How to speak so that People want to listen-TED.COM, review

This post is meant to critical analyze the feasibility of the talk to the commoner.

You can view the talk from TED.COM, or by clicking the link

The Speaker starts off by suggesting a certain set of habits that we ought to move away from if we would want people to listen to us.  He calls them as “Seven Deadly sins of Speaking”. The first among being, to avoid Gossiping.

Avoid Gossiping

Which in plain English would be, speaking ill of somebody who is not present. If this is a sin, then all of the Newspapers, both in print and in digital formats ought to be shut down.

Why? Because, 90% of the times, most of the news printed is a mere exaggeration of the facts, this is not our opinion but that the opinions of world leaders.

As famously as recently, one time popular journalist in answering to a question raised by a journalism major student, “as how to sensationalize news to interest the reader?” He thus said.

If you were to come across the information that a dog has bitten an innocent man who was sleeping under the bridge, and if you were to write that, for sure, no one would even cast a glare at it. On the contrary, if you were to have the main page title as, “Man bites innocent dog, sleeping under the bridge”, what do you think the impact would be? That is how you sensationalize.

A next question was asked, “Sir, but that was not truth, how would you justify?”

The Journalist goes on, “Yes, I know that is not the truth, but you are paid to write a story, not to tell the truth, truth is always plain and dry, the sun rises in the east that is the truth, and will anybody care? We are here to make a living not to give the truth”

The next question came in with a bash, “Sir, what if people quote you for the misinformation, and how would you handle that?”

You won’t believe what the Journalist said,

These are his lines, “Oh! That is simple, if you were quoted and held accountable, just say, you received this information from some animal Activists, no one would even bother you”

So true, at least all of us have seen the reasoning provided in the last paragraph all too common in the Main stream media.

Take Home point

News is synonym to Gossips, these days. Look up the social media, so many issues were merely manufactured, published and posted without any evidential proof or facts to support and people love them all of time.

To sum up, Gossiping cannot be termed a Habit and more so should never be damned a Bad Habit, why? Because, the whole Main stream media thrives on it, along with the Social Medias to the likes of Facebook and whatsup? Everyone knows this but they still keep it going

Avoid Negativity

This is the next point emphasized by the Speaker.

Well, if negativity is a sinful demeanor then 98% of the population is guilty of this sin. Why? just ask your friend who is in a good mood, “hey, how are you today?”, he will reply, “fine, and you”.

All of these done without any element of excitement or joy. On the contrary, let us assume that this friend of yours had a rough time commuting to office. Now, you ask him the same question. He will reply back to you with all of the details right from the time he woke up to the predicament he suffered during the time of this commute.

The inference: People more often tend to sway towards negativity more than they do towards Positivity.

Blame it on the Media

The reason for this can be largely due to the Media. Just look at the words the Main stream media uses to describe a day,

“Inflation is rising again”, ”unemployed youth butchers his dog”, “Stay lean”, “volunteers needed to move the sick 99 year old to wellness clinic”, “ AI is coming , 20 million will be unemployed soon”

What do you expect the reader to do after reading flash news like this? To sing, Ode o Joy.

Exaggeration and Lying

This is the next attribute the Speaker wants the listener to avoid

Well, this is real fun. These two shouldn’t even be featured here when the entire society runs on them. A simple example, a colleague of yours invites you to tea over by her house.

She serves tea with some homemade sandwiches. You grab one and bite in, you didn’t like the taste, yet still, you say, you love it. What you call this?

You drive by, there on a billboard, you see an advertisement for a Perfume. The ad reads as follows, “if you sport one, you would be lion in the room”, what would you call this?

In fact there was a Beer company advertisement once which read as follows, “Guinness is good for you”, what would you call them?

Well, when it is good for corporate companies, why not for me, can be the question raised by many.

Dogmatism

This is the next sin that the Speaker wants his listeners to avoid

Now what exactly is dogmatism? Well, it is “confusing Facts with Opinions”.

In all truthfulness, in any clear thinking society, at least these days we get to see this all of the times. But in the interest of time and money spent in penning this post, we shall just skip elaborating on this and move on.

Tips to make your Speech, powerful

The Speaker then heads on to suggests the following that would make any individual’s speech, powerful and be able to make the change in the world.

The must important question would be what Change the Speaker is aiming at? The irony is, these days, everybody and anybody are always either attempting to change or wanting to Change the world we live in, so much so, now nobody has a clue as to what the state of the World we live in now.

Anyway, moving on to the Speaker’s insights,

The tip that the Speaker suggests to use follows this Acronym HAIL.

There is just one problem with this. This cannot be applied in reality. The first two letters stands for Honesty and Authenticity. If following this tip you were to react to everything that you hear, see and feel about your colleague or a friend or even someone whom you come across, it would only result in total chaos.

More so, no one wants you to give them an Honesty opinion.

Just look at the Botox industry,

It has advertisements claiming that a 40 year old woman will turn 20 year old, on instantaneous use of its products, at least this is what reports received suggests.

So, who would need to follow the HAIL, concept?

In all right sense, it is the Main stream media and the consumer product manufacturers. They should be the ones who should come out to tell the truth, as to what lies hidden in their products and what dangers it can cause when consumed.

The Colgates and the Johnsons and Johnson

These two mega consumer giants were at one time hailed to be the savior of mankind. Products that were designed and manufactured keeping the ordinary and the commoner in mind. Products that are not in the business to amass wealth but provide services that aids and protects Humanity.

But apparently all of their claims turned out to be a huge lie. At one point, The Colgates toothpastes ran advertisements claiming that the Fluoride in its toothpastes, were meant to protect the tooth and prevent tooth decay.

But today, any individual who keeps track of the good reading will know that it is a blatant lie, for the fact that Fluoride is cancerous and is a main contributing factor for tooth enamel being lost.

The same is true for Johnsons and Johnson, products, which recently confessed that its products do carry cancer causing ingredients.

Who Can we trust?

Final insights

Foremost, we live in an environment where time has become a precious commodity. On an average, a normal person spends around 4 hours commuting for work, this would raise the total hours on the job to be 8 + 4 = 12 hours.

That leaves 12 hours left, out of which, 8 hours to sleep, and the rest 4 hours for himself/herself and for the family. This makes one to ponder as to where is the time to embark into acquiring those intricate details that the Speaker suggests?

More so, a recent survey conducted reveals that even in families, the average time for conversation between Parents and Children is around 4 minutes. Yes, we know it is hard to believe, but you don’t need to look further, just inside you. when was the last time you sat with your son or your daughter and told them a story of moral value?

When the situation has gone to such limits, people hardly talk these days. There was a time if you were to travel in train, all you would hear would be laughter and conversations, about the sun, the moon, the well, the water, the dog, the cat, the donkey, the boss and his concubines, etc.

Now, you only hear silence.

Suggestions

Of course, it is indeed difficult to make people listen, for their mind is constantly bombarded by messages from the Social medias and by ads that target their insecurities.

But there is still hope, and we suggest here one of the ways to make a person listen.

The best way to make a person to listen would be to talk to him or her on matters that he or she is interested in. If you speak something of value to the listener, they will listen, no matter what the timbre or the register or even the prosody pattern of your voice.

Conclusion: the talk should have been titled,

“How to be an effective salesman by using your voice”.