Orator In The Crater! — Quotidian — 496

(Transcript of video originally posted on 04 Sep 2023)

That rocket, the one that takes people to space? Has a launch point. There is a bus that takes people to that point. Astronauts, from the hotel they are staying in, travel by this bus, to the launch point. In Russia, they aren’t called astronauts, they are called cosmonauts.. the cosmonauts, after they board the bus, after they are all decked up, .. ALWAYS, EVERY TIME, they get out of the bus and urinate on the back-right-side tyre. Not occasionally, but EVERY SINGLE TIME! To put it otherwise, .. before going to the “moonu”, they go for “onnukku”. WHY? It all started as a gesture, a homage to this man. Yuri Gagarin. The first man in space! Russian! He really had the problem.. he had to “go”, before he could GO! And, as a respectful tip of the hat for this, .. interesting, is it not?!

Namaste! We are ALL Speakers. Communicators. Small scale. Large scale. One on one. One to many! Even if we are not one, we want to some day be one! So, in this video, I am going to take the Speakers’ role. If I use the word “We / Us”, I am representing the Speakers. The Orator in the Crater.

This is the Chandrayaan and the Rover. Successful landing on the Moon. Was it not?! And, interestingly, at the same time that this was happening, I was reading another book. It was a pretty strange coincidence. For the book has no connection to this occurrence, or even domain! The book is called “The 7 Principles of Public Speaking”. But, in that book, this author, Richard Zeoli, he takes a very interesting vantage point. “We, the Speakers” and “Them, the Listeners”, and he draws a connection from an astronomical viewpoint.

Basically, he says, THIS is YOU! The Man or the Woman on the Moon.

And, the rest of them? The listeners? The audience? These, are them. Remember the folks from Mission Control? Eyes glued to the video screen? They, the audience, can be treated as the Mission Control. It was really interesting. He had given a handful of analogies. And, while reading through, a few additional comparisons occurred to me too, and so, I have put this video together to celebrate that.

First, Plan for Oxygen. When on terra firma, you will not know that you will even NEED oxygen. That you need water. That you need air. You will not even know. But, when you climb on to the stage, when you go into space, and land on the Moon, that’s when you realise how alien, how uninhabitable the place is. You need to carry your own oxygen. It is not going to be supplied for you by some kindly God. Even on stage, it is a similar scenario. We will be all fine, breathing well, but we climb up, and suddenly we feel out of breath, as if we had just summitted a mountain! Heart will be pounding.. Why? Wait.. Play along with this analogy.. It is a rarefied environment there. Not everybody gets to go. Remember that!

He cites a specific example about the Relativity of Time. Time doesn’t flow uniformly for everybody, in a straight line at the same speed! Faster for some. Slower for others. Here is ONE example he quotes. He says.. “Everything will seem slow to you. Even a simple step you take, will be slow, will take ages. (low gravity, after all!) And hence, that is perhaps the reason why, so many of us, the Speakers, make that mistake.. Hmm.. Err.. We.. You know.. Right..? We try to fill up all empty space, null time, with something! Because, we think, they are all waiting! But, that’s not really the case! Because, down there, at Mission Control, for them, time isn’t in slow motion.. If we waited for a second, it will seem like a minute to us. But, it will just be a second, to them..” This, is the Relativity of Time, Type One.

There is a Second Type. Let us look at that! What could that other Relativity of Time be? Sometimes, when the Speaker is in flow, when we are in our element, particularly when we start regaling the audience with personal stories and anecdotes, we will not know that Time is passing! Time, after all, is a pretty relative concept. If I put you in a room, with no sun, no windows, no clock, no smartphone, .. do you know that you can really not keep track of time? You simply can’t! You would estimate that five minutes have elapsed, but actually, ten may have gone by! You may guess that half an hour has gone by, but probably it may really be closer to two hours! It depends on your perception. But, the internal clock? Is very wrong! And, which is why, when you are in the presence of others, when you have a large clock up in front, when you know that there are other people in the same room, your sense of time is more accurate. And, this is the second Time Relativity Problem. If the Speaker gets started, .. Why..? Many have pointed that out about me too! Quotidian videos.. They used to be eight to ten minutes long. But, now, it is 18, sometimes a full 22 minutes.. Saaar! They enjoin! Genuinely, the problem is, I don’t know that this one is taking longer, that one is being done faster.. This is the Second Time Relativity Problem. Don’t make the audience query, “Are we done yet?!”

Do you remember this scene? Neil Armstrong? 1969! He had placed a foot on the Moon. You remember the words he said, don’t you? Probably the most famous words said by anybody! Listen to it! “It is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”! But hey, did you notice the grammar mistake there? One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.. Had he said, “a man”, that would make him the single individual, a small step for that single individual, .. But no. He says, “a small step for man”, “giant leap for mankind” — BOTH ARE THE SAME! Probably the most famous words ever said by ANYBODY? Grammar error! Listen to it again! “That is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!” Do you understand the problem? He must have been under great stress. Probably he is even afraid whether he is going to get out of this alive at all, in the first place! Moon! Nobody has set foot! This is a place FAR AWAY from Earth! He is stepping on to it, for the first time! How much ever he had rehearsed his lines, he would of course have .. struggled recalling them! But, what am I trying to get across here? I am trying to tell you it simply doesn’t matter! Hey, they are after all the most famous words spoken by ANYBODY! Didn’t I tell you that?! So WHAT, if it is grammatically incorrect?! Do not obsess, as a Speaker, that you need to be correct, exact, perfect! The more you obsess, the more likely you are to commit a mistake, by the way! And so, what matters is the occasion. What matters is the message! Not these little mis-steps. Armstrong proved that to us!

This is a photograph of an astronaut.. who is Happy! He is happy that he got to go on this mission, and on a space walk! This is a photo of an astronaut who is Proud! From Mother India, into outer space! The first one! Rakesh Sharma! Proud! One more photo! This is a photo of an astronaut who is Tired! For the past twentyfour hours, a small screw had got loose, and much work had been needed.. He has been conducting extra-vehicular activities. Very tired! One more photo. This is the photograph of an astronaut who is Angry. They had let him go round and round the Moon, while somebody else was chosen for the Landing Party! Politics! Angry! This is the photograph of an astronaut who is Upset! Wife. On Earth. Pregnant. About to deliver a baby. Unable to be with her at that time. He is Upset. And, this? Is an astronaut who is Thrilled. First vertical selfie with Earth. “I am the first”! Thrilled! All are the same photo, did you notice? You can’t tell the difference! You can’t tell whether the person on stage, WE, whether we are happy, or unhappy, or shivering, or afraid, or enthused, or nervous, you can’t tell! Many Speakers fail to understand that. They think that little droplet of sweat rolling down their cheek is visible to everybody! That little shake in the knee? Is apparent to everybody! NO! They are only looking at that big picture! They want to understand! They want to take home something that you are going to give them! These things don’t matter!

Anorthosite.. a particular mineral. In a place near Namakkal, loads of it were found on a hill. Sithampoondi and Kunnamalai. Tonnes of it were carted away by ISRO.. This dusty mineral. Why? They used it as a training ground. “It is needed! As a training ground! We are going to land Chandrayaan on the Moon. And, to do that, we need to practice it well. So, let us take this!”

But, .. was it enough? It landed on the Moon.. but? Chandrayaan 2 was a failure. In spite of all the practice. It is the same story for a Speaker too. Take this Speaker, for instance. How many ever times you have practiced, .. when you go up on stage, when you reach that rarefied environment, you feel underprepared. You feel short of breath. You feel your mind has gone blank. So, all that practice is needed, but all that practice is not ENOUGH. The only way to practice public speaking is to speak in public. That is what we saw with Chandrayaan 3! We sent 2, we lost 2, let us do 3 now!

This is the third time that Man tried to send Man to the Moon. It was Apollo 11, first. Then, Apollo 12. And then, when they sent 13.. (13, by the way is a “known ill-omen number”!) There was a gas tank explosion. Somewhere between the Earth and the Moon. And the three astronauts who were inside.. They couldn’t land on the Moon. They had to go till the Moon, circle, then come back! They were running out of oxygen. They didn’t know what to do. They had to do some computer work. They weren’t programmers! What did they do? They show it in the movie too! “Houston, we have had a problem!”

We had a problem. Tom Hanks. In Apollo 13, the movie. And, that starts an adventure. An amazing adventure. Which is probably more famous than the mission they went for. Landing humans for the third time on Moon.., wouldn’t have been as famous as, going all the way to the Moon, not landing on it, but bringing these three astronauts safely back to Earth, ALIVE, with less power, less oxygen, with a blown tank, wow! The Lander Module that was supposed to land on the Moon was repurposed and converted it into a lifeboat and made these people land in the ocean. Amazing coordination between Mission Control and the people out there in space. That is exactly what we need to do too. As Speakers, however well-prepared we are, when we go up on stage, the projector may not come on.. The video may play, the audio may not.. The clicker may not work.. The clicker may work too well.. There may be an audio feedback.. Every time we move, there may be a rubbing sound from the microphone.. Hundred things that can go wrong! We may be late.. Lunch announcement may have happened! When such things happen, involve Mission Control! Realise that they are together, as a team, with you. If you do that, you can make what might have been certain disaster, into a beautiful, interactive, collaborative, engaging exercise. Unforgettable. Just like Apollo 13! What transpired way back in 1970, we continue to celebrate! That is because it was a successful failure..

Talking about success, remember this Chandrayaan and its Rover? Why does it look like it is covered in gold? No! It is not gold! It is actually a polyimide! I had never heard of that word till now! Has aluminium. Silver. And many other chemical elements. It is a shield to protect the spacecraft from losing too much heat. Or, from being heated too much by the Sun. If that shield isn’t there, the whole thing will fry in minutes. OR, will freeze over and crack up! That is why we have that shield. It is actually a fabric. But, for Mission Control, and everybody else looking at it, it looks like GOLD! If you look for articles online, you will see the reference to being surrounded by gold foil! For Speakers, it is the same situation. When the audience welcomes a person on to the stage, we look at you, or rather, they look at us, as if we are gold-plated! Only we know we are just fabric.. That looks golden but is not gold. And, that too, we are wearing it only for our protection! We are not LOOKING GOLDEN to impress. We are PROTECTING ourselves. But you? You think we are gold-plated. That makes you.. venerate us too much. Probably that makes you jealous of us too. And both? Are problems for Speakers.

By the way, does that mean there is no gold involved? The space, astronauts, cosmonauts, crafts, no gold at all? Wait! We have it! Do you see the gold there? That visor? It can’t be just glass. Because, an invisible assault of ultraviolet rays from the Sun is constantly hitting the helmet! If we let that pass through and enter the eyes, we will go BLIND! And so, that visor? Is actually embedded with gold atoms! Gold atoms? Rutherfold Gold Leaf Experiment? They have this unique ability to stop all this bad radiation. And.. as a Speaker, let me tell you. We have a golden visor around us! When we stand on stage, and look at you all, we see you through gold! Wherever we see, we see gold! You can look at it any way you want.. Probably you may think we see MONEY.. But, I go higher. We see Value. We see a gold mine! Anywhere we see, we see potential! Interesting, agree?

In this scene, I could have put up an Indian flag there, easily.. But, that would amount to cheating. We haven’t landed an Indian out there yet, .. let that happen, and we will change it immediately thereafter. But till then, when Man set foot on the Moon, and put that stump on to the ground.. what a moment of celebration.. But, he himself can’t hear his own hands clapping! No air! He is nervous. He is tense. He thinks he is being evaluated. He is under the spotlight. The whole world is watching.

But, what is the whole world doing? It is actually doing this. As if it is this guy standing in a corner along with others, who went out there and banged the flag on to the ground! They are enjoying! They are celebrating! They are beside themselves! Do you get it? As Speakers, sometimes, we make the mistake of thinking we are being evaluated.. “We are on the spotlight. We shouldn’t make a single mistake. The audience is evaluating us. They are judging, we think.” NO! Most of the time, every time, when an audience sits there and looks up at the presenter, at the Speaker, they are rooting for us. They want us to win. They want to make the time they spend, worthwhile. They want to take a message home. They want to win, with you! They call this “vicarious”. “You went all the way there and drove the stump in.. I think of it as I myself did it. FOR ME, you went there, played a proxy.. So, when you tell us a story, WE are the heroes there. Not you!” they say! So, remember to coopt the audience. Look at them as participants in this long great journey of speaking.

That brings us to the Closing Thought. A company I love a lot, on their Twitter page, when Mission Chandrayaan succeeded, they had posted a line like this. “On the moon, and over it!” “Over the moon” here, stands for the inexplicable joy, untrammelled pleasure of the achievement! Neil Armstrong, the Man on the Moon, he gave a final interview before he died.. about twelve years ago. And in that interview, he tells that there was a ninety percent chance that their spacecraft would go all the way to the Moon and circle it. But only a fifty-fifty chance that they would LAND on the Moon softly. Fifty Fifty chance. And, Neil Armstrong had to take the call. Whether to go ahead or not. He said, Go For It! And, when he recalls that moment, he says, “Only because of the risk I took that day, I feel like I have lived! I feel like we are all CELEBRATING today! Was a big risk that day, but I am happy I took that risk!” Similarly, on the Moon and over it.. And if you do that, as a Speaker, if you go to that rarefied environment, if you take that risk, of being a fool on the stage, making a mistake, it is OKAY, if you do that, the audience, they will love you to the Moon and back! What do you think?! Want to become a Speaker? We will meet again soon! Thank you!