Critical Reflection on the Course (Blog 4)

At the beginning of my blog, I set out with two objectives to confidently speak and bring my ideas across without coming off as aggressive and overbearing  and to deliver a clear and concise presentation.

Firstly, my confidence to speak without being aggressive has been touched on successfully with the class on emotional intelligence.

With Daniel Goleman’s framework and his five components of emotional intelligence allowed me to achieve my first goal of attaining confidence and humility at the same time. The class on his framework was really interesting and thought provoking at the same time which was one of the main reasons why my group decided to work on his concepts during our project. His concept of emotional intelligence is an all encompassing framework that allows us to first work on ourselves before reaching out to others.

I’d like to put it out there that I might not have achieved all 100% of his objectives but I am pretty sure I have achieved at least 80% of what was taught. In the past, I tend to speak my mind without even considering the feelings of others. Now, with the framework in mind, I am able to ensure that I maintain a conscious level of self control and empathy so that I speak without being too offensive.

Secondly, in terms of my presentation skills, I had always wanted to deliver a clear and concise presentation. When it came to public speaking, I tend to be really nervous and may stutter or add filler words when speaking therefore causing myself to spend a lot of time.  However this was all fixed when it came to the project. During the presentation, I had a time limit of 5 minutes and this was not enough for me. When it came to my rehearsals, I felt that I had spent so much time speaking that I needed to cut my presentation down by at least half the time spent.

I needed to make a change.

Firstly, I started to present to myself in front of the mirror on a daily basis cutting down on my filler words and thereafter, I started presenting to my friends asking for opinion while training on my confidence. All these training allowed me to deliver a clearer and concise presentation on the day itself.

I now conclude that delivering a clearer and concise presentation is not about what we learn from class but rather it is all about practice and much more practice. I can now confidently say that I am able to present myself in front of a crowd anytime, as long as you give me a timeframe to work on my pitch. Next up, I want to work on spontaneous speaking or elevator pitches to allow me to better present myself in a job interview.

In conclusion, I believe what I have taken out from this module is not just simply grades but rather valuable life skills that I can take with me throughout my entire life. Therefore, I will end this post with how I started this blog, it is not all about content but rather, it is about stories. This module is not simply just about the content taught in class but rather the valuable life lessons and skills that we can take with us on our journey in life.

Thank you Dr Lee for your valuable time and lesson.

Best Regards,

Harold Lam