Debating and Public Speaking for Everyday Life.

1. Introduction to the course: If you're looking at this course right now, chances are you have a little bit of a struggle. You might struggle with communication either on a daily basis at work or wherever it could be. You struggled to get your point across as effectively as you would like. You struggled to make and structure and deliver arguments or ideas or thoughts or any perspective that you might have. If any of these or all of these resonate with you, then don't worry, this the exact course that you're going to need to be able to get through that. My name is air this up. And for the last four years I've spent debating competitively in various debate tournaments around the world. Tournaments like the world's universities debating championships, the Oxford and Cambridge IV to various other tournaments throughout Asia. I'm now in a position where I can very confidently say that I can help you guys take your communication skills to the next level. We're going to be taking a look at things like structuring an argument to rebuttal, to even things like body language and having an assertive tone when you speak. After this course, I promise you, you're going to be seeing significant changes in your communication. See you guys. 2. Episode 1 (Structuring an Argument): Hey everyone, welcome to Episode 1. Today we are going to be focusing primarily on structure, which is one of my personal favorite things to look at. But it has also one of the most overlooked aspects of debating public speaking and even effective communication. So what is structure really know before I even go on to explain it, I really want you to throw yourself back to that one time where you are in a conversation or a debate or discussion, you know, be it at work or with your friends. And you had an amazing idea. You had this really good contribution to that discussion that you really wanted to put out there, which you weren't exactly sure how. Now for some of you that, that might just be because you were way too shy, but for a very good percentage of you, it might have just been because you didn't know where to start. You had that idea of garlic. How do I structure it? How do I, how do I really package and frame this in a way where I can really be adding value to this conversation. I could really be contributing in a significant way. I could raise my agreement, I could raise my disagreement, I could do something to hold onto this amazing conversation that's going on right now. That right there is because you lack structure. Now in today's episode, what we're going to be focusing on is how to structure an argument. Now this is equally applicable to an idea, a perspective of whatever it is really right? So you want to share something, you want to share your thoughts on something. You want to share your perspective on something. We're going to teach you how to structure that in the best manner possible. The format that we're going to be taking a look at today is the AAR format. Now this is a format that I had picked up throughout my years of competitive debating and it really helped change a lot of things for me, even in daily life. Now, this will take a little bit, you know, getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, I promise you your conversations are going to change significantly. Let's start with what the ARAF format is. Now, it's basically an acronym writes the a stands for an assertion, the R stands for reasoning, and the E stands for examples. Now, let's go through what these are one by one. Let's start with a assertion. Now, assertion is basically the claim that you're trying to make, right? So for example, if you say climate change is an existential threat to humanity, right? That right, there is just an assertion, it's not an argument yet because there is virtually no analysis behind the claim, but it is an assertion, right? It is you providing a perspective, nothing about it this way. And assertion is basically the tagline of the argumentation. And as the entire arguments summarized into one sentence, It's what's your, what you're about to argue, what you're about to say. Now, remember, the assertion, like I said earlier, is not your complete argument or perspective. So make sure to not repeat the assertion over and over differently thinking that you're actually making the claim when in fact you're not really adding much. The second part is reasoning. Now, reasoning is where you explain your claim logically and analytically, right? It's where you explain your assertion. Now, how do you properly reason? You have to answer two crucial questions over here. The first one is why the assertion is true, and the second one is why the assertion is important. Now why is it that you have to answer two of these questions whenever you're trying to analyze something or prove your perspective. The reason is because we'll start with why this claim is true. When you're explaining why something is true, this is basically you doing the additional footwork or the additional legwork. I'm not sure what the right expression there is to really make sure that you can explain why that claim actually is the way that you've set it is. So for example, if you say that climate change is an existential threat to humanity, you need to go on to prove why that's true, right? You can say that there's a lot of research that scientists have gathered over the last couple of years that really shows that climate change is going to affect us negatively. A lot of countries, particularly countries below the sea level, are under great risk of rising sea levels, increased floods, increase climate, refugee crisis, etc. Now you have to explain why the claim is important. Here's where you state the outcomes. Now remember, whenever you explain why something is important, you have to stay an outcome that is both negative or positive depending on the type of argument that you're making. So if we were making that climate change one, obviously the outcomes are going to be negative to prove that climate change is a big deal. So here's where you can say, I think I've mentioned some of these earlier, that people can lose their homes. There could be floods, that could be a lot of disastrous impacts to the economy, whatever it is that you want to add onto. That's where you state why something is important, right? It's basically the outcome or the impact of the statement that you try to make. The last one is examples. Now remember, examples don't have to come at the end. They can really come at any point throughout the argumentation. This is basically any statistic and in fact, any personal example, any relevant example that would help in that situation, I remember different forms of examples carried different weight. Alright, so for example, if you were quoting a personal experience with something that obviously carries less weight than if you were to prove data or statistics, or sorry, provide data or statistics on that particular matter. Now what we're gonna do is we're going to try and see what the structure would look like in an actual debate or conversation setting. So let's come up with an assertion. Let's say welfare is beneficial for poor communities, or welfare is good for poor communities. However, you want to phrase this right. Now we've got to answer two questions. Why is this true and why is this important? Let's start with why is this true? Let's come up with one or two analytical reasons to prove the truth behind this claim. The first one would be, let's say, welfare helps to aid those in need of assistance through various policies such as handing out food stamps, providing assistance to the unemployed, and covering the healthcare of these communities as well. Another reason is, let's say it can help poor people to focus on increasing their savings because their basic necessities have been taken care of. Now let's go on to answer why this is important. Now remember, whenever you're answering why something is important, you're basically stating the impacts of it. The impacts are basically the outcomes are, outcomes can be both positive and negative. If you're making an argument against something, you would possibly have negative outcomes. But in this case, we want to argue positive outcomes because we're trying to make the claim that welfare is beneficial. So let's start stating some positive outcomes of the reasons that we had earlier. Let's come up with, let's say two to three. The first one here would be welfare can help poor people elevate their socioeconomic status by increasing their savings and eventually increasing their purchasing power. And this is important because eventually down the line with increased purchasing power, with increased savings and with increased opportunities. Because education is oftentimes also subsidized with welfare policies. This can help a lot of poor people escape poverty or, you know, climbed the socioeconomic ladder. Now when a large portion of the country has eventually at some point elevated their socioeconomic status. That basically overall reduces the level of poverty, but also increases the number of healthier and more productive people in the country overall. So that right there is just sort of a complete rundown of what this would look like. Now let's try practicing the delivery of it in an actual conversational situation. Great. So that right, there was just an example of how it would look like. But let's try and experiment with an actual conversational setting. So what you would probably do is you would say something along the lines of, I believe welfare is really good for a lot of poor people or poor communities. And here's why. Firstly, welfare has a lot of very helpful policies, right? So for example, you have things like food stamps, you have subsidized health care, you have subsidized education in many cases. And a lot of these things provide a lot of positive outcomes for poor people, particularly because they help them take care of all the essentials. Now they can focus on increasing their savings. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is you could add more reasons for why that's important. So you could say, when poor people get to focus on their savings, when they can progressively climbed the socioeconomic ladder. And they will be able to afford more things. And that would eventually result in less people being in a poverty trap or less people being under poverty. And obviously less people being in poverty is overall better for the country because you have a healthier, more productive population. There we go. That's how it would look like in an actual conversational setting. Remember, you could always add more layers to this, right? But usually you have to take into account the fact that many people are going to give you too much time to speak. Especially if this is, let's say in a classroom discussion, then you have to really make the most out of just the one or two minutes that you have. But if this is an actual debate tournament that you're going for, then yes, you definitely have to add more layers to this, but this course is predominantly built for conversational settings. And yeah, that's, that's about it honestly, as far as structure is concerned, what I want you guys to do now is think about things that you're passionate about. Think about areas of discussion that you participate in very regularly, right? So for example, let's say if it's, you know, economics or if it's law of its politics or if it's international relations, or if it's pop culture, you know, whatever it is, right? Let's say you, you constantly have arguments. You constantly bicker up a bicker about very specific things with your friends. Think about ways that you could make the argument that you've already made, but make it with the structure and see how different it actually turns out, I would highly suggest that you do this by writing. So the first thing you do is let's say you think of a perspective, okay, so you want to think of something, let's say along the lines of, Okay, why cryptocurrency is not a good investment. For example, I don't want you guys to come after me, is just a hypothetical example. Let's say you've made this example. Now think of reasons for why that would be true. And think of reasons for why that would be important, why that claim would be important? And think of any examples and then try to deliver it. What that structure, I promise you, you're going to see huge difference in terms of how that pans out. Practice this a couple of times until it starts to grow on you a lot more naturally. And that way you can start to do it in actual conversational settings too. And once you get the hang of it, it's honestly a lot of fun to just engage in conversation. But anyways, thank you guys so much for joining me in this course. I hope this has been really helpful. Just remember that we are currently in the first episode, which is really just the tip of the iceberg. The next episode is going to be focused primarily on rebuttal. And yeah, we're going to have a lot of fun and there's a lot to learn still. But I really want you guys to make sure that you're practicing what you're learning every single episode just to make the most out of it. But okay, Now what we're gonna do is we're going to move on to just some friendly reminders to avoid and that are fallacies of argumentation. Do not make these mistakes. They're not gonna make you look very good. The first one is repeating your assertion. Now I think I've kind of covered this earlier, which is that do not repeat your assertion again and again differently, thinking that you're analyzing the claim. So for example, if you say something along the lines of, I believe welfare is good for poor people because it provides a lot of benefits to communities in poverty and that way a lot of poor people are going to benefit from it. That's just three things mentioned over and over again differently, right? You're not really making a claim and this is a common mistake that people make on a day-to-day basis. I don't want you to fall into this trap. Also, I would like you to look out for this when people make arguments, right? You're gonna see in a lot more often than you think where people tend to repeat one thing differently thinking that they're analyzing the claim. The second fallacy of argumentation that would like to point out our personal attacks. Please stay away from these. People had to make these very, very often, particularly in political debates, right? So let me give you a quick example. Let's say somebody says, we need to restrict the amount of immigration the country allows because it could potentially have bad impacts on our economy. Now that is a perspective I personally happen to disagree with, but the person making that argument isn't necessarily a bad person. So before throwing out labels like racist, xenophobic for all you know, the person making the argument could be an immigrant as well. So just really keep those things in mind and really engaged with what the person is arguing as opposed to throwing things on them. And if you have been a victim of personal attack during a conversation, just find a way out of it because at the end of the day, your time is extremely precious, right? Do not wasted on people that aren't going to be engaging in proper communication. That amounts to anything useful and are more inclined to throw in random insults or slurs. One of the things that people tend to do very often is attacked peoples, what we call protected attributes and debating. So for example, people's sexuality, people's raise people's economic situation. People's gender, all sorts of things. Like stay away from these things because they oftentimes can really muddy the conversation, make it very, very disgusting. Also because if you try, if you have amazing arguments, right? And you make an amazing argument, you contribute to a discussion and then you throw a personal insult in there. What that does is, or a personal attack that just cheapens the conversation. You've done yourself a disservice because at this point the person is not going to want to listen. Anything else that you have to say, right? So please stay away from this. Be classic, The third thing that we have to avoid, or the third fallacy of argumentation that we have to avoid our stroma ans. Now astronomers are basically, I'm sure you might have come across this term at some point. It is purposely misrepresenting somebody's point. Just a shrine, get an edge and debates. Now I've seen this done very often and it's also depressingly effective in certain types of debates and conversations. But please stay away from it, right? Do not purposely misinterpret what your opponent is saying. Sometimes when you are making a rebuttal, you could be responding to the wrong argument because you misunderstood how the person argue that's fine. But strong acids are when you know what the person said, but you deliberately go out of your way to misrepresent what they said, to try and get an edge in that conversation. It's cheap, stay away from it. Now we come on to the last one, red herrings. Red herrings are basically you just try to find her way out of the conversation, right? There's no other way to put it. It is purposefully taking the conversation in a different direction or distracting from what the actual subject matter is. Stay away from this. I don't think too much needs to be said over here. It's just a really terrible tactic. Alright, thank you guys for joining in. I had a lot of fun. I hope you guys did too. Definitely tune in for the second episode where we're going to be focusing on her bottles. There's a lot of matter to cover and that one. See you next time. Bye-bye. 3. Episode 2 (Basics of Rebuttals): Hey guys, welcome to Episode 2. Today we're going to be discussing ribosomes in greater detail. Now, a rebuttal is essentially a response to an argument, to an idea. It's an opportunity for you to raise your disagreement to any particular subject matter. Now, rebels are a personal favorite of mine, right? These are really, really applicable in daily situations and you probably provide her bottles all the time, whether it's your parents, your friends, your coworkers, sometimes even your boss. So knowing how to provide an effective rebuttal is really crucial to being able to take your communication skills to the next level. Just a quick overview of what we're going to discuss this episode throughout my years of debating, I have covered various different styles of your bottles and I've learned many of them. I've taken the ones that are the most applicable in daily situations and today's episode is gonna be dedicated primarily to exploring them. So let's go through various different styles or bottle will begin with the most basic one, the simple debug, right? This is very basic. It's you saying, I disagree with what you have to say because right now there are various different steps that you have to utilize in order to craft an effective rebuttal. We're going to go through them one by one. Let's start with the very first step, listening. Now, listening in and of itself is a skill a lot of people don't know how to listen very effectively. Now if you're wondering whether or not you're good at listening, Here's a quick check on whether or not you can actually do this well, are you the type of person that tends to interrupt people very often. Do you feel like when somebody speaking you're like I got I just got to say something and you end up interrupting. You don't let them finish. And half the time you end up responding to something that wasn't what they were saying to begin with and looking like an idiot. Then if that happens to you often or even sometimes, and you might struggle with this just a little bit. If you do this very often, It's going to affect your ability to really provide an effective rebuttal. The reason being somebody who has not really finished what they're saying and you just jump in, right? So make sure that you are listening to everything that they have to say. Now I get it. Some people are really slow and talking. Some people take forever to get to the point, but you gotta make sure that you're listening. Secondly, know what you're listening for, right? So what you're looking for is the logic in the statement. That's if you want to look at what the premises and you want to look at where the logic buys. Now this might sound easy, but it's actually very tricky, especially when some people make long and convoluted points. All right, so let's go through two examples of two different arguments. And then we're going to see what exactly it is that we're supposed to look out for when responding to them. And they'll start with the first one. Violent movies are bad for society because they have a negative consequence on people and influence them to act violently towards others. Right? Now that has a very straightforward argument, that premise is extremely clear. The logic is also extremely clear here, which is a violent movies can cause bad behavior. All you have to do is point out why this is wrong. Now, you could go at this by multiple different ways. You could easily say, I disagree because the average person is able to distinguish fact from fiction and understands better than to behave in a manner that is likely to get them in trouble. Or you could just point out the fact that the statement is extremely divorced from any statistic or data whatsoever. So you can just point that out. You can say I disagree because there is hardly any statistical data which proves a correlation between violent movies and an increase in violent behavior. There we go. Simple, straightforward. But if you would like to take this a step further, you could always add an event if, and engage in their best-case scenario. Even if are extremely powerful. Because what they do is that they not only solidify your rebuttal, but it also helps prevent you from looking too defensive. It is always important to try and take your opponent at their best-case scenario. So you could just add, even if there are some people who act violently because of films, those cases often involved external factors such as unchecked medical conditions, which have nothing to do with the film itself. There we go, simple and straightforward. Now let's move on to another example, which is arguably a lot trickier. Progressive taxation is always a good policy in any society because they can help people get rid of poverty by taxing the rich and corporations adequately. With progressive taxation, the poor and the middle class can finally have a higher quality of life. Now, this one is a little bit interesting because the premise which is that progressive taxation is a good policy can be highly questionable. Now, this is not because the statement in itself is wrong in its entirety because progressive taxation definitely has some merits. I mean, it has definitely worked out in some countries. But the argument seems to be really broad. Now this is something you'll run into very often people tend to make these enormous sweeping claims about the benefits of so many things all the time. So in this case, what this person is arguing is that they only really assume the absolute best case scenario. And they don't really highlight any prerequisite to actually having progressive taxation work. Which is, I don't know, having a competent, non-corrupt government, which obviously can't be found everywhere. So in this case, the argument, like I said, is extremely convenient. So what you want to point out is exactly that, right? You wanna point out that this argument is extremely inadequate in terms of being able to deal with the broader context of the world that we live in. It doesn't really address which government is talking about or which society, because things are very different depending on where you live. It's literally no different from saying like, eating ice cream is a good cure to sadness. Like, I don't know. Who, like, what if I'm sad because I have diabetes, right? It makes no sense. So let's try and do that in a rebuttal. So what you could point out is you could say your point seems very convenient. On one hand, I see where you're coming from, but on the other, you seem to be making some vague, sweeping statement that this is somehow a good policy everywhere. Not taking into account how some governments are extremely questionable in their behavior, which can make progressive taxation a really burdensome act in the middle-class, especially because they will have to pay out higher taxes with minimal to no returns. Now, of course, we had discussed in the previous example that you should also add an even if and just really try and take them at their best case scenario. So you could put an, even if you are talking about good governments. Let's not forget that higher tax rates often do discourage entrepreneurship as it can significantly lower the returns that a business or an entrepreneur can make, which can eventually have an impact on the economy and jobs and opportunities as a whole, which will also affect the poor and the middle class down the line. There we go. Now this obviously will suffice in, let's say, a conversational setting. But you could always choose to add more layers onto this and add more reasons of analysis for why the poor and the middle class are going to be affected by progressive taxation negatively. But that's entirely up to you. I think for a conversational setting, this level of structure and response or analysis is usually fine, particularly because it helps the conversation grow without you talking way too long step to brainstorm a relevant response. Now, brainstorming and response is something that you gotta have to do, like on the spot, right? But don't worry, it's not actually that difficult once you've already heard what the premise was, what the logic is, and what the conclusion is that they're trying to make. In that case, It's not going to be very difficult to brainstorm an accurate response. There are various different ways that you can respond to somebody, right? So for example, if it's on an on an entirely factual basis, you provide the facts that would disprove their point, right? You can say that, no, What you're saying is wrong because data or statistics have shown that, you know and then provide your alternative opinion. The other one is you could just respond to it entirely by breaking down its logic and proving that on a logical basis the argument makes no sense. If it's a more casual situation, don't be afraid to utilize your sense of humor, right? You can make a joke, you could do. You could mock the argument just a little bit, especially it was a fun time that you're having at a bar with your friends. This could be a very interesting way of providing a rebuttal, but keep in mind, try to still be respectful when you're doing this step three, delivery, how you deliver your response is going to be extremely important. There are various different ways that you could structure and frame the response to really make sure that it's concise. It sounds good, and it gets to the point as fast as possible. Here are various different ways that you can package and frame a rebuttal. These are generally the ways of providing a rebuttal that have worked out for me throughout my years of competitive debating. Now, you will come across various different things that you want to respond to. Let's say in a discussion setting you're having an argument or whatever it may be. Sometimes people say one thing and then it's pretty obvious you just do what I had thought you earlier, which is providing one concrete rebuttal to that point. But in other times, which tends to happen more often, is that people tend to cover a lot of different things in a short span of time, right? And it can be very confusing in terms of figuring out a way to really respond to everything that they have set. Now, the most effective way to do that is what I call a themed rebuttal, where you basically just break down what they've said into several different themes and then you respond to that one by one. It's a system of compartmentalization that really helps once you've gotten the hang of it. So a few things to note on how this generally works, right? So let's start with an example. Let's say somebody argues that emigration is not good because it can result in a shortage of jobs and opportunities for local taxpayers who should be more entitled to national goods and services. Furthermore, there are many cultural issues which can make it very difficult for people from different cultures to assimilate. Now that is a very loaded statement. It has also a bit odd. In order to have the most effective rebuttal, it needs to be themed properly. So this person's response or this person's argument can be broadly summarized into two themes, which is that, you know, immigrants as a whole, bad, negative consequences on the well-being of a country. And secondly, that immigrants struggled to assimilate. So when responding to something like this, you could say, I wholeheartedly disagree with your arguments. So let's address both of the claims that you've made here. First, beginning with the idea that immigration will be a problem for the local population economically, and especially in terms of opportunities. Secondly, I'll respond to this idea that immigrants will find it difficult to assimilate into a different culture. So once you have framed the rebuttal into two separate groups, you can begin responding to it one by one. Now remember, people in general are not very structured when they speak. They like to rent more often. So this is a very likely situation that you're going to run into if you actually managed to deliver this in a structured and concise manner, right? For example, you have broken down somebody's points into different themes and then you actually respond according to those particular themes you have that compartmentalization. You actually break it down just like that. You'll actually look super, super intelligent, right? Especially in a group discussion or a setting. So practice this. You can look at various different videos of people giving speeches, especially those that you happen to disagree with and try to not just make a response like a basic one-liner. What you wanna do is try to really compartmentalize what they're seeing into different themes and then respond to it accordingly. Practices knew better, right? So you can say like, what I'm gonna do now is respond to your arguments pertaining to this and then your second argument of this and your third argument on this. Let's start with the first argument and then you can start to systematically break down everything that they've said. Just like that, this grouping mechanism really works wonders if done well. 4. Episode 2 Part II (Comparatives): Now we move on to the second style of orbitals, which are comparatives. Comparatives are extremely important. Now what this basically is is you telling your opponent that your perspective is better than theirs by comparing the both of them. Pretty straightforward right? Now there's a few comparison mechanisms that we could utilize that would really take our conversations to the next level. The first one is the long-term and short-term comparison. Now this is extremely applicable, particularly in debates or discussions that surround an outcome. Let's try and example of the short-term and long-term comparison, right? Let's say you and your friend are having a discussion on whether or not violence is a good form of protests for any social cause in society. So in this case, let's say you have the position that violence is not a good thing to try and do, particularly for any movement of the world. You have to try and make that comparison right, because your opponent is obviously going to be very outcome-based. They're gonna say something along the lines of it's going to guarantee success, it's going to guarantee justice or outcomes or lowering oppression or whatever they argue. In this case, what you wanna do is compare their outcome to yours and prove any positive benefit that they have is an extremely short-term outcome, or it's a short-term way of looking at things versus the long-term harms that applied. Let me break this down and make it a bit simpler. What you're basically saying is that their outcomes have, they have positive outcomes, but they're only in the short-term. Whereas what they're not seeing are the long-term harms that they're completely overlooking. So the long-term harms outweigh any short-term benefits. Clear. So let's try and practice this in an actual situation. You could say something along the lines of, Look, I understand your perspective. I understand that violence is very effective in garnering a lot of things, particularly attention to the cause. I get that in the short-term, it's likely to cause some kind of attention, particularly with global media. However, the long-term, there's a lot of irreversible damage that can happen. For example, the movement and its message is going to be tarnished. It's going to be associated with violence and terror as opposed to social justice. And most importantly, the movement is not going to be able to work with the government because it has already positioned itself as an enemy. So you lose out on any long-term legislative changes that can actually be a sustainable way of providing justice for either whichever group it is that you're talking about. So this right here is you're comparing long-term harms and saying that they really outweigh any short-term benefits that happen. Clear. Now it doesn't always have to be long-term harms versus short-term benefits. It could also be long-term benefits versus short-term benefits, right? You could also argue that whatever you're going for has long-term sustainable forms of change versus any short-term benefits. The second style of comparative ads that are very popular and debating and will do wonders in daily life is comparing the likelihood of outcomes, usually in daily conversations. A lot of people like to make very grand claims and all that this would happen or would happen if we do this. But nobody really analyzes the likelihood of any of their outcomes. They just sort of assume that these are plausible likely outcomes. So what you can do in rebuttal is always refute their perspective and say, Look what you're arguing is not going to be very likely for these reasons. Now compare this to my perspective, which is something that is more likely to happen for these reasons. Very, very straightforward. So this could take place in various different scenarios, right? So for example, if you, it could be a very, very basic conversation, right? Like, let's say you and your friends are having a discussion on, you know, should we go to a water park or should we just go to a regular theme park, right? You can make the argument that look, I know you want to go to a water park, right? You've made all these claims about how we're going to have fun little bla. But, you know, there is a huge risk that it might rain. And if that happens, then It's very unlikely that we're going to have fun. Whereas if we go to a theme park, which half of it is covered and there are indoor options for fun. Rain or no rain. It's very likely that we're going to have fun if we choose that option versus the water park. Another option could be Sorry, another situation could be let's say it's an a corporate meeting, right? And a couple of directors are discussing whether or not we should have a raised for employees. Somebody makes the argument that we should have a raise for all our employees because it's likely to boost their morale and we can retain many of them. Now, let's say you disagree with this perspective. You don't want to provide the race. You could say something along the lines of I understand where you're coming from. However, I do disagree that this is going to retain a lot of people. I think that's a very unlikely outcome considering that this corporation has been performing badly for a while. So it's likely that many of them wouldn't leave. Rays are no rays and look for better options. The second thing to consider is that we have limited capital. It's unlikely that we will retain them, but what is definitely likely is that we're going to lose a lot of money for R and D for investments or any form of innovation. So there we go. We've got a comparative of which situations more likely to happen, right? It's more likely that the corporation will suffer as a result of giving every employee arrays. Versus this entirely speculative point on giving a race results in people being retained or morale being boosted or whatever. So that's how this comparative looks like in daily situations. Now you could try practice this, take notes of this, and then really try practices in your daily life. A lot of things are definitely going to change for you in your conversation. All right guys, I really hope you guys have enjoyed. Now what we're gonna do is we're going to go back to the same thing that we did the last episode, which is a couple of friendly reminders going forward. Now, the first one is for those who are too shy to raise a disagreement. My only tip for you guys, please just do it. You only live once. Like really just do it. If you have a disagreement to something, just raise your voice. Now in some cases I understand why this is difficult, right? So for some of you might just be because, you know, you're really shy. But for the other half, it might just be because the person's law senior to you, right. So that's your boss or it's somebody at work that's in a senior position as a senior family member. So in situations like that, you struggled to really raise a disagreement or raise a rebuttal to their point, even though you really want to for that, I've got just the thing for you. What you guys can do is provide a rebuttal without making it sound like Roboto. Now here's a trick that has worked wonders for me. What you can do is you can say look or don't say Look, you are. What you could say is, I understand where you're coming from. That's a very good point. I had not considered that or whatever ass kissing that you can toss and they're like That's a very good point that you're making. However, I do think that we should also consider. You can insert your rebuttal so that way it isn't really a rebuttal. It sounds more like an alternative opinion or an alternative perspective, but really you are providing your disagreement to what they're saying. This is a way that really respects their intellectual capacity, your abilities, while the same time you raise your, you sneak in your rebuttal. They're in a polite and friendly manner, so you can try this out. It's it's worked for me before. The second tip. The second tip is for those that raised disagreements all the time. Now, for those of you, I really want to just say this, please be respectful when you're actually having a disagreement with somebody right now, you can be direct, It's not wrong to be direct. You could say, I disagree with what you're saying or I wholeheartedly disagree with what you're seeing or you could go as far as to say, I don't believe that's true because we're however you choose to do it. But please don't say something like, you know, that arguments really stupid or that makes no god damn sense. And then move onto your rebuttal. Because people are less inclined to listen to you when you start off your rebuttal by insulting their intellect or their intellectual abilities, right? Don't do that. Don't insult their intelligence and then go on to provide your bottle because if anything, you're just doing yourself a disservice, they're going to be less inclined to want to listen to you if that's how you started your rebuttal, right? So please be logical about this and learn to raise your bottles respectfully, tip number three, if you've raised a rebuttal and it hasn't gone so well, or you haven't really managed to convince somebody of your opinion or nothing's really changed. It's fine. It's fine. Keep an open mind for all you know, they might be right in that discussion. That's why your rebuttal didn't have much of an impact. But the second thing is rebuttal is the purpose of a rebuttal isn't always tell when a conversation That's a big problem that happens with a lot of debates and discussions that you see online, particularly with political debates and discussions, the objective always seems to win, to want to win, as opposed to wanting to engage in a meaningful conversation and dialogue. Because remember, life things aren't black and white, they're just different shades of gray. So if anything, treat your rebuttal like it's a helpful addition to that discussion, right? Good ideas and good conversations. I like well-prepared meals, right? There's a lot of different input that comes from different stakeholders. So your rebuttal might just be the input to contribute to a healthy conversation discussion as opposed to something that helps you win over that conversation or discussion. So please keep an open mind. Sometimes your rebuttal is just to participate as opposed to always wanting to win. Thank you all so much for joining me this episode. I really hope this has helped you guys out. Now, unlike the last whatever rebuttal can really only be practiced when somebody has said something first. But you could just look up videos. You can look up online debates. You can look at videos of people that you have discrete with in the past and really take a paper, take a pencil and practice writing down your rebuttal and delivering it in the ways that we have explored so far. You could use the comparative mechanisms. You can use these simple rebuttal formula to try and robot to them, any one of them honestly is going to work out. Just make sure that you get enough practice. Yes. So that's it for episode to tune in next time for episode 3. I can't wait to see you guys again. Thank you. Bye. 5. Episode 3 (Introduction to Verbal Intonation). : Hey guys, welcome to Episode 3. Today we're gonna be taking a look at two different things. Firstly, body language and secondly, verbal intonation. We're going to start with verbal intonation because I reckon this is one of the most important things to talk about. Because a lot of what I've thought you right now that will help you out in your daily communications, be it at work or at a social setting. It's going to help you make arguments, make orbitals, et cetera. But the thing is, if you don't have proper verbal intonation, you're going to sound very monotonous when you speak. And verbal intonation is exactly what you need to make sure that your arguments are not just good, but they sound good, which is extremely important. Now think about it this way, right? You have speakers like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King. The message that they had was extremely impactful. But it was not just the message was also how they set it. Both of them were incredibly powerful public speakers. And that's one of the things that we can definitely utilize in our daily life. Now, verbal intonation literally just means to add emphasis to specific phrases or words in an argument and an idea in a speech, whatever it is, to add that emphasis to make it sound more important or to make it sound more impactful. To put it in simple terms, it's basically the difference between saying there's a fire in the room versus there's a fire in the room, right? Verbal intonation makes all the difference in the world, particularly when you're making an argument. Now, keep in mind that you want to be able to do this in sort of just the right amount right now. Too much verbal intonation and new risks sounding overly theatrical. Too little a bit. And then you might sound very monotonous and nobody would want to listen to you. So a healthy amount is extraordinarily important. Okay, so we're going to try this phrase out, and the words that have been highlighted in yellow are the ones that I'm going to apply verbal intonation on. So, yeah, without further ado, let's get right into it. Climate change can strongly impact everyone's life from animals to human beings. Now, this is true for various different reasons. For example, climate change contributes to intense heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, et cetera. All of these directly caused things such as habitat destruction, which can significantly affect and animals capacity to live. But most importantly, what it does is it affects a lot of people and their livelihoods because of floods, irregular weather patterns, et cetera. Violent movies are bad influences for children. Oftentimes the children do is they tried to mimic the behavior of a lot of adults around them. And regular exposure to violent movies and video games can oftentimes contribute to an increase in violent behavior amongst children. That right, there was just one argument right now. It's not an argument that I'm necessarily a fan off, but as an argument that I just utilize as a way to practice this, it's a very simple, straightforward argumentation. And the reason why I added a lot of verbal intonation at the beginning and the end of the argument was because I wanted to make it clear where the important aspects of this light. Now I'm going to try this out with a different argument. Humanity needs to start exploring outerspace. It is important that we take an insurance policy on our survival as a species considering that planet earth is probably not going to be very livable in the next 50 to 60 years, we need to find alternative places that we could potentially start human life because our survival in the long run depends on it, that right, there was also another straightforward argument that I wanted to apply verbal intonation in. Specifically applied it in the areas where I'm talking about how human life is in danger. And plant, like other planets, are literally the only source of life that we have in like 50, 60 years time. Now that also is where I've applied verbal intonation specifically because I want to try and highlight where the important aspects of that point light. Now I think at this point you're probably getting the idea of it. It's very simple, it's very straightforward. All you have to do is really just vocalize yourself a little bit when you're actually making the argument, alright, yeah, and that's pretty much it for verbal intonation. It, it's, it's not a very complicated thing. Oftentimes it just really involves a lot of practice. And it also involves a lot of intuition. You would know better than I would on what the important aspects the statement that you're making is. One good way to practice this is you could write down an argumentation and you can try highlight the areas that you reckon would be necessary to attract that attention or to give more of an impact to the statement. Is it supposed to be in the outcome of the argument? Is that what you want to emphasize on more is at the beginning of the argument that you want to emphasize on more is that the analysis behind the argument that you reckon you want to add a little bit of verbal intonation. It could be whatever you reckon would add the most impact to your particular argument, right? So those were just some really basic, straightforward examples. I'm sure that in a more complex situation with enough practice, it'll just come very naturally to you in terms of where it should and shouldn't be applied. 6. Episode 4 (Body Language): The second thing that I want to talk about is body language. Most of our communication happens with body language. I think that what the statistic is like Sony and 90 percent of how we communicate is done through body language. Anyways, there are some really basic things that you could do today that will significantly improve the way in which you communicate. The first thing is free up your hands. Honestly, if somebody were to tie my hands behind my back, I wouldn't be able to speak. Right. I really need them for communicating. And if you would go through like Episode 1 and Epsilon 2, you would realize that I use them a lot. The reason why I use my hands, because my hands do a set of different important things. The first thing is that my hands actually dictate the speed of how fast I talk, right? So for example, if I'm going to be using my hands very fast, I'm going to be moving them like this. Then I'm going to be talking really fast. But then when I slow down, right then I use something like this as a way to help me slow down and then talk to you in a calmer and nicer matter. So my hands dictate a lot of my communication. They're extremely integral to how I communicate. So use your hands, right? Free them up a little bit, just make sure that you are using them. Now. This might be a little bit tough initially if you're somebody that is more used to talking like this. But what you can do is you can just actively try practice a little bit of it. Just be like OK, so now I'm going to try giving a speech in my bedroom. I'm just going to use my hands. I'm going to free them up a little bit and I'm going to see what difference it makes. And I promise you there is going to be some difference in how you communicate. The second thing that I want you guys to focus on is your shoulders. Have a good posture. Now, I struggle with this quite a bit. I have rounded shoulders probably does that play too many video games, but there are times when they tend to come to the bottom like this and I have to actively put them up. Now, this is something that I'm sure a lot of you, particularly those that sit down a lot like I do myself might struggle with, but really tried to make sure that you can fix the posture somehow. Because when you're speaking, especially if it's on stage, it is really important to make sure that your posture is good, right? Especially if you're tall and you have a good posture, That's like the best combination for speaking in a public forum or on the stage, etc. So just make sure that you're utilizing that. Keep your shoulders back, keep your chest a little bit puffed up, and then use your hands when communicating. Number 3, I contact. This is very important. A lot of the communication that we do now has moved online, right? It's moved on Zoom. So this might not be as effective as it could, could have been if you were in an actual physical setting with people, but still try to do this. I think one of the things that you could do is just make sure that your webcam is placed in a way where you could be looking directly into it. So I know this is tough if you're using a laptop or a phone, but if you have an external webcam, I think you can angle it in a way that you can make sure that you're looking directly into it because that's how you make direct eye contact with somebody who you're talking to them on Zoom or Google Meets or whatever it is that you're using. So just try that out. But if it is a physical setting where you're actually talking to people or you're in a discussion setting, it isn't extremely important that you make eye contact, direct eye contact with whoever it is that you're talking to you and don't worry, the eye contact isn't something that is very intense. You know, can put people in an, in an uncomfortable position. It's actually perfectly fine as long as you're speaking in a polite and respectful manner, eye contact is perfect. It also establishes immediate connection with the individual that you're talking to and eye contact. I have felt throughout my experience helps me control a room with a lot of people. Because if you're giving a speech or you're providing your input on something, there's quite a few people that you're communicating to, making eye contact with several people like moving from time to time to different people really, really helps to establish a connection with everyone. It helps you to control the room and to control the conversation in the room. So an example of this could be, let's say you're talking to an individual, right? You make a point and then you move to someone else, and then you move to another person and then you're pointing your moving, you might potentially touch somebody's shoulder. That right there is a very good way to control the conversation, especially if you're providing an argument to your input on something and you're juggling multiple different people at once. That is a very strategic thing to utilize, so make sure that eye contact is used. The fourth one is going to be a little bit weird and not applicable in every situation. But moving, like physically moving. This is definitely true if you're giving a speech, it is important to not just relegate yourself to a podium. If you have the option of an entire stage, take the microphone and move around just a little bit, move around, make eye contact with everyone. A lot of TED talks that are actually really good have this. You see the speaker moving around quite a bit. They're not exactly just very stationary, but this also depends on the person. I've noticed that some people are better when they're just standing in one place. But I do think to establish a more effective connection with everyone else There, it is important just to move around a little bit. Now this is also good if it's a discussion setting where everyone is standing up, right? Where everyone's standing up, they're walking and you stop. Let's say if it's a public discussion forum like Hyde Park or something, in that case, yeah, it is definitely important to walk around just a little bit, but that's a very rare situation that you're gonna find yourself. And those are the four tips that I can definitely give you for body language. So there isn't really all too much to cover in this particular episode, because the bulk of debating, public speaking and rebuttal was covered in the last ones. This is sort of just the cherry on top right. This is what's going to help you take that communication to the next level once you've already learned the other two things. So what I want you to do is practice the other two and utilize the tips that you've learned from today, particularly when it comes to verbal intimidation and body language, and see where that gets you in your communication. I would also like you to try out the various practices that I'm going to be putting in the bottom of this that should be available somewhere and yeah, to see where it goes from there. Thank you guys so much for choosing to go with this course. I had a lot of fun making it, and I really hope that you guys learned a lot from it. Now, this course is definitely not as long as a lot of courses out there. But what I tried to, I tried my best to do was to really compartmentalize the information and the shortest and most efficient way possible. Because I recognize that there's a lot of information out there. There's very short attention spans and it's important to package something quickly and effective that people can use just the next week when they're having their communication. But also, there really isn't too much to effective communication beyond what I'm teaching you over here, because I'm sure there's other things, but I think these are the most important aspects of them. Knowing how to frame an idea, knowing how to deliver an idea, knowing how to deliver response, somebody else's idea, knowing how to posture yourself and knowing how to deliver it with proper verbal intonation. These are the most important aspects that are learned from debating public speaking that I think can translate well to daily life. So you can go through this course again. I would like you to share it with people with loved ones, with friends, with coworkers, with colleagues, people that you reckon would benefit a lot from it. And I hope you guys had fun going through the course because I definitely had a lot of fun making it. And yet that said, thank you so much for joining me. And I can't wait to see you guys again. Bye.