

06:44 When you are with a set of people, your job is to help them understand something, be better.

06:52 It's a very cheap kind of admiration that you get by bombarding people with incomprehensible stuff.

07:04 And they will admire you because they too are quite deluded and listless.

07:12 Especially in India that happens. That's our Sanskritic upbringing. You understand that?

07:19 Nobody knows Sanskrit. But the moment you throw Sanskrit at someone,

07:24 they immediately bow down with folded hands. And that has become a deeply rooted habit now.

07:37 From Sanskrit that has moved to English. Sanskrit you could not understand,

07:42 so you surrendered. Now English too when you cannot understand, you tend to surrender. Don't

07:50 do that. Instead if you find that someone is not able to understand even a simple word,

07:58 try to break it down. Always keep looking into your people's eyes. See whether there is any real

08:06 connection at all. You get the right to be satisfied when you have uplifted your audience.

08:24 That's when you can allow yourself to feel satisfied.

08:32 Instead if you have just impressed them,

08:34 then you have just made them feel a little more inferior. Have you not?

08:42 They and most people, especially in India, already suffer from a sense of inferiority.

08:55 Especially when it comes to the languages. By languages I mean languages like Sanskrit and

09:02 English and other exotic languages. And then you throw this and that upon them and then they say,

09:10 this entire lecture has convinced us even more that we are worthless.

09:18 If this has been the net impact of your engagement with them,

09:28 then this engagement was surely toxic. Or was it not?

09:31 Even if you can speak very fluently, check your pace.

09:43 It's not about displaying how fluent you are with your language.

09:52 If you are holding a kid by the finger, do you walk too fast or do you try to run?

10:01 Or do you keep in mind the kid's limitations?

10:05 Then why try to be so fluent and so pacey?

10:19 150 words a minute the chap is delivering.

10:23 And the audience is absolutely flabbergasted. Because he is using words like flabbergasted.

10:31 At the rate of 150, that almost feels like a car going at 150. And the audience is saying wow.

10:46 Even if you can move fast, slow down.

10:49 Even if you can be complex, even if authenticity to an extent demands complexity,

10:58 still be simple even at the cost of diluting your content.

11:04 Give them examples they can relate to, not examples that are so high flying.

11:12 That they just can have no connection.

11:14 Stand for them. Speak to them. Don't speak at them.

11:30 When you speak at them, then you are throwing words at a target.

11:40 There is the target and the target is their mind and I am throwing words to nail their mind down.

11:48 More and more I am seeing this tendency always existed even in my times.

11:59 But it's becoming more widespread and more deep rooted now.

12:06 To dress, to walk, to act, to live and to speak in a way that impresses others. Don't do that.

12:21 Sometimes you may even have to compromise on pronunciation. That's okay. You don't have to be exact.

12:32 There are so many words that English borrows from let's say French or Greek or Latin.

12:44 Especially the words from French.

12:47 If you pronounce them accurately to an Indian,

12:58 he won't know what to make of it. Because in India we are used to the phonological way.

13:08 What's that way? We write exactly as it is heard.

13:17 That's not how western languages operate. Especially French. Not at all that way.

13:27 So, it's all right to not to pronounce it exactly accurately.

13:32 Your chief concern is not linguistic accuracy. Your chief concern is internal comprehension.

13:45 What about criticism?

13:54 Criticism is just engagement. Criticism is engagement. If they are saying something

14:01 and that exposes another dimension of the issue at hand or questions one of your conclusions, that is good.

14:14 Why label it as criticism in particular? It is engagement.

14:22 It is engagement.

14:23 Anything done to uncover the truth must be welcomed. You have said something and if

14:34 somebody from the audience is saying something that makes you or challenges you to explore

14:42 deeper into your content, one should welcome that. On the other hand, if that fellow

14:49 is just being egoistic or is trying to score a nasty point, let him be. Why care about him?

14:59 Thank you, sir.

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