The Art of Speaking!

If someone remarked that I was very talkative, I would take it as a compliment.

If you are under the opinion that I have clearly misunderstood what the word compliment means, let me take the liberty to explain why I consider it so.

Silence is Golden, but only at the right time. Today, if we need to make our presence felt and leave a mark, we need to speak up without yielding in to our inhibitions. If we desire to be successful, we need to open up and speak. We might be wrong, but we would know it for sure, rather than keeping it to ourselves and being in state of dilemma. If we do not make use of the chance given to us, someone else would snatch it from us and walk away. And this feat cannot be achieved overnight. It takes years and years of training and hard work!

Now it is a common fact that Women speak a lot more than Men. Some say that it is hardwired in the DNA of the X chromosomes. Some say that it is because women have to repeat everything they tell men, given the latter’s innate and remarkable ability to not listen to what is being said, even if the other person shouts at the top of their voice, standing right next them. And no, I am not in any way generalizing, just sharing some information that I came across.

True to being a woman, speaking (I am talking of casual conversation alone) comes even more naturally to me. My grandparents and parents are very outgoing and social, so it is not a big surprise. I can strike a conversation with anyone I come across. Now I’m not trying to sound intelligent, It’s not that I can talk about anything, It’s just that I can steer a conversation to my comfort zone, irrespective of which unknown territory it is headed to. Now the point is, some people feel that I sometimes go overboard and talk a lot. To make things clear, let’s say that for a 2 mark answer, I would end up speaking for 16 marks (Anna University habits die hard!).

I still wonder how I could possibly talk so much with people whom I’m very comfortable with. That still remains an enigma. But with strangers I talk very consciously and maintain the normal word limit. I know what I’m talking and I know I don’t bore people with statistics and unwanted facts, but I often wonder how I get all these things in my head and how it comes out in the form of words. The length of my posts, should give you a vague idea, I’m sure.

But there are many advantages of being a good (yes, I prefer to call it good) Speaker, you know. In a family gathering, when I start talking, everyone is glued in to what I speak and seem to thoroughly enjoy themselves (though I have a fairly good idea of who listens and who pretends to listen). I do have the reputation of being a very lively person, a non-stop speaker and a complete entertainer. All this, despite coming from a family where everyone is born a natural speaker. That is quite an achievement.

The Biggest compliment is however from my beloved mother. During our trip to Singapore in June 2011, we were done with the Immigration and Security Check at the Chennai Airport and we had more than an hour to kill. We got talking, or rather I started talking and mom was listening, giving her inputs every now and then, and after what seemed like a few minutes we heard the announcement asking us to board our flight. We checked the time and realized that we had been talking without even noticing the time. That’s when my mother chipped in,

“You know Ash, when you start talking, I get so involved that time just seems to fly. People would never get bored talking with you”. You can imagine how overjoyed I was, by that compliment 🙂

I’ll leave you with a small incident.

Image Courtesy: Google Images 

During my CAT classes we used to have sessions to improve or communication skills. In one such session, regarding casual conversations, our trainer narrated a small incident which had taken place during one of his sessions. He had asked everyone to tell the occupation and nature of work of their parents. The first person to speak was a girl, whose words were something like this

Girl: “My Dad works is ABC Company. He was initially in the accounts department, but after having worked well for 5 years, the management decided to promote him and now he is working in the Sales. It has been more than 3 years now since my dad moved over to sales, you should listen to the stories my dad tells …..”

My Trainer: “Sorry for the interruption. so what exactly is your dad doing ?”

Girl: “He is a Sales Manager.”

My trainer: “So, your mother?”

Girl: “She was working with XYZ bank after her studies and she had to quit her job after marriage since she had to move in to another city with my dad. She was on the lookout for another job, but after I was born, she decided to abandon the search for a job.”

Trainer (not feeling sorry for interrupting); “So now she is?”

Girl: “She is a Home maker.”

My trainer then asked the next person to speak up.

Guy: “Father Banker. Mother School Teacher.”

Trainer: “That’s it?”

Guy: “Pretty much. Yes.”

After laughing for almost ten minutes, and after having calmed down, my trainer had this one word of advice ” Ladies, please reduce the amount of information you are giving out, Guys, a little more words, would do no harm.”

Sound advice, I’m sure 🙂