speech study

In The story of the Origin of the Gayatri Mantra, Murali starts off with simple mantras with fewer syllables and goes on to tell the meaning. To tell how Mantras come into being, he says an example of how they cant be made up with an example, making it relevant to the audience.

I didnt know that Vishvamitra was a king before he was a rishi.

Vasishtana side-plank pose

Very unexpectedly, the prop of staff similar to Vishwamitra's is shown.

Visualisation

One of the smartest girls in my class in undergrad who seemed like she never studied but could ace the motors class and was always found reading Waverly novels. When someone asked her secret, she said that she visualizes it.

The No.1 Habit Billionaires Run Daily

This video hooks you in with a change that you can implement in 30s. It introduces you to reticular activating system in your brain. With science terms, it shows you how you put any of the limits and barriers around you. Once you recognise your barriers, off you go towards your dreams.

How your vision clarifies your values

While listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger talk about his vision and how his vision was different from his parents, you are amazed that he knew what he didnt want and what he wanted clearly.

When I came across, Having a vision means you no longer care what other people think of you. I wanted to put it more as, you will not let others influence what you do. It means regardless of whats going on around the world, you try your own thing. John C Maxwell says "Leadership is influence". It means you be your own leader. It means racing, even when there's no cheering. It means knowing your limits and pushing them. You want to pick up walking? How far can you walk? You are waiting for a bus and there's still time? Walk in that little time to the next bus stop and then the next bus stop. Few hours later, you have arrived at your destination. if any day, your bus breaks down, you know how far you can walk.

Does everyone come up with a vision?

Some start with values.

One day I realised that the weekend is 2/5th of our week. That means if we consistently put efforts towards something, we will soon catch up to something worthwhile. Thats when I picked up crazy reading. My value there was to utilize time to get better. At first I did try sleeping a lot but I cringe at it, when I think of it, that I didnt find a better way sooner. Then I moved onto all activities that made me feel happy. Walking, Hiking, Birdwatching.

Sometimes you try on the garb and see how it feels and continue in it, if it works.

Or may be the vision was hazy but it started you on a path. When I was in my sixth grade, unbeknoenst to me I was trying on the stoicism. My sister and I went to a neighbors house where they had a party. They had egg curry and when they asked us to eat. I said no, we dont want to. Maybe I had already eaten or it was a wrong time. Around that time, we also had a lesson where a little kid gets to go to his sister's friend's birthday party only if he says no atleast three times to the requests of having food - birthday cake. The clever kid says "No , No, No" very quickly. I think I wanted to be able to say no atleast once. I didnt even ask if my younger sibling wanted to have it. Still had things to learn. But a start.

It keeps you going. It has now become a habit. Once you know whats possible, you wouldnt veer off it. Its getting close. You want to make this happen.

The psoas muscle

Are you familair with the psoas muscle? Each year, I learn so much about my body when it breaks. Last year I was so fascianted to learn about the trapezoid muscles and muscle knots. With a lower back ache ignited by god knows what - deep squat thrust, bad holiday break posture, how could I have lost my strong core in just that break. I have been having intermittent pain in the back. Have been careful with bending. But now its all under control with counterstrain methods and psoas yoga.

Not so HiPPo

Peshawaria with his open source leadership talks about honing not just high-potentials but being fair and ready for the new century by developing all those interested in leadership. Hopefully this counter thought of the times stands the test of the times.

Gratitude

We realise the health we had, when we have some pain in the body. How much better off we will be when we recognise our wealth when we have it.

Topics for speeches

personal well being
governnce
people power, democracy
lifestyles/ health
education - jobs/career/vocation
serving others
raw talent vs hard work and persistence

Raspberry sticks

Image Courtesy: amazon

Usually anything covered in chocolate, you know whos the winner but with this Raspberry sticks, its the raspberry that rules.

The Leader's Greatest return

Image Courtesy: Amazon

Do you wait for hotel pick up or do you say I'm so and so? Well probbaly you dont but how about the person doing the pick up. Do they say I'm looking for you or already recognise you with some homework is the situation John C Maxwell puts forward while reying to separate leaders from followers.

"Nothing erases self-doubt quicker than when a person of influence speaks belief into your life" - John C Maxwell

Phrased differently - nothing doubles your confidence than when a person of influence believes in you.

Andy powers redesigning Taylor guitars

Stories in business

In a workshop when there was reference to a company which had great customer service, immediately I recalled Nordstorm car tire return even though they dont sell them. This made me realise why so mnay business books have so many stories. Even though business itself is lot about numbers and deals but the people in it remember stories and are moved to aciton by stories.

Getting ready for a retirement party

Have you ever managed a retirement party?

The one retirement arty that I remembered vaguely had an inflated shark floated in for personal value to the retiree. When time came to host one, it was lucky that there was a recent one hosted. I happened to walk with the soon to be retiree, near the decorated cube of the recent retiree. Out cam elist of favorite chocolated and color.

So the theme and chocolates to be strewn on the tables were set.

What people like the most?

All images in this post - party city

I happened to find some on Amazon which had more rows like Always, Never which I liked but that double this size. But when I found these, I thought they were cute. Atleast couple of people asked me where these were from. They came as a set of 25

My main pull to the patycity was this office decorating kit.

I know that there should be cake. That was easy. half sheet cake for 48. That is only true if you have a person excellent at doing that kind of portion cutting of cake. There were 2 sets of cupcakes from Walmart.

I should have probably spruced this centerpiece more for this effect.

Theme color napkins, plates, forks all brought beforehand

Cakes, Cupcakes, Coffee and balloons ordered prior and picked up on the day. 

I was very tempted to skip these, but the effect would have been amiss.

All in all, the total decorations (tablecloth), retirement advice cards and cutlery (plates, forks and napkins for 50 people) and chocolates (one kitkat bag, one hersheys bag and 5 hershey bars) came to about 100$ not counting cakes, cupcakes and coffee.

A friend suggested speech, I wrote the speech over the weekend, but didn thave time to practice it. It helped to have the computer to prompt me, in case I needed some egging on. Toastmasters experience of speech and managing events helped a lot. I was supposed to text a friend, which I forgot in frenzy. It was god nerves. The people came in and sat for a show. This made it easy for a speech setting. We had some photo props that were used as decoration in the cube until the party time. My favorite was the 'not retired' which I put against another colleague's cube. The way the gathering went, there was more talking than interest in taking pictures. Later when we took a group photo, we all had the props.

She also suggested music which all worked out very well. A music afficionado with musical instruments was our good bet. Then I recalled another friend saying that she was going to sing for a retirement party in her department. I pulled them together. At a very short notice, they practised. I roped in the retiree to sing too (hidden talent which I learned about recently at holiday party), which made for a memorable song experience for all. Music was even used at the beginning to get the attention of people. It worked.

The very creative friend also suggested a picture as a backdrop on the projector.

Created advice from the friend and logistics help in bringing coffee made it all fun.

Everyone was such a good sport. We all had lots of fun. 

                                                          

Dried & Sweet Cranberries & Glazed Walnuts

                                                                Image Courtesy; Frys

When I saw this at Frys yesterday, immediately I wandered into the salad land in my imagination. Just the 'salad topping' suggestion had such a great impact.

Stoicism

What is stoicism and how can it turn your life to solid gold
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Self-awareness spectrum

Internal and External self-awareness matrix for Seekers, Introspectives, Aware, pleasers

According to Tasha Eurich, ask what and not why in your next introspection session to increase your self awareness.

How to self-reflect?

Strategic thinking skills

Developing & Demonstrating Strategic Thinking skills
"gain exposure to strategic roles, 
synthesize broad information, 
participate in a culture of curiosity, and 
gather experiences that allow you to identify patterns and connect the dots in novel ways. 
leadership development programs often include job rotations, cross-functional projects, and face time with senior leadership" 

"Demonstrating strategic thinking, on the other hand, requires that you are simultaneously a marketer, a salesperson, and a change agent. 
Proactive and widespread communication of your strategic efforts combined with the courage to challenge others and initiate and drive your strategic ideas are what make your boss and peers take notice."

Human growht vs Hockey Stick

Traditional vs Digital

Complacency in your market

When disruptive companies grow their market share, are they flushing the complacent at marketing out?

Optimize for Impact

What are you Optimizing for? Are you optimizing for reducing your organization costs or reaching more customers?

Do your gifts save time or money?

What do your gifts save?

Will this purchase change my use of time in positive ways?

Will this purchase change my use of time in positive ways? seems like a paradox when trying to get out of the money vs time clamp. "Once you have outsourced chores, devote your new free time to things that are more likely to promote happiness". In the money is superior world, outsourcing is done when you earn more doing somehting else that time. It is all messed up. Spending money/time.

Volunteering and time affluence

One day I volunteered as a judge at robotics competition. I enjoyed a lot that day, as I had a knowledgeable friend who showed me how to interview the participants. The next day I felt that I lost a weekend, not lose lose but felt that somehow the weekend missed a day. The whole activity was from 8am-2pm (free lunch and coffee included) but it was the first thing in the morning. Unlike another event, where the event was only 1 hour and commute added another 2 hours. Although I might have done other things which I cant recall on the other day but I could clearly see that the replenishing was not done by the weekend.

Volunteering consumes your time, but the act of giving time away makes you feel more in control of it.

Familiarity

Recently I wished happy birthday on one of the social media sites and when someone wondered why/how I consistently wished. I wish even when I dont get a reply. I realised two things.

1. Familairity. It feels good to see someone I know especially after so many news about people I do not know.
2. It feels good to wish people that I know.

Motivation

Asking someone to work harder when they are convinced that it wont work can backfire. Have you noticed what strategies work with learners?

Nearly every important initiative, whether it’s revenue growth, cost reduction, or new-product innovation, requires insights and actions from across the organization.  Is that why organization wide emails are sent when costing cutting measures are being followed? 

Watching Everlasting things

Betelgeuse of Orion dimming made me wonder how stargazing is an excellent hobby much like having a pet as a turtle or birdwatching which will always be there through the ups and downs of your life.

Spending more time experiencing awe makes you happier and more time affluent.

Resources for Small Business

Free online digital marketing audit

Citric acid

When you are in the kitchen, you look at the ingredients and wonder, if even in different forms, the outcomes are similar. Having warmed up some milk to prepare curd, there was some leftover. This is the best time of creativity display. Choices I had was to break the milk with lemon juice or make some fudge. When I saw citric acid being used to make some dessert, I recalled a gulb jamun dough packet and found that it had citric acid as an ingredient. That is a sign right that it wants to go into the cooking pan. I mixed that flour which would normally be mixed with water, shaped into round balls and deep fried to be later laden in sugar syrup, into the condensed milk. I struggled a bit to remove the lumps. In the end, it was a consistent sugar soup which reminded my husband  of condensed milk, one of his favorites. Doesnt it feel cool to cook up something with something else?

square peg round hole situation of astronauts

The Golden Goose

Last night, one of the bedtime stories was The golden goose. I had a disclaimer about not knowing about how he got the golden goose in the first place. My daughter thought she knew it and introduced me to the The Golden Goose story with three woodcutters story. She read this by herself in Grandmas magical storybook. sort of a east weets mest with the origin of the golden goose story.
The woodcutter story reminded me of The woodcutter and the axe. Since its been a while, I shifted the story a little bit and unrolled the iteration to 3 times where he keeps getting an upgrade each time finally ending up with nothing. This is another variation on the greedy woodcutter. 

It takes what it takes

Courtesy:Amazon

"She (Sharon Pitkin , stideny teacher supervisor) taught me how to teach. Delivery never was a problem for me. But she taught me how to prepare lessons and how to identify when to move forward and when to slow down to ensure my students stayed engaged" - Trevor Moawad

Lessons from the Learned

1. Reference something local with area code. It sells.

2. Moving from wicked to kind learning environment fast. Our brain predicts future to make sense of current, but if we rely on the past to predict to future, and if the last shot didnt go as expected, then you know you need the "neutral mindset". More like uncoditioning how your brain works.

Architecture is an Adventure

                                                          Image Courtesy:Amazon

said anyone who designed the airports that go one and half levels instead of one on each. 

When you want to do something

I once made a pistachio cake for a friends birthday and someone asked if I love baking. I have never thought so aloud to myself but I love it. And another time, when I told someone about half a day after hiking spent relaxing and sleeping from the lactic acid, I was asked if I even like hiking. What kind of question is that? I went hiking because I love to, to be in the open, close to nature.

Sweating in place

After looking at JLo sweating in place, I wondered if its possible to exercise so much in place that you sweat so much. I turned to cardio exercises for when its too cold to run. I still have 50 squat thrusts and 15 burpees left.
I surprised myself. I took lot of breaks. It was fun too. The mountain climbers were funny. Had my socks on. so I was slipping, but also made it easier to pick up some speed. I was also reminded of Athlean lat pull up exercise at 1:46. I stopped when my knees were creaking.
I did sweat only not that profusely. I switched into sleeveless, even though its winter.

Non pareil

Animal crackers have been lying around for a long time. I came up with an idea of how to make this veggie cool. Dip it in chocolate. That chocolate happens to be a melting story. One day, I got truffles from the store. At first, I thought that the box looks cute, may be I should gift it to someone. It didnt take long to figure out who that someone should be. Me. 

I dreamed about it for a while and when I opened it and instead of round truffles I found a messy box of chocolate. It went into the fridge and finally, today it got a new life with sprucing up animal crackers. I love fun art and craft projects that you can eat when you are done.

When my daughter called me to take a look at the final product, I was amazed to find it even more decked up with nonpareil, those small colored sugar pellets. 

Leave it to kids, to take it to the next level. Halfway she found a way to brush the chocolate onto the crackers and called them drizzled for the final effect.

Memorable gaffes. 

"So let me tell you some stories, one scientist to another"

With those words, Lab Girl Hope Jahren says that you can be a scientist too.

Lab girl's mom too made her read a lot which helped her read difficult books.
Lashunda rundles praises her mom who gave recitation as a happy hour (happy seat - time out table)

"scientists do many things, but they do not share equipment" on 30ct slide rules.

Aerial communication

Robert Mackenzie did a great way of showing how to do some animation of shortening a sentence by removing unwanted words and thus shortening the gap between the two people having the conversation. It is a must watch.

It is a good format for Non violent communication where you can show the sentences in the air.

Changing Behavior

skillpower over willpower

Personal motivational ability

Do I want to? Yes, I so wanted to.

Can I do it? I didnt know if I could. I didnt know how to.

Peer pressure or Social pressure

Friends & Coaches

There was no peer pressure but there was a sharing of understanding - eating slow registers with the body that we have eaten enough. aerobics class learned in metros. 

Incentives and Rewards

Once you see the results, you are more motivated to continue your efforts.

Wow, this speech puts a face to each of the factors with people literally named and numbered as

1. Do I Want to? Willpower

2. Can I do it? Skillpower
3. Friends
4. Coach
5. Rewards
6. Structural Ability

                                                    Courtesy: gyfcat

My Crucial Moments was mealstime. Not having my own kitchen, limited me to the hostel times when food was available. being on a budget also helped that I wouldnt by extra food or eat outside the meal times.

Vital behaviors. In Reader's Digest, I read two things that changed my life.

You can control your appetite by eating less. 
You can lose weight by walking. Thing I loved. Easy to do more of it right.

The most willpower that I had to use was when I switched from rice to tortillas. It was very hard. With tortialls, sinc eit was easy to count, I was measuring what I was eating. These habits stuck even after I left the hostel and was interning. There was free lunch and rotis too. Here too I had to use  alittle bit of will power not that I was tempted to eat rice but to stay on track of being satiated with tortillas.

I loved the exercising attitude ( Jennifer Lopez in I'm Glad) , so I went along with my friends to the gym in the final year of undergrad. During the internship, I chucked the autorickshaw in the slow traffic and walked, which was about the sametime. My family had set me up to love the walks. My mom would finish up cooking early in the mroning, so we could all go for walks. For dinner, we would make tortillas.

I continued these two behaviors wherever I went. Swapping walks for busrides and carrides (I went on a 4 hour walk just because, I had time and it was a puzzle to follow the directions) even whenever there was time. When the student recreationc enter was closed for spring break, I did the 4 hour walk with a stop at Starbucks.

My journey to fitness

Writing and Audience

In this Joyce Carol Oates Teaches the Art of the Short Story | Official Trailer | MasterClass video, Oates says, "There are two ways of looking at writing. One way is that you are telling a story ery transparently. The other is that you are telling a story with language and language is the point."

Is this true of spoken word too? Robert Mackenzie in speak documentary pointed out that the difference between acting and public speaking is that in acting, you engage the actor while in public speaking, you engage the audience. In At Middleton

Lesson Number Four of Radio -

"know your audience.

It's all about making a connection.

That's the beauty of radio.

Something goes on between you

and the people out there.

It's living and changing

moment to moment.

You can't see it,

but you can feel it."

Isnt that amazing? That the engagement is with a person who cant see you, whom you cant see. 

Theme in the Garden

While eating slowly slowly like Chew your food 40 times, my eye fell on the orange stained glass bird wind chime with a stain glass leaf hanging at the bottom. It has half green on the top and haf yellow on the bottom which will match the mood all across the seasons - spring to fall.
This next to the honeysuckle tree with orange flowers and green leaves, next to the jasmine's green leaves. Then the humming bird's red nectar paired with another windchime bird with orange head and light yellowish body, all fell into a theme and made me want to write this amidst my lunch with Ryvita sesame rye crispbread  ( When I told my daughter that this might be from Germany as I associated grainy breads with Germany, the history reveals how it came to Britain and how it started from Poland. Poland was a bigger producer of Rye than Germany.) and hummus made with black chickpeas. I also used Fresh Gourmet Crispy Garlic in the making of the hummus. Isnt it amazing how little accessories at first seem untenable. You dont know what to put it into. But once you find them as an alternative, adds its little touch. Its not always that we have fresh garlic in our kitchen. What is there is mixed with ginger. Looks like ginger garlic hummus is a thing too. For next time.

                                                   Image Courtesy: vitacost
While it is bad that I got away from the dining table to log some of this and did I mention, right before getting here, unplanned, I had a good gulp of water. It is going to take some time to not mix up food and water.
When I went back to the table, I was shocked to find something. I wondered how was this bread different from what I had just before. It was not like what you see, the holes. It was even. It was the backside of the bread. The last time I hadnt paid attention to the other side.
Back to the chewing many times. It does feel weird (When I was a kid I always had to tell myself that the e and i come in the opposite direction than I think, but today I wrote like I say it and viola I spelled it right, which means I have got the pronunciation right.. ok spelling bee.. here I come) to count the number of chews but I think after a while I will know what does the chewed enough feel like. Sometimes I am taking it to a higher count. It is going to be interesting to see what else I learn from this ultra chewing.

slowly slowly

Eric Edmeadas mentioned a way of trekking Kilimanjaro is pole-pole which is "slowly slowly". This also happens to be a way of Kenyan runners.  

I am thinking back to the tortoise of The Hare & The Tortoise. Are all stories non-intuitive? Did the Tortoise win only with "slowly". It won with slowly slowly - i.e slow and steady. Consistency.

Consider typo Hortoise.

Energizer Rabbit. It happens to be my hiking name. 

2020, Chew your food atleast 20-40 times

I have been told this as a child. Even in the recent year, I have been reminded of this. In Drink your food, Chew your water, Madhavan talks about his visit to Vivamayr, where he was asked to chew spelt bread and focus on it.

Other things already known,

to not drink water with food,

But its so hard to not do this. Water comes as a quick solution to mind when you want to wash down that sticky egg. With practice, and chewing it down to water, you shouldnt need to have that water. Two-pronged approach. Pair strategies to make your ideal situation work. If the approaches are complementary, meaning one is the way of accentuating your good habit and the other is the way of dissuading the bad habit then you have a win win. Now once you know that you cant have water 30 min before or after meal, you have another urgency to have water within the 3 hour window of your next meal.

to sleep early and eat early.

These are interrelated too. A small logic class. You have to eat by 6pm. You have to eat your dinner atleast 3 hours before sleep. By eating early, you ste yourself up for a good time gap before you sleep. It helps me to have a light lunch to have an early dinner. For habits you want to make, check precursors and successors that need to change. Its like scheduling a follow-up which ensures that your main appointment is done. Look at the ecosystem and see if you can redesign the system to your desired effect. It is all related. Like they say in business, you are not acting in a vacuum.

Yet, we have trouble following it. Our habits might break once in a while. Best route is small steps. Thats why when the yoga instructor says baby cobra or baby sumo, you know you can handle that.

Last night, I retired to bed as soon as I ate, as I had cold. And then I said sorry to my body, for not giving it a chance to repair itself by letting the blood flow to the brain instead of steering it to the gut for digestion. Having that visualisation of how I was helping my body or hurting my body, helped me internalise the rule more.

Gut as second brain makes sense if you think of the tension butterflies, love butterflies, coffee jitters like heart jumping in the stomach. I have seen this as a book title, but now after this talk it is getting more intriguing.

If you have a bad habit, then you have the passion for repitition, we just need to change the bell to gong or food to cleaning dishes or the cue itself to the desired response.

If you have a habit at all, its a great place to start.


Spending more time eating can make you happier too.

IoT startup

Glocal bevywise startup iot technology

MIT course

Cryptocurrency Engineering and Design

The change will never be this slow again

Framing reinvention

Your first 100k

product market fit

Machine Learning

Machine Learning for 3D Data
Computer Vision - middle ground between image processing and artificial intelligence. Image formation, preattentive image processing, boundary and region representations, and case studies of vision architectures.
Hardware Accelerators for Machine Learning (CS 217)
Energy efficient deep learning
Deep Neural networks
Motion Planning Algorithms

Smoothies everyday

365 Skinny Smoothies: Delicious Recipes to Help You Get Slim and Stay Healthy Every Day of the Year

Cocoa Cashew Dream

Jobs after AI

Amid a scientist shortage AI is being used to scan for diseases
Will AI be used to help in areas where there is a dearth of talent or expertise or will the AI companies go for easy wins of replacing people already working? 

5 Ways to Developing Small Businesses

1. Incubators. Food incubators can help the much needed support for transition from kitchen savvy to commercial kithcen state laws to be followed.

2. Accelerators

3. Crowdfunding

4. Local Association

5. pop-up restaurant/ food truck 

5 Ways to start a small business

1. Take classes in community college like Rocha Rocha of Brazi Bites who took a community colege class on starting a food business to make up for lack of experience.
2.

Industrial transformation

hardware-based products to creating tech-enabled businesses.

5G in Mobility

V2N, V2P V2I