Oneness
It’s hard to put in words the deep
connection the People
have to the forest.
They see a network of energy that flows
through all living
things.
Says James Cameron in the award winning movie “Avatar”
Dear TMOD, fellow and future toastmasters, good evening.
It was the 11th August 2002, the day I landed in US to
start my career. I had more excitement ... not because that was my first visit
to US... but, I was excited because I was going to see the movie “Baba”. It was
my first time of watching the First Day ... First Show of a Rajni movie. The movie was supposed to begin at 6:30 pm. We
were in the theatre at 5:00 itself. There was huuuuuggeee crowd at the theatre.
Despite having tickets, all of us were crazily standing with great
astonishment, and were very anxious. All the cars in the parking lot were
playing the songs from the movie “Baba cinema… cinema[Vocal variety]… No one was
listening as all the fans had the songs memorized by heart by then.
Finally, THAT moment arrived and I was inside the movie hall. The
movie hall was packed with people. Fans yelling and shouting ‘Thalaivaaaa’;
people throwing paper all over, and lighting camphor in front of the screen. All of a sudden, I hear a HUUUUUGE ROAR of
whistling noise when the name ‘Rajni’ [Vocal variety with R… A… J… N… I…]
appeared on the screen.
Throughout the movie, I couldn’t hear a single dialogue properly.
When Rajni says ‘Baba counting starts… 1,2,3..’ the entire theatre was counting
down with him”1,2,3” [Vocal variety]. At the climax, the entire energy level
was at its peak, and the entire theatre roared when Rajni made a U turn from
sainthood. I felt as if I was in
Udhayam theatre or Chromepet Vetri theatre.
We were all software engineers, doctors, lawyers, architects,
entrepreneurs and business man. But on that day we were all Rajni fans. They shed their identities and rejoiced in
being his fans.
I see a lot of similarity between Rajni fans and toastmasters
movement.
Similarly, we too are from different backgrounds. But at the end of
the day we are all toastmasters. When we walk in through that door, we shed our
individual identities and become one. We don’t just focus on our individual
goals but also help each other grow more than willingly. As James Cameron says
“Energy flows through us”. That is the secret
of Toastmasters movement.
There are three important lessons that I correlate from that
experience which is very relevant to us as toastmasters.
1.
We are not individuals… We are deeply
connected network of individuals
2.
We help each other to grow and
succeed
3.
We share our best practices
Firstly, Success of the toastmasters’ movement is not because of the
founder. It was because of members who
joined together willingly and working together passionately. In those days, we did not have social
networking sites like twitter and Facebook, but we had Toastmasters movement
which was connecting us socially. We all
cheered in oneness when Sandhiya and Sadaiyappan won the division and district
contest as we did in Baba movie.
Secondly, mentors work hand-in-hand for the growth of mentees. They in turn became mentor in the
process. It grows exponentially not in
addition or multiplication. They make sure that the knowledge gets transferred
from one to another. In tamil, We says “Vazhaiyadi Vazhi”
Thirdly, we share our best practices across the board which normally
won’t happen in the practical corporate world. We work in abundance mind set
with collective goals. Instead of asking “what is in it for me” we ask “What is
in it for the club”. We shed our position, title, background and come to each
and every meeting with a wholeness attitude.
Fellow Toastmasters,
As Henry ford says “Coming
together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is
success.” That ONENESS is our success
mantra in Toastmasters.
Over to you TMOD
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