Inner Essentials of Communication by Preethi Srinivasan

Division N Toastmasters conference happened in Chennai, last month. Preethi Srinivasan, founder of SoulFree, a public charitable Trust was invited as a guest speaker to address the gathering. She delivered a speech on "Inner Essentials of Communication". Preethi couldn't resist from motivating people about the larger purpose of life, though her speech was about communication. In fact, a girl who was sitting near to me was very emotionally moved during the speech and she was crying for the most part. Preethi was able to appeal to the hearts of several toastmasters.

Here are the key points from Preethi's guest lecture, that are related to communication:

1. You can have brilliant ideas, but if  you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere - Lee Iacocca
2. Make yourself vulnerable instead of giving up. You've nothing to lose, but everything to gain.
3. Communication is the ability to look within and express yourself with words. It should be an understandable and authentic representation of truth.
4. Unless the audience knows the speaker, the speech will not be clear
5. There is no shortcuts to improving communication. You should master Vocabulary, Cadence, Pronunciation, Grammar, Usage
6. If you want to learn new words, use them at least in 3 different sentences as you learn them
7. Go down to the level of audience to communicate
8. You won't be afraid when you know everything or when you are a stupid
9. 4Cs of Communication - Connection, Clarity, Conciseness, & Confidence
10. 4Cs of Mis-Communication - Confusion, Compartmentalization (disconnected thoughts), Convolution, and Code (Cryptic or inppropriate gestures)
11. The single biggest problem in Communication is the illusion that it has already taken place - George Bernard Shaw
12. Come out, speak and be willing to be judged. The world is going to judge "no matter" whether you are scared or not
13. We are as small or as big as we want ourself to be - our body is our own prison.
14. Reacting out of needs makes you an animal
15. Core concepts of Communication - Empathy (looking from others' point of view), Self Knowledge (thoughts), Vision (larger perspective), Connection, Conquering fear, Humility (knowledge/respect to others), Listening, Equipose, Consciousness
16. When you think "I'm separate from you", communication is needed.
17. If you can't explain something simply, you simply don't understand it well enough.
18. Communication to a relationship is like oxygen to life, without it... it dies - Tony Gaskins