WHAT WILL WE DO, ONCE WE ACHIEVE OUR GOALS?

Pic.: Chetna Shetty

Presently, our Public-Speaking course is underway. The young-ones, who are clear as to why they need to speak well in public, invariably, do well in the course... They become effective speakers. On the other hand, those who aren't clear, they don’t. So, the key, always, is to help them identify the reason why they want to become good public-speakers... In other words, if they know what they would do with their public-speaking skills, they would, invariably, become great speakers...

The question, therefore, is not whether you will become a great speaker... The question is: What you will do, once you become a great speaker?

Once, a farmer had a dog. All through the day, the only thing this dog did, was: sit on the roadside waiting for the vehicles to come by. The moment a vehicle came by, he would run behind it, howling crazily, as if he was on a do-or-die mission of grabbing the vehicle! This would go on, all day long, day after day...

Seeing this crazy dog-act, one day, a neighbor asked the farmer, “My friend, everyday I see your dog running desperately to catch every passing vehicle. Do you think, he will ever succeed in catching one?”

“That question doesn't bother me at all,” the farmer replied to his curious neighbor, “What, really, bothers me is: What is he going to do, once he grabs one!”

Like this farmer, I, too, am not bothered by the question: “Whether our students will ever succeed in becoming great speakers. Yes, like him, I, too, am bothered by the question: “What they will do once they become great speakers.”

GERALD D’CUNHA