Mr. Manish Upadhyay is an engineer by qualification and stutter by Nature. He is a Stutter who learned his life learning through his stuttering and transformed his biggest weakness into the biggest strength. Mr. Manish has helped more than 50000 people in the last 7 Years with Life Skills, Personal Development, Sales, and Managerial Development. Presently running his own Corporate Consulting Firm and associated with some of the Non-Profit Organisations like ‘The Indian Stammering Association’ to bring change in Society. His mission is to inspire people to take action. He is a TEDx speaker, public speaker, and motivational speaker.
When TISA approached him for this event, he told that he will not be there as a guest, he will be there as an elder brother who will tell about his life journey, success, and failures to his younger brothers and sisters. For him, it was like a family gettogether, since he has been associated with TISA for a long time.
The event started with an energetic song, Mr. Manish introduced himself and we all had a little interaction with him. He made a PPT of 7 slides and he called it ‘Life Ki Chuski With Manish’, the agenda of the speech was –
- Thoughts on stammering
- Success
- Failures
- My Learning
- QnA
Even though he faced a lot of difficulties because of stammering, he still became a public speaker. He says that the reason for this improvement is because of the story he always told to himself. The story was not like a positive thought, it was more like what he actually wanted to do. He has spoken in front of 300-500 people and the story he tells himself now is that one day he will speak in a stadium which is fully packed. He says that the story which we tell to ourselves becomes our reality.
It is more like a self-image, many people call it by different names but the overall concept is the same like Dr. Sachin says this self-concept, and Mr. Manish says it a story which we tell ourselves.
Mr. Manish says that just telling the story to yourself is not enough, you need to prove to yourself that you can make this story into reality.
For example – I told myself that I look good in a black shirt and people are telling me that how handsome I am looking, only saying this is not enough. I need to take the effort to pick a good black shirt, wear it and go out with my friends/family. He used the term ‘Kanoon Saboot Mangta hai’, where ‘kanoon’ is our mind, only after proving our mind we can be the hero of the story we can make it into reality.
He encouraged us to understand the story we subconsciously tell ourselves. Many PWS tell negative stories to themself like ‘I am not good at communicating and they even prove this story to their mind by getting a little depressed when they stammer in front of people. So understanding and working on your self-talk is very important.
He said that the reason for his success is –
- Pure Intentions
- Thankful for what I have
- Hardest worker and learn
Having pure intentions is the best way to achieve whatever we want, the people who have pure intentions, nature is always with them. Many people define success as money, fame, property, etc. but for Mr, Manish success is- whatever we wish for, nature or God gives it at the right time, because we work for it with pure intentions. Working with pure intentions is working without the fear of failure and greed.
PWS is at a high rate of success because we are always in our own tune, we don’t like to hurt anyone and also we work in a hard and smart way. Try remembering the last time you gave a speech in front of your batch mates/ colleagues/ friends. We prepare a lot, analyze our speech, and even if we stammered during the speech we have the courage to complete it.
Mr. Manish Upadhyay shared about his failure openly, he has failed too many times, took many wrong decisions, and also felt depressed after failing. He shared a few of the incidents in which he failed.
He encouraged all of us to try new things, work hard on them, and even if we fail we should learn from the failures. He said –
‘खूब सारी गलती करो पर अपने गलतियों से सीखो’
He said that when he fails or when things are not going as planned, even he gets stressed, confused, anxious, depressed like all of us, and it’s ok. I will never forget these lines said by Mr. Manish –
‘बोहोत बार फेल हुआ हू, उदास भी हुआ हू, लेकिन लगा हुआ हो’
‘It does not matter how you see me, what matters the most is how I see myself’
His learning:
We all get stuck at some point and cannot understand what to do, even if we ask for advice from our elders we get n number of advice which makes the situation even worse. For such a situation Mr. Manish told a way to get out of it – If a person like you comes to you for help/ advice, then what advice will you give to him? The answer that comes to your mind, is your best advice.
He said that nowadays there is a trend that we need to learn everything (for nontechnical topics only), but it’s not necessary. If we follow this trend, it becomes like a positive distraction and creates a lot of stress.
We think that if we want to grow, we need to adjust to the new trend, learn a lot(outside of our field) but the only thing we need to grow is to be real and genuine. Life is not how we see it in social media (100 % perfect), don’t fall into that trap. Life is all about the imperfect thing.
Many PWS hate themself for stammering, Mr. Manish told the importance of self-love. He said that if you will not love yourself, accept yourself you will never love your parents, wife, children, and friends. The real beauty of life begins when you love the way you are. He believes that – ‘God has sent all of us on this Earth for a specific purpose, we all have a purpose. So to fulfill the purpose first we need to love ourselves.
We should always stand strong for that 1 thing in which we are good, that should be our identity. It can be a competitive behavior or anything if we find that 1 thing for which we can stand strong then life becomes very simple for us.
For those who find self-love difficult, Mr. Manish has suggested a book for them. ‘You Can Heal You Life’ by Louise Hay..
According to Mr. Manish, all the PWS can be great businessmen and wonderful leaders because we PWS are very good at observing things, we can understand other people very well and also we are great listeners, the things which are missed by a non stammerer we observe it very quickly. If we are at a cafe or restaurant then we are able to understand that what things might be going in other people’s minds, we can recognize it. It has happened to me and cannot agree less with him if you don’t believe it try doing it the next time when you visit a cafe.
Mr. Mannish Upadhyay advised everyone to not follow social media too much because there everything is very guddy guddy and everything seems to be perfect with everyone. There is no 18-25 year old who thinks that ‘My friends or my cousin’s life is very perfect and I am stuck here’, life is all about the imperfect things.
I think there is one common thing between me and Manish Sir, Manish Sir loves to speak in public he says that it is like meditation for him. Even I love speaking in public, even though I might stammer in few words but I like sharing ideas in a group or sharing ideas during a presentation.
All I learned during the session is that life is all about imperfection – no one is 100% perfect, ups and downs, failures, victories, and continuous improvements.
Finally, whatever I learned during this wonderful session with Mr. Manish Upadhyay, I will like to convey it with a beautiful poem written by Kaviraj Shailendra-
तू ज़िन्दा है तो ज़िन्दगी की जीत में यकीन कर,अगर कहीं है स्वर्ग तो उतार ला ज़मीन पर!
ये ग़म के और चार दिन, सितम के और चार दिन,ये दिन भी जाएंगे गुज़र, गुज़र गए हज़ार दिन,
कभी तो होगी इस चमन पर भी बहार की नज़र!
अगर कहीं है स्वर्ग तो उतार ला ज़मीन पर!…. तू ज़िन्दा है
Recording of the session – https://youtu.be/1Q0FHtM7LWY
