Paresh Motiwala is the founder of New Gurukul,  an Institute for teaching Soft Skills.He teaches public speaking to children and adults, both local and international (over web). He also trains children for group discussions, debates and event planning. New Gurukul offers interviewing skills for women who have not worked in mainstream American corporations.

He is very active in the Indian American community. He has served as the President of Indian American Association of Sharon in  2013. He has served in several capacities at the Sharon school system. He was actively involved with Shishubharati Schools, serving as principal 2005-2010, director 1999-2010 and teacher 1999-2005 (www.shishubharati.net).
 
In his professional life is works as as a Senior Database Administrator/Project Manager with Bingham and McCutchen, a Fortune 100 company.(www.bingham.com).

What motivated you to start to teach public speaking?
As Principal of Shishubharati Norwood branch and teacher in Lexington branch I realized that our children know so much. But they find it extremely difficult to stand up and talk. So as an experimental batch, I taught my daughter's class mates at home in 2007, their success was a great motivator for me.

How did the course evolve?
I graduated through Toast Masters International as a "competent communicator" but I never really enjoy their format. It was too dragged out and there was really no coaching.

So the first full batch I started was in 2010 with local children. (Sharon/Walpole/Mansfield). From that course onwards, I kept tweaking the course to give personal attention and prompt feed back, including video recordings of speech for later analysis. I have now taught 35+ students.Then, last year I then attended a $500 course by Dale Carnegie. It was a 2 hour online course. Seriously? $500 for a 2 hour talk about how to speak?  But they did give a couple of good points.
 
The children work with each other as much as they work with me. I always believe that a true teaching happens when the teacher speaks less than 10% of the time. That is what  I did in Shishubharati too. Getting children to get up and talk about the subject matter at hand.

Further the participants themselves give each other the impromptu topics and eagerly await/count/and comment on mistakes of their colleagues.  It is so exciting that children don't even want to go home after the class. I teach thme, in every class of every batch as to how to reach and poll the audience.

As you witnessed during the graduation all students were speaking fluently, fearlessly and used their body language, voice modulation and humor.

I spend one whole session teaching them the perils of using prompts/printouts and powerpoint. Children who come crying on the first day, not wanting to get off the traditional pallu of their moms, are thoroughly enjoying at the end of the course.

As Aarohi Shah of Waltham said, "Don't know where the last 16 weeks went by..."

I then took the course to the skies or should I say Skype? What I call as "Distance education in soft skills" I now teach the same course over Skype and Google hangouts. in 2012, 24 or the 30 participants for Miss India pageant in New England were my students. In 2013 6 of the 10 finalists were my students. I have students over USA, Sweden, Jordan, India and Japan.


As of a month ago, for the first time I have now started taking the class on the road. I have two batches on Saturday mornings in Burlington and Westford.

What are the top five mistakes that people make what the speak in public?
The top five mistakes I observed are as follows:

a. Lack of preparation and their over confidence in their ability to wing it.

b. Too much emphasis on content than delivery.

c. Inability to repeat questions/comments made by audience and ending up in 1 X 1 conversation.

d. Total lack of humor, story telling and use of body language. Remember, "After presentation, 63% of your audience remembers your stories and only 5% remember your statistics"

e. Inability to involve audience.

Can you share a couple of success stories?
One of my students Nithin Lankipalle of Mansfield addressed an assembly of 700+ in Mansfield schools after my graduation and got some prize from his Principal.

Monica Gill who learned her intro speech delivery in 2012 and 2013, eventually went on to win the Miss India MA/RI/NH title in 2013.

Aarohi Shah has just been selected to Emcee at the HHD during the memorial day weekend. Other children who were shy in the class now eagerly get up to speak and present topics.
 
What is the age of your youngest student?
The youngest student has been 8 years old. The oldest one 50+.

You come from a very interesting family. Would you share some of your family history with us?
Thank you for asking about my family. On my father's side and mother's side are all families of freedom fighters who have all been jailed/beaten by British pre-1947.

Originally when my ancestors moved from Cambay to Bombay, we were called Zhaveris. Later on we gave up the rest of the jewellery business and concentrated on Pearls only hence the names Motiwala.

Then in 1942, Gandhiji came to our home in Walkeshwar, most expensive real estate in India then. My grandfather gave up all his real estate worth millions of rupees then for the cause of supporting the Independence movement. He never once looked back and moved into a rental property. My grandmother was really upset and she and some of my uncles still hate Gandhiji. How selfless was this? Well I needed my granny to sign "descendant of freedom fighter" document for my admission to a medical college: she refused. She said "your grandfather did not make the sacrifice for any personal gains".

My mother was beaten up for just walking close to the "August Kranti Maidan" from her school to her way home and broke her arm. She was 10 at the time.

My grandfather, Bhavanidas Motiwala was amongst the 5 team members who founded the famous "Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan". His statue, I believe still adorns the hallways there in Mumbai. He was also responsible for establishment of "Hindu Stree Mandal" in early 1900s. My granny was the first General secretary of this unique organization, way ahead of its time. It promoted resettlement of widows, education in women and empowered them by getting them employment in a predominantly male dominated and superstitious society.

As to my current family, Bhavana Motiwala and I are married now for 27 years. She is a great host and culinary delight and supports me in all of my endeavors whole heartedly. My daughter Henal just graduated Summa cum Laude from UMass-Amherst and is headed to Quinipiac Medical School in fall. Punit my son, is a Track star, a second degree black belt and a sophomore in Sharon High.

Thank you for your time and thank you impacting the community in such a positive manner.
Thank you.

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