After the industrial revolution, the world became narrow. Nowadays the people in the world are running and running in search of wealth. When they are searching wealth, they are losing their health. If they lose their health, definitely they will lose their happiness. The level of satisfaction on happiness differs from person to person according […]
Festivals are celebrated to enhance mutual understanding among people. Each and every citizen in our country celebrates their festivals according to their capability and means. The rich people will buy new clothes and new goods for their houses in each instance. But there are lots of people, who are in need of help to satisfy […]
“White sand beach” (racist much? 😛) at Rumassala… I still hear the sound of the waves in the ocean… or maybe it’s just the fan in my room. Aanyway the “beginning of the year bonding trip” of our Gavel Club happened last Wednesday (27th ) and this is my 威而鋼 reminiscence of it. (more…)
As the Project Chairperson of Oration 2016 – here are犀利士 some lessons I learned and applied throughout the organization process. (more…)
What’s the furthest you have ever reached? Merely what the tip o威而鋼 f your finger could reach? Well, then what’s the furthest you have ever dreamt of reaching? (more…)
I was heading tow威而鋼 ards the university to participate for the first gavel meeting of this year. Actually Wednesday evenings now have become one of the most awesome times of the week because of these Gavel people and the meetings. If you don’t know who they are simply I can say that they are some […]
What is the Secret of Success? Right Decisions How do you make right decisions? Experience How do you gain Experience? Wrong Decisions Success is getting what you want; But Happiness is wanting what you get.85% of Success is due to your Personality and ability to Communicate, Negotiate and Lead. Shockingly only 15% is due to […]
I remember the first moment that I got to know gavel , it was during my 2nd year(2014) through my Stat lecturer at the end of her lecture to be exact.
Smedley’s Toastmasters club organized a monthly meet up called Speakers Corner. It happened in August 2015 and Shaik shared a post about it on our Gavel Page. The cool thing about is – we get to see Mr. Dhananjaya Hettiarachchi. For those of you who don’t know him – he was the World Champion of Public Speaking in 2014. He’s like rock star in Toastmasters – and we were part of his fan club. Basically you have to pay to see him speak and now we can do it for free. We managed to take a photograph with him and also took his autograph. That was awesome! stast Anyway I was talking about this with Shaik and what he said was, “Why don’t we have a weekly meet up like this organized from our Gavel Club?”. I hope there are no copyright violations because we copied this idea from Smedley’s. A whole idea behind it was to have an informal gathering where people engage in discussion over various topics. We started talking about how we hate Mathematics, some of the best moments in our lives, our passions, on love etc. We had people from different age groups coming and its amazing the stuff they have to share with us. Also we did our prepared speeches because Best Speaker 2015 was coming up – the audience was good and they did a good evaluation. It’s an amazing feeling sitting under the shade of a tree at Independence Square. In case it rained we continued it at the pavilion in race course: which was even better because you can get the whole amphitheater effect. When we started sharing pictures of our gathering so many people were interested in joining us. So in future we hope to get many Gavel Clubs and Toastmasters Clubs involved. The more the merrier!
Last year Farha called me up one day and said, “Hey, so we’re hoping to start a gavel club in our uni and the University of Kelaniya is helping us out. We’re having our first meeting tomorrow. Would you like to come?” I had not heard of a gavel club before so I asked her what it was about, to which she replied, “Well it’s a club that helps develop public speaking and leadership skills’. I told her I have a fear of public speaking and she said, “That’s exactly why you should come.” I have great admiration for people who are able to stand in front of a crowd, be very much at ease and communicate their ideas effectively. Going for that meeting would’ve given me a platform to develop my skills but I didn’t go. I wasn’t asked to deliver a speech, I was simply asked to attend a meeting and yet I turned down that opportunity the first time it came my way. However, Farha and a few other friends eventually convinced me to go for the gavel club meetings and here I am today, a happy gavelier! It didn’t take me too long to realize that public speaking in itself was not what I feared. I was uncomfortable with the thought of being judged by people for the mistakes I would make when delivering a speech. But the more I thought along those lines, the more I felt that it was merely an excuse. I figured that the real problem was my unwillingness to step out of my comfort zone. Most of us are more comfortable being part of an audience than being IN FRONT OF one. What you may not realize is that you are never going to grow if you continue staying in the same place. All it takes is a little courage (and sometimes an extra nudge from a friend) to step out of your comfort zone. This is not to say that I have completely overcome my fear of public speaking. It’s not something that happens overnight. It takes time, all you need is the will to change. Nelson Mandela once said “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” So I encourage you all to think about it what it is that you’re afraid of. We all have fears, and let me tell you this, you’re not going to overcome them in an instant. But, it won’t take forever either. It’s time to make a change. Embrace the challenges that come your way. Let your mistakes be lessons for life. And don’t think twice about stepping out of your comfort zone.