We will first look at a need to communicate well. Then we will look at how people go through various stages of competence in public speaking and why many people leave in between. Using this process I will also show that public speaking is not some magic but it is a learnable skill. Finally we will quickly recap all that we have learnt today.

When we think of any great leader of past or present, we always associate with them an ability to speak well and inspire people. People who are able to get things done are often those who can communicate well. It is however not easy to learn the skill. Those who fear failing in this effort will never be able to learn it. Those who fear failing will also never be able to become great sportspeople. Those who fear failing will also never be able to become great leaders. It means you do not mind falling on your way and persisting. Not expecting a cake walk to the success. So, now that we know that public speaking and presentation is an important skill, and developing it is not an easy task, lets look at the process one goes through in achieving competence in it.

Competence in public speaking can be compared to using a lift. You get in at level 1 and then slowly go to the upper levels. What are these levels?

1. Beginners Luck
2. Making mistakes and getting disappointed
3. Persisting, doing well and gaining confidence
4. Becoming competent in presenting
5. Becoming great from good

What takes you thorough these levels? Persistence, Practice and Continuous learning

So there is no magic trick to becoming comfortable. Actually, we all are good at talking comfortably with friends, and yet feel tongue tied in front of audience. That’s because we fear it so much. We are afraid we will make a mistake. So, all the fear and hence paralysis is actually in our mind. Also, initially we do not have much experience.

Beginners luck stage is where you may present well due to something you did right but you are not consciously aware of what exactly that was. You need to take the first plunge into presentations to reach this level.

Second stage is that of making mistake and feeling disappointed. You could take these negative feedbacks as proof of what you always feared. You may even feel that public speaking is not your cup of tea. It is in this stage that disappointed by the negative performance, people often give up. If you leave at this stage you loose your chance to becoming good speaker. So, don’t.

There are only few who are able to go to stage 3 directly, maybe due to previous experience in presentation or natural flair for it. Most people I know require to go through stage 2 and which is the painful part of learning process. However if people persist, then they go on to stage three. It is the stage where you realize you have started speaking better than your friends. You start to gain some confidence and this confidence reflects in your presentations.

From level 3 to level 4 you reach again by persisting and practicing. Level four is when having given many presentations, You are fairly confident of what it takes to give a good presentation and most of your presentations are well prepared.

Level four is not the final stage. If you persist and do further polishing of your presentation skills, you go from good to great. You could become inspirational and dazzling. Remember that good speech is not only about speaking, but also about good listening and thinking. Only when these three come together can you be a great speaker.

So now after this virtual tour, we have seen the various stages of public speaking competence. We know that all the fear of public speaking is in mind. We also know that for most people getting to level five of public speaking means going through levels 1 first. We know that level 2 is where most people quit since they take some failures as proof of their fears. And we know that persistence is what takes us to level 3 and beyond. I think we are now well equipped with starting off the journey. This was a brief introduction, however fun of cake is in having it, and progress of speaking is in actually speaking. So take a plunge and start presenting whenever you get an opportunity. You could consider joining Toastmasters Club. I myself have benefit a lot from Toastmasters Training and I can imagine you benefiting as well. Remember only thing to fear is fear itself. I hope this was helpful to you.

Shishir Choudhary

I am not saying love is bad. It is very good. However, I feel the most important part of love is commitment maybe followed by mutual respect and what goes without saying is trust because we trust the trust. And in my personal opinion, relationships should not be built on death bed of other relationships since then it is irresponsible act. So responsibility is also an integral part of love.

I often wonder whether the first step of love is itself quite contradictory. I love you because you make me feel good. I love you because you make me feel special. So, tomorrow if you do not make me feel special or good or excited, there is no love ? Some argue, albeit naively in my opinion, that love brings together those who were destined together by god. However, if that was the case, then how come the results of love are so poor in stability (70% first marraiges fail both in US and UK, 56% on avg in 30 OECD countries)? Moreover, it is quite common for people today to have first girl friend, followed by second and third etc. I do not see destiny or magic of love written anywhere.

Now I do not want to repeat much of what I have said earlier. In salaame ishq, John Abrahab leaves his parents because he wants to marry a muslim girl. Now lets see there are two loves in question here. Love for parents and love for girlfriend. Being a hindu, he must have known that his parents while may be very friendly with muslims would be most comfortable with someone who can understand and appreciate their culture very well and is able to gel into the family by knowledge of culture that comes by being part of it ? Could he have cared a bit more for their liking ? I do agree the potent force of inbuilt attraction between a guy and a girl exists and that makes us naturally want to have a relationship. This force is strong . Anil kapoor on other hand does not care about his college sweetheart and since his life became a bore, goes out to find excitement that was lost in his life. He does not care for his relation with wife and john did not care for his relation with parents.I feel both are comparable if not same. Both seem to me personally as irresponsible steps though I may be wrong to some extent.

Here is my ode to the “so called love”

1. John Abraham marrying Vidya Balan and his parents are outcast from his life. Salaame Ishq

2 . Anil Kapoor falling in love with a dream in a young girl who is not his wife. Salaame Ishq

3. Govinda falling in love with the British babe. Love at first sight. What of her parents and what of cultural beliefs that would be highly different between govinda and her ? Salaame Ishq

4. Akshay Khanna, enjoying the no responsibility life of boyfriend girlfriend and unable to commit. Is marriage not the commitment that love should lead to naturally, then how come it does not, is love not a commitment and marriage the formalisation of that ? Did he think marriage was ‘fun’ and not responsibility ? Salaame Ishq

5. Salman and Priyanka. I don’t know how Salman came to know Priyanka sooo well without knowing her or meeting her. And yet, people clapped whehemently for him and priyanka. Does not make sense at all. Its like I going and proposing to Rani Mukherjee by reading filmfare magazine. Salaame Ishq

6. The sixth couple was good ! Good fun !!

I am not saying love is bad. It is very good. However, I feel the most important part of love is committment maybe followed by mutual respect and what goes without saying is trust because we trust the trust. And in my personal opinion, relationships should not be built on death bed of other relationships. So responsibility is also an integral part of love.

How come film industry shows love in brilliant colours and never shows the shortcomings ? I feel it is becuase you never bite the hand that feeds you. Dream of love is what runs 80% of movie industry. Dreams are what they are supposed to sell and not education. A popular saying in US is that TV and video games do not affect us much since otherwise playing pacman (a classic computer game), we would all be like the pacman character, constantly eating and keeping score. While I agree to some extent, but on other hand TV does form one of the basis of our expectations and good and bad and sense of reality.

These are just my views… I do not know whether they are right or wrong or good or better. I share them with you as way of expressing myself.

Shishir

Reference :-

To give a dose of reality to salaame ishq, in last 28 years in UK the lowest divorce rate has been 70% for the first marriage, while it was 80% 28 years ago. This is not because people are getting along better, but because most people are not going for marriage. Value of system is in it’s results. I for one can’t fathom how people and movies still say that there is no problem in popular love/self choice. Is 70% a negligible figure ? While I have all the respect for those who succeed, I do not agree that others should not be worried about it. One may say english people are stupid or cultural values are weak there. Well, we are all humans. We all are fallible to much the same weaknesses. So I do not agree to that dismissal of concern. The concern being there is need for improvement and dismissing it or doing nothing about it will not help.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1502007.stm

Have you seen anyone as a child desire to be demon when they grow up ? Or skeletor ? Or say that when I grow up I want to do as many evil deeds as possible ? Then how can people be inherently bad ? It must be then that people want to be good. Only misunderstanding or miscommunication leads them to do things which have bad consequences ? So, does that make them evil ? Or only misled ?

To leave your comments click here

References :

1. The complete study quoted above can be found in
Fortune Magazine, 1991 October 7 Issue. Written by Farnham, A. Name of article is “Who beats stress and how?” page 71-86 (locate in library)
Find this article at fortune magazine website by following following link
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1991/10/07/75563/index.htm

2. The Roseto Effect
http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/14_2%20The%20Roseto%20Effect.htm
3. Find the above text in
Developing Management Skill- David A Whetten and Kim S Cameron. Chapter 2 – Managing Stess, Pg 118

4. Information about Roseto, Pennsylvania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseto,_Pennsylvania

5. The Roseto Story , An Anatomy of Health
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0806114916?v=glance

This is an interesting study as in it highlights a good way of life. It is of course not the “right” way, but a good way. I email about this since I feel today society is too much about “individualism”. At least that’s what movies promote. Where you live life “your way” and not care about any one else. Such living of life is unquestionable since it is based on modern axiom that individual is most important, relationships are merely there if they suit you. While it would be too foolish to say that one needs to worry about absolutely everyone, it is also foolish that one needs to only worry about oneself to be happy or only about those who are convenient to oneself. Merely donating to charity or such social work does not make one good at heart. If one is really good at heart one would care about real people one knows. They say, “charity begins at home”. This is just one way of living life I felt like sharing with you friends for views and counter views. Your views are welcome.

One could say that this is too idealistic a situation. I agree, today’s facts are too distant from way of life highlighted. I feel that some things can definitely be learnt from this distant ideal. Especially I think in modern life many a children feel that parents are old fashioned and they are not involved in their active life. I feel that this is counterproductive for many reasons. Parents are those well wishers who will be always on our side in times of trouble. People say parents do not understand them. However, how many really consider problems of their parents vs just thinking about their own ? Hence, I feel collaboration is good for everyone.

Self centeredness also manifests itself in not being considerate of others. Thinking only about oneself. Competing with friends. Achievement is not bad I guess but using that to prove one as better than other is.

So, what spiritual leaders have always claimed, is scientifically true as well! Self-centeredness is not good for oneself, not only in afterlife but in life right here on earth ! Then again it does not take more than a little self reflection to realize this.

Comments are welcome . . .

I thought this is a good thing to know. Things you want in yourself and those you would not want. Otherwise also good to admire those who you feel are good.

So here are the people I admire. For people I know personally I am not writing the names. I will use some alphabet to spare my friends the undue attention. I am limiting to only 12 people I admire most.

1. K
   1. Highly analytical. Sharp analysis
   2. Laughs and candid about any weaknesses (not in-genuine self deprecation, but honest and accurate)
   3. Respectful and understanding of others
   4. No dependence on validation by others
   5. Not appeasing
   6. Not showy
   7. Good values and does not desire too much in terms of consumerism
   8. Does not try to impose ideas on others
   9. Passionate and hardworking
2. R
   1. Not easily perturbed by anything
   2. Sharp analysis
3. S
   1. Good communicator
   2. Sets expectations clearly
   3. Good planner
4. Warren Buffet
   1. Thinks a lot
   2. Independent thinker not dependent on praise or criticism to take decisions and takes decision on basis of what he understands and based on available understandable facts
   3. No desire for very consumeristic life
   4. Good work both on family and business field
   5. Does not try to change the world to be like him
   6. No media attraction
5. Amar Kant Choudahry
   1. Thinks a lot because he cares a lot
   2. Caring and good intentions
   3. A good caring advisor
6. Padma Choudhary
   1. Caring
   2. A good teacher
   3. A good honest advisor
7. Gandhi
   1. Was able to take beatings and humiliations and still not get affected (demoralised) by it
8. Mohamed Elbaradei
   1. Was not moved by big heads of states and other’s opinions
   2. Tells what he wants to say with force
9. V
   1. Respectful
   2. Good communicator
   3. Good analysis
   4. No inferiority complex
10. P
    1. Lively
    2. Cheerful
    3. Respectful
    4. Good Personal Resolve
    5. Not showy
11. De
    1. Lively
    2. Cheerful even in tough times
    3. Respectful
    4. Good Personal Resolve
    5. Not Showy
12. Raju Srivastav
    1. Good observer of human communication
    2. Good humour
    3. Respectful

I hope I can develop these values / qualities.

Now to the people and qualities I do not like and I would not want in myself as well… (you can check later, lol ) . Ofcourse no names. No point of names here.

1. X
   1. Acid remarks / too honest at times at cost of relations/friendship in hubris of being right and not noting the human sensitivity and emotions in the process
   2. Highly bad opinion about oneself in terms of being a good/bad person
   3. Unpredictable when in bad mood
   4. Uses psychological ways of humiliating/intimidating
2. Y
   1. Never says sorry for anything and never agrees to any mistakes
   2. Superiority complex/bossy
3. Z
   1. Low values (short term and individualisitic thinking)

When i was in class 3, (yeah for those computer enthusiasts … this class is nott related to c++/java!! ), I shifted school. No, let me go back a little. The first gadbad was when I joined school, or rather preschool. I was very fond of my family and very excited to go to school seeing my elder brother going there (so my family tells). So, when it came to my turn to go to a pre school, I remember going with parents to a house nearby. Then my mom left me there and went back. That part was not in my elaborate plans of schooling. I came back all the way once mom had left and no one was watching. Thankfully, I believe, later I realised that school was not bad afterall. I think it is about trusting more people as you grow older.

A more recent gadbad was when I was in national uni of s’pore studying computer science. A girl, in our batch while we had just finished first year and done quite well, was talking to me and said … I wonder why some people have to work hard to get good grades. To likes of us the grades come naturally !! Nahi ?? I said, yes Indeed !! Ofcourse !! And then I started waiting for grades to roll through the door !! Thinking slightly harder would have made it evident that it was because first year was partly a recap of things we had studied very hard in school days. But then for quite a while I really took that comment seriously !! I can’t say if I was stupid or otherwise it is natural to think highly of oneself specially in face of recent success

Yes, coming back to class 3! I was very fond of my school (mothers international school). It so happened that parents shifted house to come to a new permanent house. So, I go to parents and say, the new school (Delhi Public School, Noida) is real bad. Can you ask hunuman to fly our new house to near the old school… Now I knew that it was wishful thinking but all the same I had dreams of being back in old school for quite a while… In order to be fair to DPS Noida, I am now fond of both my schools and great teachers I met and great friends I made there.

Shishir

I have recently been reading a lot on communication. In one of my readings, I came across concept of fight or flight! It is an eye opener. It helped me a lot in improving my speeches, which I give at my toastmasters club in singapore (public speaking club). I am now open to criticism, and in fact eager to know more if someone cares to criticise. Earlier, it used to be different. I would internally get highly excited while not saying anything. So much so that my thinking would freeze completely while I felt like somehow getting away from the situation. Or at times I would think that the person criticising was unfair and wrong in criticising me, maybe having some personal agenda. I had read about defensiveness, but I was not very clear about it. Similar thing happened during a speech. I would get so scared of doing bad and showing my weakness, I would freeze to some level. This video was quite an eye opener. It explained natural defensiveness to any percieved threat, like criticism (which was a threat to my self image), in terms of fight or flight mechanism biologically built into people. No wonder all of us feel similar defensive routines!! Read these links to get a basic understanding of fight or flight behaviour.

http://www.stressstop.com/articles/article1.html http://www.pertinent.com/articles/communication/kareCom8.asp

So, let me tell you of defensive routines I encounter when giving toastmasters speech. This used to happen a lot earlier. I would prepare a speech, half baked and only partly rehearsed, struggling till end to be able to say something good. After giving my speech, I would wait for the evaluation from one of the members of club to tell me my strengths and weakness. Once the evaluator reached the podium, my heart will start beating fast !!! I will either be thinking, “well, I messed it!! and I will get bashed for it!!! I humiliated myself today, what was I thinking !! I will never be able to make it to give a proper speech. Only if the evaluator is soft on me and spares me the actual opinion and says something good”. If the evaluator said something good, I will think “I got saved, the evaluator was sweet to not bash me”.

So, basically it was a flight response. I was not addressing the problem, I was trying to avoid it. I wanted to run away and accept all kinds of faults and somehow get over with it. Speech giving and evaluation of speech both made me feel threatened – it will show my weakness. I did not want to understand my weakness and think of ways to improve it. If that was the case I would be ready both to give an imperfect speech and eager to get an honest feedback while not taking offense from it. Then every opportunity to face a weakness is an opportunity to assess what can be learned and improved from this. What am I afraid of ? Is it a geuine cause of concern ? Then if it is really a cause of concern, why not address it in a problem solving way.
Some people take opposite approach. They give a nice speech, however if evaluator gives any suggestions for improvement, they immediately take offense and say that evaluator does not know anything. They would completely disagree and would think that evaluator was probably not worth listening to. However flawed, most criticism have some genuine thing to think and learn from. Failing to listen to that means you will not learn. One need not agree to all criticism, but honestly considering it means you do not take it as threat but opportunity to learn. So, fighting approach while it may be considered more aggressive and desirable, is not also addressing the problem and not taking the criticism as an learning opportunity.

I have miles to go in my learning of speech and communication. However, with understanding of natural human weakness, I am better prepared for this journey. In fact now I am trying out my luck on humorous speech. Do laugh when I make miserable jokes. I will be depending on them !!

I do not think that every case of arranged marriage is better than every case of love marriage. I know it is not since I have seen good cases on both sides. However, what I know is that on the whole system of love has low score on success. Hence, I think people need to reflect and improve on where it is going wrong for many people.

It is a logical world and so it is normal to point to performance indicators. Bad performance indicators, as logical people call them, mean there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. However, many of us are so brain washed by romantic epitomes in Hollywood and Bollywood movies that we fail to recognise some of the critical shortcomings in romance/love. However, I present here some indicators that shed light on shortcomings that are too stark to ignore and too critical to be brushed aside. Some may think that I am saying here is love is not good. That is not my intention. My intention is to bring to light the problems the system is facing in many countries and avoid those by knowing about them. While my majority of stats will show problems, some countries are still doing pretty well with system of love and present an opportunity to learn. Unfortunate thing about those doing good is that they do not know for sure why they are doing good and they are progressively sliding toward those who are doing bad. I encourage readers to be candid about this and facts based. It is not a war between systems. It is an attempt to explore problems and solutions. I am not proposing arranged as solution of all ills. I am saying arranged is not bad. In fact, with changing world, arranged may get wiped out completely from world systems of marraiges. And it may also face new problems due to a changed world and may need to understand and solve those in order to be a success. However, love and any system we choose should be improved according to what would be good both for the individual and the society with development and adoptation of improvements being an individual decisions. However, like business best practices are promoted by many business magazines/journals, the family best practices could be promoted by magazines.

What are the evidences that system of love is not all that perfect as shown in romantic movies? In most developed countries more than 50% of all love marriages fail. And more than 60% of second marriages also fail. Over that, in america, according to a govt survey, only 33% of kids have both a father and mother at home (even counting step father and step mother). All this is result, inspite of choosing your own partner yourself (while ignoring your parents and family participation in it)? Is it not? Then with such dismal records how can people come to tell me that it is indeed love which is a great system? Can a system be good if it’s results are so poor? Should we continue to believe what Hollywood and Bollywood packs and provides us for entertainment ? Or, like very rational people we are, we should challenge the assumptions.

On other hand, arranged marriage in India, have been a long tradition. Along with it, has been the tradition that divorce has been an unheard term. Also, that means majority of kids have both father and mother at home. This will definitely help in kid’s development in growing stage. I know that times are changing and so to keep up with it, it is important for people to change. However, it does not mean that we leave what is good for what has a dismal performance history. I feel we need to innovate to incorporate the good of arranged and good of love together. Not a random mix but a mix that gets the strength of both.

So, we have seen how the longevity and good family makeup have been two strongholds of arranged marriage. Moreover, it provides for a system where kids in their formative stage have relatives who can protect and guide them. So, it is good even in social terms in providing a good nurturing of kids and providing socially healthy next generation to society and a generation that can learn and work hard due to good guidance from their previous generation. So, in three key performance indicators of longevity of family, care for kids and providing a good next generation to society, arranged marriage outperforms love one. A marriage that is not even stable itself, how can it provide stability to kids or society?

Some of my friends say that arranged is hipocrasy. How can you marry someone you do not love ?

What is honesty then ? Marrying someone you love ? Then how come all over the world it fails with 70% probability ? I think why 30% succeed is that they realize that continuous perfection is not possible, there will be times when you will feel frusrated, angry or doubtful and yet people continue. Adjusting sometimes is not hipocrasy. It is being honest.

However, if you take out the concepts of perfection from love, it is not much different from arranged. Afterall in arranged you do not marry someone random.

“A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice—we win, or we perish!

They won. Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a BURNING DESIRE TO WIN, essential to success. “

Napoleon Hill calls this idea – Burning Bridges. And I call it committment. And I assert that while in some extreeme cases it is good to have retreat bridge but extreeme cases only occur 5% of times and we could be quiting too easily.

I think marriages are not same as romance and love as shown in movies is faulty since we are dealing with humans with human follies and differences of opinions will happen when we share common consequences of life with someone… Fiction can show people and relations as perfect. Real humans, relation and situations are unlikely to be as good. It could be improved with soft management training for all people of world. It becomes useful in those 10% of communications where we have negative aspects like disagreement. However it is management of these occasional differences of opinions and conflicts that becomes quite important to relations. Then also people would not become super communicators and managers. Most real humans will have insecurities, jealousy, communication problems and scientifically proven to be biologically there in every human being, the “fight or flight” (also see : this link on fight or flight ) response. Protagonists in love movies do not have these fallacies. Somehow, they are superhuman and super communicators. One can say romance time people do not have these fallacies also. That is because at that time both are wooing each other and validating each other. At that time they do not need to adjust or settle disagreements on major issues like one invariably have to after marraige. Hence, the fallacies of human beings are less apparent during courtship. However this perfection of courtship and movies leads to wrong expectation levels. So, most of people go into marraiges with wrong level of expectations. I think it would be good to keep expectations realistic, where movies and romances may not help.

I agree that my whole analysis is based on today’s scenarios and it is quite possible that love could be modified to incorporate the strengths of arranged by making it a mix between the two and the strengths of the two. However, that is beyond scope of what I am discussing here. Maybe another day I will analyse that too. Also, I am no expert. Some of my claims might be wrong. I am just making a case for reflection into the system. To pause and think. You see, in singapore the performance of love marraiges is exceptionally better than US and UK (only 30% failure rate compared to 75% failure in UK and 66% in US). But I do not know the reason. And unless we know the reason, we can’t learn.

These statistics gives us chance to re-evaluate what may be the ways to strengthen relationships. Moreover, as you will agree with comment of Veena (see the comments of this post by clicking here), past success of arranged marriages also do not ensure success for arranged marriage system in future. Things are changing and hence one needs to revaluate the reasons and ways to make one’s own relation succeed. One thing pointed by Veena and that I agree very much is to give your spouse a chance to know you better. Not to put the burden of expectations from romantic movies on your spouse.

I think it is in our interest to challenge our sense of invulnerability. To make efforts to avoid the pitfalls where people before us have fallen. It is upon us to make a working system that gives a better future for us and our society.

Shishir

References

I am providing these as cases of facts that point to a broken system in system of love. Do note that if love was as good as movies show it, this should not be the case (70% failing). Something must be wrong that inspite of the seeming rightness of choosing a wonderful person for yourself does not work as well as movies show. Obviously the present love marraiges in US and UK are doing something really wrong. However, note that they do not even realize what they are doing wrong, or that they are doing something wrong. And if that is the case, then it is case of skilled incompetence (as a famous management researcher, chirs argyris calls this kind of process), or a case where people are so used(skilled) to failing that they do not consider it failure at all even in face of evidences. Singapore is a puzzle. Inspite of being a country where marraiges are based on love, my manual calculation of success rate came out quite better than UK and US. It is these KPIs that I use to assert that though individual case to case might be different but system of love is a failure on the whole to find a good marriage, provide stable family for kids and giving a good next generation to society. Lets come with strategies, like businesses do to avoid failure and improve KPIs. Maybe even learn what arranged was doing right that it was so successful.

For US
Divorce Rate – 66% of first marriage fail http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf (thick PDF, look at page 26, fig 16)
Children having a mother and a father at home (considering even step mother and fathers) – 33% http://lifestyle.msn.com/FamilyandParenting/NontraditionalFamilies/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=25248>1=6961

For Singapore
Divorce Rate – 30% (calculated myself, so may be inaccurate) http://www.singstat.gov.sg/keystats/surveys/marriages.pdf

For UK
Divorce Rate(first marriage) – 70-80% (not enough patience to find more details of second and third and fourth attempts)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1502007.stm

For China
Divorce Rate – 20%
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/01/content_420456.htm

For OECD (Avg of 30 Countries In Americas, Europe, Australia and Asia, See countries here)
Avg Divorce Rate (per 100 marriages, including remarriages) : 41%
Avg Crude rate for first marraige: 56%
Avg Percentage of people disillusioned with marriages in these countries since 1970 (% reduction in marraiges) : 40%
(which means that if in 1970, 100 people used to go for marriage on an avg in these 30 countries, now a days, only 60 go for it. Rest 40 maybe go for cohabitation, live bachelor etc)
http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,2340,en_2825_497118_2671576_1_1_1_1,00.html
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/28/34542290.xls

India
Divorce Rate – 1.1%
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501040405/story.html

Skilled Incompetence
The article is available at harvard business online here

Group Think (Are we in a case of massively popular groupthink ?)
See the concept at
http://www.groupthinkfilm.com/
Buy highly acclaimed movie about it at http://www.crmlearning.com/groupthink-2nd-edition (or view in your nearest library)

Fight or Flight
http://www.stressstop.com/articles/article1.html
http://www.pertinent.com/articles/communication/kareCom8.asp

Interesting Article – Great Expectations
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20040301-000002.html

Q 1. Why are only roughly 44% of first marraiges succeeding in 30 countries in OECD inspite of wonderful guidance by movies ?
Q 2. Why are more and more people getting disillusioned with marriage (40% decrease since 1970 in 30 OECD countries) ?
Q 3. Why do those who succeed, succeed ? Why do you think those who fail, fail ? Specially for libertated countries like America, UK, Australia, Sweden etc why is the rate so high ? Does liberation mean that two people can’t stay together for life ?
Q 4. Why are birth rates falling in these countries to appaling levels ? Someone gave us gift of life, is it not our responsibility to pass the favour if possible ?
Q 5. Can one get disillusioned with partner after marriage ? Then how can love be perfect like movies show? Then are movies not just for entertainment and not realistic most of times ?
Q 6. Can one find a perfect match ?
Q 7. What do you think can be done to improve the KPIs ? Is it worth improving it ?
Q 8. Do people need to adjust in marraiges ?
Q 9. Is being individualistic same as being selfish in short term and buying all new ideas that movies show you as real and call yourself individual becuase you do different things which may or may not lead you to your aim ? Do you critically analyse thoughts given to you for making realisitic sense ?
Q 10. Is the whole question of being happy ? Then is it not better to have more realistic expecations from relationship ? Have you gone to a good movie with high expectations to find it worse than if you had gone with realistic ones ? We are same. It is much about setting the right level of expectations. Remaining single and kicking/rocking might be easy way out … but is it the right way ? Would you like the human race to finish so early?
Q 11. Sounds dismal ? Now do you think the arranged marraiges YOU have seen were really that bad ? They gave the couples partners to share life with for life, even if there were small troubles now and then which required some adjusting, was it as bad as what you see happening in world ?
Q 12. Do you think that 44% of first love marraiges that succeed (in 30 OECD countries) do not adjust to each other and become more mature with time ? So, is life all about thinking of the personal ego ? What is in it for me (in immediate sense) ?
Q 13. Are facts not pointing to Arranged being followed by love, that followed by live ins, followed by single and kicking, which will be followed by possibly extinction of human race ? Who said diansours died due to ice age? I think they became individualist. Individualistic people (which you are not) it seems can’t maintain relationships, be it with parents, family, friends… Coz society today teaches us to only prove that we do not need anyone to live happily. We will prove it. Won’t we ?
Q 14. If only we could love humans and not want to love the image of perfection from movies… maybe we would be better off… Would we ?
Q 15. If you will, can love be defined as that undying committment that will not waver whether rocks fall on it, fire try to burn it or god tries to come in between. Then that committment and trust is love. Rest what you see in movies is rubbish. Then in a arranged is love not possible ? Then in love is love not possible ? I say we need to accept humans as humans and improve our own communication skills. I say we need to keep family intact including parents of both husband and wife. Children also want more well wisher and parents also deserve a good treatment for having taken care of us when we ourselves could not. For when they sacrificed many things for us.

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