Our twenty-first meeting is an outlier event.
It was unscheduled – we hosted a World Speakers’ Coalition Kuala Lumpur meeting as our friend, Sivaprakasam Raman and his family who are from Chennai, India made a brief stopover in KL enroute to Singapore.
And it was the first time, we had youngsters – 5 of them – gracing the event.
Altogether, fourteen came to this meeting which consisted of 6 members and 8 guests.
As is our custom, everybody there made speeches based on our meeting theme.
Friendship isn’t only about grand gestures – it's about a million little things.
Meaning, it’s not the big things that make a friendship “real”. It’s the million little things happening within the friendship. The little things, like the idiosyncrasies which make up your friend’s persona. It’s the meat and potatoes of his, or her, personality, which either solidifies the friendship, or provides the proof the friendship isn’t really a friendship. Knowing what you get when you’re a part of a friendship is what makes a friendship so special.
Friendships come, and some friendships don’t last. It doesn’t mean those million little things weren’t important, or special, it just means it wasn’t meant to be a lifelong relationship. However, it doesn’t change the fact that friendship isn’t a big thing. It’s a million little things.
I came across this piece about friendship – and I just gotta share with you.
Researchers at the University of Virginia wanted to find out whether friendship influences how we approach the challenges of daily life. In an unusual experiment, researchers stood at the base of a steep hill (a 26 degree incline) on the university campus and asked 34 students as they walked by to help them in an experiment. Some students were by themselves; others were walking in pairs.
Each student was given a backpack filled with weights equal to about 20 percent of their body weight. While the students may have had the impression they were going to have to climb the hill, the researchers simply asked them to estimate how steep the climb would be.
Notably, students standing alone perceived the hill slant as steeper and thought it would be harder to climb while carrying the weighted pack. But students who were standing next to a friend thought the hill looked easier to climb and gave lower estimates of its steepness. Interestingly, the longer the two friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.
Other studies support the notion that social support helps us cope with stress. When female college students were asked to complete challenging math tasks, their heart rates went up. But when they were asked to complete the math problems with a friend in the room, their heart rates were lower. Scientists also know that when rhesus monkeys are moved to a new environment, the level of stress hormones in their blood increases. But when a monkey is moved along with her preferred companion (monkeys form friendships too), the stress hormones measured in her blood were much lower. (Similar results have been seen with rats and guinea pigs).
All this research suggests that friends can change our view of a challenging situation, and that the mere presence of a friend in the same room can lower our stress. Having friends essentially allows us to outsource some of the emotional burdens of daily life.
For those of you who don't know us – we’re about friendships and impromptu speeches and deep conversations.
Photos of Tuesday's event at our favorite F&B venue, Decanter in Section 17, Petaling Jaya:
And one of our young guests, Vishana Sivaprakasam (above photo, far left) honored us by crafting a short poem. On the fly. Of course, it is on "Friendship". And it enjoyed 4 readings!
The poet recited first, followed by Suriakumar, then Victor Ong and finally, Alan Chew. For sure, she has 3 fans now!
#publicspeaking
#theartandscienceofrhetoric
#confidentcommunication
#communicationinnovations
#worldspeakerscoalition
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