Today was another really busy day at work, the third one of back-to-back long days. This was the end of it though, at least for the next 5 or 6 days. I haven't been able to get a lot of studying of my own done this year. At work, one of my teammates has left and I am covering for her until somebody else is hired. On top of that was this presentation to one of the founders of my company that I finally got done with today. It went well, a couple of things garnered his commendation.
Many of the early career quants that I talk to find it rather intimidating to present to him. I did too, until some time last year. I think that whatever little initiation I've had into yoga, meditation and vedanta has really brought about a major transformation in how I approach everything in life, and being mostly relaxed even when presenting to such big-wigs, I think, is a direct consequence, or one of the manifestations, of that transformation.
One of the changes I've brought about is while earlier I used to take extensive notes of everything I would say, and almost memorized my presentations to the level where even phrases like "and for that matter", "so much so" and "let's turn to the top left part of the page" were not spoken naturally but were part of a thoroughly planned script, I let things flow almost entirely conversationally now. It has maybe added a few extra uhmms to my delivery, but from watching a recording of it, I felt that the overall feel of the thing was much better, much more real than the linguistically flawless but emotionally robotic nature of my older rehearsed presentations.
Of course, I could only make the switch from a super cautious to a more relaxed, natural delivery because via vedanta and mediation I was able to overcome to some extent the fundamental things that underlie nervousness and cause feelings of intimidation. All said, I'm still no good at workplace small talk, except with friends.
I also did away with the tie.
Many of the early career quants that I talk to find it rather intimidating to present to him. I did too, until some time last year. I think that whatever little initiation I've had into yoga, meditation and vedanta has really brought about a major transformation in how I approach everything in life, and being mostly relaxed even when presenting to such big-wigs, I think, is a direct consequence, or one of the manifestations, of that transformation.
One of the changes I've brought about is while earlier I used to take extensive notes of everything I would say, and almost memorized my presentations to the level where even phrases like "and for that matter", "so much so" and "let's turn to the top left part of the page" were not spoken naturally but were part of a thoroughly planned script, I let things flow almost entirely conversationally now. It has maybe added a few extra uhmms to my delivery, but from watching a recording of it, I felt that the overall feel of the thing was much better, much more real than the linguistically flawless but emotionally robotic nature of my older rehearsed presentations.
Of course, I could only make the switch from a super cautious to a more relaxed, natural delivery because via vedanta and mediation I was able to overcome to some extent the fundamental things that underlie nervousness and cause feelings of intimidation. All said, I'm still no good at workplace small talk, except with friends.
I also did away with the tie.
bin tie hi feel hai bhai :)
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