Toastmasters Competent Communicator Manual Speech 6 Vocal Variety

senthiljee Toastmasters public Speaking

Bang! A boy shot down her sister for not giving up the television remote control.

Bang! A man was murdered over a quarrel for finding a spot in a parking lot.

Bang, bang, bang..!

Fellow toastmasters and guests, I am not telling stories from a JK Rowling novel. These are real life incidents.

We are so used to living in this crazy world so that when we read or hear about these what is our general reaction to these? We laugh about it. We wonder whether these things can happen for real.

Now are these people born crazy? Absolutely not! They are just normal people like Farook and Me. But, when confronted with problematic situations many of them loose control. For example, let me narrate such an incident from my own life.

When I was just about to complete my MBA In 2004, six of us were living in a rental house. You know boys, weekends, roaming all fun. We ate on a local eatery that was family managed. We used to pay 300 rupees in the beginning of the month and deduct the balance as the month progressed. That was the arrangement we had with the owner. That went well until the last week before our exams.

I requested the owner, Sir, as we are leaving the city next week, please give us our balance money by then.”

He replied, don’t worry I would pay you tomorrow itself”.

That was positive. But from that day onwards, for the next 2-3 days we were getting “Tomorrow”, “Tomorrow for sure”, “Tomorrow please” as answers. The 5th day came.

He promised, “Senthil, One Hundred Percent, I will pay you both the balance tomorrow”.

The next day evening, my friend Raja and I went there early at 6.30 pm. We asked for the money.

The owner said “I don’t have it right now. Wait until some business happens and I will pay you in an hour’s time”. We waited.

During the next two hours, at least 20-30 people ate and left. As promised, the owner could have easily paid us with that.

But he made us wait further. Having completely lost my patience, I asked the owner “I can’t wait anymore, got to go. Pay the money now”.  By now the owner also had lost his patience with our persistence, understandably. He said, I can’t pay you today. I have some money which I would need for tomorrow’s grocery. You better come and collect next week.”

I started arguing as that was not agreed since we informed him a week before.

His tone had changed and firmly said, I wouldn’t pay you today. Get it next week.” I couldn’t tolerate anymore. I went in straight to his desk, pulled out the draw and shown it to him and said “Bloody fool, don’t cheat me! You have enough money. So, pay me now!

That’s it! The Pandora’s Box opened right there.

The owner shouted back “You thief! I will kill you.” He ran towards me angrily.

With a fine thrust, I stopped him, pushed him very hard and thrown him to the wall. My Friend Raja was shocked by all these and tried to help that owner stand on his own.

Even then, that man didn’t stop his arrogance. He called me names and shouted “I will call my aides and we will kill you today”.

I totally went ballistic after that. Next thing I remember, when I came to my senses, Raja was blocking me, the owner was looking afraid, his wife and sons were on my knees crying out loud, pleading “Please, please, please don’t hurt him.”

Wait a minute, what’s happening. That’s when I noticed, I stood there firmly with a lot of rage and a solid iron rod on my right hand. It seems after throwing him to the wall, I had picked up an Iron rod and was moving towards the owner. That’s when I realized what I was about to do. I was not in my senses at all. I dropped the rod. Raja got me out of the scene.

Once I reached the house, my body shivered continuously. I realized how badly I handled that situation. I remembered how my parents supported my education and if I had done anything that day, I would have lived regretting each day of my life. I would have let them down big time.

You all want to know, how much he owed to me; simply 162 rupees. Neither I Raja nor any my friends believed that it was me who is a friendly, soft-spoken person could have lost control of the situation.

Later, I thought a lot about that and now I am able to comfortably handle tough situations. If you are faced with similar situations, be calm, don’t get carried away. Handle it peacefully, if not possible, decide how important it is for you to fight against that and if it is, bring the relevant authorities into it. Don’t ever take things into your own hands and don’t let anger control you.

You control anger. As Debarsi once shared a quote in Facebook, after all, “The highest result of education is TOLERANCE”.

Over to you!

Written by senthiljee
P.B. Senthil Kumar is an Experienced Digital Marketer who exploits growth marketing practices using Digital Marketing techniques and help businesses attain desired revenue goals.