It was indeed an exciting last few weeks. 3rd Dec being an international day of disability brought me a lot of opportunities for the talk on the topic that I am passionate about – disability and how to unlock unlimited potential.
These last few weeks also showed me how to adjust my talk to suit the needs of the time given. Until now, I was used to delivering a talk of about 30 to 40 minutes however the experience taught me how I can deliver an impactful message in 15 minutes to 10 minutes as well. Those who write and create content can relate that it is extremely difficult to cut down some parts of the content. Content that worked in other forums, it’s even more difficult. Eventually, we must abide by the intention of the talk – that is to share a message within a specified time.
I think there are some events that you could never get over with. I felt winning AFE, the Oscar of INFY would never get topped in my entire life. And on 8th Dec, it just did. I had a humbling experience when I was given a slot as a senior leader offsite at Infosys where my name was added in the likes of Ravikumar S- President and Deputy COO, Nandan Nilekani- Co-founder and chairman, <my name> :); followed by Pravin Rao- COO and Shri Gaur Gopal Das. Just to even think about it now, I feel goosebumps.
I would have been a complete nervous wreck, had this talk been scheduled in person, so not all things that happened due to covid were bad. I must thank my Mentor Sujith Kumar sir and the INFY HR community who gave me this mammoth opportunity. After the talk, I received as many as 62 emails of appreciation and numerous calls, it was bonkers. I still not have recovered from the hangover of this talk and most likely never will.
It almost felt like life turned full circle when I got invited to an external company called Mr. Cooper Group, where I met Sakshi Chauhan (sakshichauhan.bs) again, a national wheelchair basketball player. It had begun exactly 4 months ago with her talk. It was her talk that had inspired me to get into public speaking and here I was, expressing my gratitude towards her on stage shared with her. it was a great milestone for me as it was my first external company talk, which was attended by more than 200+ folks, (yeah, that didn’t add any pressure” said he breathing heavily) Thank you Anand Sir Anand Mohanram and his team at Able committee at Mr. Cooper Group (#MrCooper) for the amazing opportunity.
Then there was the opportunity the talk at AnithaB.org. AnithaB is a leading organization for women in technology. Here I got to learn a great deal about the silent heroes who are working on connecting the dots of disability and jobs. Meera Shenoy, ma’am pls take a bow.
All the great work is done by folks at AnithB, wow.(Ranjani Vijayaraghavan) Simply amazing. What inspiring work you’ll do, making life more meaningful all around you. I also got inspired by the talk done by fellow speakers Jyoti and Neha. What a courageous journey they have had.
During this period when a lot of opportunities arrived, I too saw a “1% improvement” in action in my talks. I understood how important it is for the speaker to believe; while content is the king, how important it is for the speaker to project confidence, the body language. How important is the emote with voice modulation? here I have found Mr. Harsha Bhogle’s bizpunditz (Harsha Bhogle) videos immensely helpful.
While this journey has been great so far, looking back I have just delivered 8 talks. It is only the beginning and many more milestones to achieve.
While the 3rd Dec is international disability day, it is sad to read the news that out of the 3 cr population of disabled kids in India, only about 5% graduated. Govt has to take swift action to ensure all disabled kids have the right to education. They should remove necessary obstacles be it inclusive of infrastructure, washroom facilities, transportation, and financial burdens on economically poor families. What we must understand is that the disability population is only growing due to increased accidents, an aging baby boomer population, and increased chronic diseases.
If any country wants to dream of a bright future, the inclusiveness of the disabled population in the main ecosystem cannot be ignored anymore.