Heart Burn

Project #7: Research Your Topic
Manual: Competent Communicator (CC)
Oct 19, 2007

Ohhh! That fiery feeling! The feeling of liquid coming back to your mouth! The bitter taste in your throat! The burning in your chest! If these symptoms sound familiar to you, you may be among the millions of Americans who suffer from heartburn. Statistics indicates that about 25 million experience heartburn daily and 60 million monthly. How many of you suffer or have suffered from these symptoms? Well, Good evening toastmasters and fellow guests, this speech educates you about heartburn, one of the common health problems, the causes and preventive tips.

Well, what is heartburn? Before that, let’s take a quick look at our digestive system. The mouth, throat, esophagus, and stomach. The junction or valve between the esophagus and stomach is called the Lower Esophagus Sphincter (LES). Heartburn is the common ailment of esophageal disorder. The digestive stomach acid (a.k.a., gastric acid) that helps the body in food digestion often remains in stomach. However, when LES does not close the stomach acid can reflux upward. This reflux irritates or injures esophagus and result in a sensation known as heartburn.

What causes the heartburn? When functioning normally, the LES opens like a door that allows food into the stomach but not out the same way. However, at times the LES relaxes and allows stomach juices to flow upward into the esophagus. This relaxation exposes the esophagus to the harsh acid from the stomach. Various lifestyle and dietary factors can contribute to heartburn by

1. increasing the relaxation of the LES, allowing it to open
2. increasing the amount of acid produced in the stomach
3. increasing stomach pressure, or
4. by making the esophagus more sensitive to harsh acid.

These triggers vary from person to person. The most common contributing factors include the following:

Eating/Dietary Habits

• Eating foods such as citrus fruits, chocolate, peppermint, tomatoes, raw onions, garlic, black pepper, fatty or spicy foods
• Drinking beverages such as coffee, tea, citrus juices, and caffeinated or carbonated beverages
• Drinking alcoholic beverages, particularly before bedtime
• Eating less than two hours before bedtime

Certain positions

• Lying down, especially within two hours after eating
• Bending over

Medical reasons

• Pregnancy
• Taking certain antibiotics and pain medications
• GERD (gastro esophageal reflux disease)

Lifestyle habits

• Being overweight
• Smoking
• Hectic lifestyle
• Wearing restrictive or tight clothing around the waist

How can you avoid heartburn? First, let’s see what can be done if you have heartburn. Talk to your physician and assess the situation. He/she will be able to guide you to appropriate recovery path. I would highly recommend this. However, if for some reason you are unable to talk to your physician then my suggestion would to control your diet, which means, no food and beverages that cause heartburn. Second, elevate your whole upper part of the body – not just the head – while sleeping. Elevating just your head could cause neck pain. Third, take a brief stroll or walk before your sleep.

As the saying “Prevention is better than cure” goes, we should prevent before anything bad occurs. How can you prevent yourself from getting heartburn? First, have healthy eating habits. Refrain from eating fast food items. Take non-spicy and non-fatty food. Eat regularly at the appropriate time. Refrain from taking food items/beverages that induce heartburn. Second, do not lie down or sleep immediately after having food. It is recommended to wait at least 2 hours before lying down. If you absolutely cannot wait for couple of hours, take a stroll/walk. Elevating your upper body also helps. Third, shed some pounds. Quit smoking. Reduce your stress, by doing meditation.

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Copy of this presentation can be found here.

Sounding good in English

Project #6: Vocal Variety

Manual: Competent Communicator (CC)

Aug 17, 2007

Good evening everyone!

How many of you can speak 2 languages? Linguists believe that bilingualism offers benefits such as an ability to see from a larger perspective, greater resourcefulness and creativity. How many of you are non-native English speaker? You may feel that this status puts you at a disadvantage among native speakers.

When English is your native language, your reading, writing and speaking skill can always be improved. When it is not your native language, there is an extra room for improvement. It is like traveling in a business class vs. economy class. :-)

Lets look at few techniques that we can try to boost our skills in a second language.

Immersion
The more you speak in English, the more interactions you have with English-speaking friends or colleagues, the more your command of English will develop. Let me tell a quick story. Couple of months back, my colleague and I were troubleshooting an issue. At that moment, one of my eyelids started to twitch and I rubbed my eye so that I can focus properly on the monitor. Seeing this my colleague asked me “are your eyes okay?” I started explaining that my eyelid is blinking or moving involuntarily and it is normal. At that time, I was not aware of the word “twitch”. She mentioned that it could be “eye twitching” and, later, she sent me a website link about the same. I precisely had the same condition explained in that website. In that interaction, I learnt a new word “twitch”, which and I’ll remember forever. At that instance, Ii I had been with a person, who speaks my native language, then I would have used our native language and never bothered to look for English equivalent.

Reading
If frequent interaction with native speakers is impossible, then the next best technique is reading. Extended reading in English helps you develop 2 things: 1) a sophisticated vocabulary and 2) skill with more complex structures of the language. If you read a lot, then the words go into your passive memory and often remain for years. If you encounter a particular word later, then your vocabulary gets activated and you’ll remember it.

Support & Guidance
Next technique is to seek guidance from a teacher or enroll into a class. They guide you and correct your mistakes before you become too fluent. By fluency, I mean the ability to speak quickly and easily. The scary part is, if you become too fluent without this, the natural mistakes you make will tend to become ingrained and it is virtually impossible to get rid of them.

You can also work with your friends or colleagues to correct both your pronunciation and your grammar. While vocabulary can be improved any time through other means, good pronunciation and grammar require the aid of a teacher or native-speaker friends.

To recap, remember this mnemonic IRS. Immersion – more interaction with English speakers help you develop your command of English. Reading – helps you to improve your vocabulary. Support and Guidance – helps you to improve your pronunciation and grammar. Being a toastmaster you have an ample opportunity to try: Immersion and Support techniques.

Final tip, read monthly TM bulletin regularly. It contains good tips to improve your language skills. My today’s speech is an extract from the article “Sounding Good in English” in this bulletin.

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Copy of this presentation can be found here.

Leader in You

Project #5: Your Body Speaks

Manual: Competent Communicator (CC)

May 04, 2007

Good evening fellow TMs and Guests. If you are asked to think about your childhood, what could you recollect? If you watch activities of children, what could you infer? - Curious and humble, always hungry and thirsty for knowledge, with an incredibly vivid imagination. As children we were natural leaders - we knew exactly what we wanted, were persistent and determined in getting what we wanted and had the ability to inspire, influence, and motivate others to accomplish our mission. So why is this so difficult to do as adults? What happened? We have been deprogrammed along the way.

This speech offers five easy steps to awaken the leader in you and rekindle the passion of greatness. These steps are based on Sharif Khan’s research in human development and leadership area for over 10 years.

First, Leadership starts with humility. To be a highly successful leader, you must first humble yourself like a little child and be willing to serve others. Nobody wants to follow someone who is arrogant. Whom do you want to follow: Hitler or Gandhiji? When you are humble, you become genuinely interested in people because you want to learn from them. And because you want to learn and grow, you will be a far more effective listener, which is the #1 leadership communication tool. When people sense you are genuinely interested in them, and listening to them, they will naturally be interested in you and listen to what you have to say.

Second, Follow Your Bliss. Regardless of how busy you are, always take time to do what you love doing. When you are pursuing your passions, people around you cannot help but feel impassioned by your presence. This will make you a charismatic leader. Whatever it is that you enjoy doing, be it writing, acting, painting, drawing, photography, reading, dancing, set aside time every week, to pursue these activities. Believe me, you’ll find the time. If you were to video tape yourself for a day, you would be shocked to see how much time goes to waste!

Third, Honor Your Word. This is my favorite one. Every time you break your word, you lose power. Successful leaders keep their word and their promises. You can accumulate all the toys and riches in the world, but you only have one reputation in life. How many times have you said you’re going to exercise or eat better and not followed through? We’ve all fallen into the trap of saying we’re going to do something and then finding every possible excuse not to do it. Have you noticed that the next time you make a similar promise to yourself it’s tainted with doubt? You don’t completely trust that you’re going to do what you say. Honoring word pays huge dividends in everyone's life. Your word is gold. Honor it.

Next, Be Yourself. Read about great leaders and use your research on great leaders as models or reference points to work from, but never copy or imitate them like a parrot. Everyone has vastly different leadership styles. History books are filled with leaders who are soft-spoken, introverted, and quiet, all the way to the other extreme of being outspoken, extroverted, and loud, and everything in between. A quiet and simple Gandhi or a soft-spoken peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter, who became president of the United States and won a Nobel Peace Prize, have been just as effective world leaders as a loud and flamboyant Churchill, or the tough leadership style employed by The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher. Be yourself, your best self, always competing against yourself and bettering yourself, and you will become a first rate version of YOUSELF instead of a second rate version of somebody else.

Finally, be a giver. Leaders are givers. By giving, you activate a universal law as sound as gravity: life gives to the giver, and takes from the taker. The more you give, the more you get. If you want more love, respect, support, and compassion, give love, give respect, give support, and give compassion. Be a mentor to others. Give back to your community. As a leader, the only way to get what you want is by helping enough people get what they want first. I would like to repeat Sir Winston Churchill’s words here: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

In sum, developing the Leader in you requires a process of unlearning by self-remembering and self-honoring. Being an effective leader again will require you to be brave and unlock the door to your inner attic, where your childhood dreams lie. Remember!!! Be humble, follow your bliss, be yourself, be a giver, and honor your word always.

Digital Photography - Tips

Project #4: How to Say it

Manual: Competent Communicator (CC)

Mar 30, 2007

[I did not script the complete speech]

Good evening fellow toastmasters and guests. Though my speech is titled as Digital photography, the tips and concepts are common and apply to film photography as well.

Imagine a situation where you or your spouse wanted to take photos of your kid. You spend lot of time to dress your kid up. To make your little prince/princess give a good pose or cute smile, you have to do lot of gymnastics or funny actions. Believe me, it is not an easy process. After all the drama, you and your spouse wanted to see the photos. What if your photo turns out to be like this? Oops! Shaken photo. Or like this? Oh, ho. Bad lighting (typically indoors). How do you feel in this situation? Bad? Guilty? or embarrassed? Can you avoid this? Yes, you can and that is the objective of this speech.

Okay, here is my agenda.

[Speech]

Lets move on. Here is an easy way to remember the aperture and shutter speed combination. Imagine 2 different water hoses connected to a tap: Bigger hose for large aperture and a smaller one for small aperture. Now, you want to fill a bucket with water using these hoses. Assume that bucket is nothing but the film or image sensor and water is nothing but light. If want to fill the bucket with small hose then you need to open the tap for longer time i.e., longer shutter speed. If you need to fill the bucket in less time i.e., shorter shutter speed, then you need bigger hose, which means larger aperture.

Lastly, camera manuals typically contain some of these information and operating instructions. Read, or at least browse them, Practice and be Creative.

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Copy of this presentation can be found here.

Arise, Awake!

Project #3: Get to the Point
Manual: Competent Communicator (CC)
Dec 15, 2006

Good evening President, Fellow Toastmasters and Guests. For quite some time I was looking for a theme for my 3rd speech and when I browsed through the TM’s manual last Sunday, I decided on inspiration theme. I am sure that almost all of us have some goals in life. So my question for you today is “How many of you are working towards achieving those goals?”

Well, this speech is an attempt to fire up few cells in your body to work towards your goals. As soon as I decided this theme, two things came to my mind: First one is Steve Job’s commencement address at Stanford University. It is one of the excellent inspirational speeches I have ever heard. Second one is a forwarded email titled “10 Things you can do today to jump start success.”

To begin with, Jobs’ speech is about 3 stories of his life: Connecting the dots, Love & loss and death. I would like to share my personal story and some excerpts that like from his speech.

Ever since college days, I dreamt to do higher studies, but soon after I completed my undergrad I joined Wipro Technologies as a Software Engineer. A year passed by and the academic spirit was still lingering in my thoughts and by mid 99, I decided to do Masters in Science. My GRE and TOEFL scores were decent enough to get into an US university. But the Creator had a different equation for me. The day I took GRE exam, my Dad had a heart attack and Doctor told that his coronary artery has 90% blockage. A week later he underwent an open-heart surgery and being the only son and I was indecisive as whether to do higher studies. But my Mom came to me and said, “Dad asked you not to get distracted with the recent happenings and do what you like to do.” She also reminded me about my friend who had plans to pursue his career abroad. That rang a bell and I took a job in US and trust that it would work OK.

Jobs mentioned that one can only connect the dots of one’s life when looking backward, not looking forward, and so “you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” In retrospect, given the recession and dot COM burst during 2001, my trust worked out pretty well for me. Thankfully my Dad is in good health and I am doing MBA at SCU.

In his second story, Job shared his failure at Apple, where he was fired from the company he has created. Two snips I liked from his 2nd story are: “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.” Next, “the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

When I heard this, I recalled Winston Churchill’s golden words: "Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts."

Jobs’ 3rd story was even more inspiring and the message was: “Your time is limited; so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

I would like to mention a fantastic quote by Walt Disney here: "All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them."

Next, I am going to share few things that you can do today to achieve your goals:

First, Read or listen to something that motivates you every day. Don’t let a single day go by without providing yourself external motivation.

Second, Make goals and re-write them every day. The hardest part of making big goals is starting. Break down the task into milestones that you can reach in few years.

Third, only sleep as much as you need to. Sleep is obviously important, but don’t use the most important hour of the daydreaming. If you go to bed at 12 and wake up at 8, begin to wake up at 6:30 and go to bed at 11. Chances are there is an extra time each day that you could use to do things that make you more happy and successful.

Next, Focus on what you can do. Stop assigning blame and don’t look for excuses. Do not try to change others, make a decision and then take action.

To conclude, if you can do only one of the above-mentioned things, then my recommendation would be “Read or listen to something that motivates you every day”. Also, I would like to remind you of Robert Frost’s poem: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep” and a quote from Swami Vivekananda “Arise, Awake and stop not till your goal is reached!”

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Copy of this presentation can be found here.