You have to watch Paresh Rughani in action to appreciate his skill at motivational speaking.
Paresh is a chartered accountant turned corporate trainer in management and soft skills courses. He now works on personal development and professional education.
He uses no notes. With big wide eyes behind thick horn rimmed glasses and a ready smile, he makes each member of his audience feel special.
Paresh distills motivational philosophies from well known thinkers and conveys them to audiences with easy to remember acronyms made up of letters.
Leaping around the speaking area from side to side, up and down, he makes an engaging, energetic performer who leaves you thinking even while you laugh.
Paresh holds a BA in Accounting and Finance, is a qualified chartered global management accountant (CGMA), and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, Toastmasters International and Institute of Sales and Management Marketing respectively.
Turning Point
After the dramatic death of his four-day-old nephew on his birthday in 1990, a sudden turning point took place in Paresh’s life/career. He turned tragedy into opportunity, resolving to give his time to selfless service and charity work, without expectation of any reward.
Genesis of the public speaking
Paresh says he always used to lecture for accountants, and taught professional courses.
“I started in the industry. I worked for Siemens and another couple of organizations, but I always thought that was not my cup of tea. At university I did a BA Hons Accountancy and Finance for four years, with a one year placement, and even then I was fascinated by the human touch. So my dissertation was on motivation; that money is not the root of motivation, there’s other things in life which motivate you. I love playing with words.
When my four day old nephew passed away a lot of people said ‘Oh life’s a bitch! There’s nothing to look forward to.’ and I said ‘No no no, why can’t we work that into ‘life is a beach’? Think of it as a nice beach, think of it as a beach’ and then I began thinking positive. It became a metaphor for me, serving the community, changing lives one at a time, all the time.
The challenges of public service
Paresh says: “If you want to do public speaking and charity you sacrifice your own personal aims, hopes and ambition. Sometimes I’m thinking about the pressure on all of my friends who qualified at the same time as me, but that’s for them. I was keen to do this and sacrificed some of my goals, what I’ve studied, because I can do this.”
One of the things Paresh does is make his sessions very interactive. He also gets his audience members thinking hard as members of their company’s team. He gives them exercises geared towards making their firm more effective and successful, a useful game to play.
Here’s an example of his code exercises.
“I want to tell you about the five Ps.”
“What five Ps?”
“Answer; perfect planning prevents poor performance; plan your work and work your plan, plan to fail and fail to plan. I do this inside out. I’m revealing a hidden secret, even when I’m in the bathroom having a shower, believe me, I’m doing the conclusion: how to spice this conclusion up, how to interact with the audience, what’s something better I can do. So I practice this, you know?
I work with letters. Today I have everything done, it’s called A, B and C. So I say ‘A, I will talk about attitude and then I’ll do three things”.
Paresh puts hours and hours into his preparation. “Even if I do this many, many times, I would still wake up early and try to rehearse it, try to time it, try to see myself in the mirror, my body language.”
Some of Paresh’s clients are; Ernst and Young, Deloitte, KPMG, PWC, Accenture, Citibank, Bank of Mauritius, Hilton Hotels, Marriott Hotels, Starwood Hotels, Intercontinental hotel group, Jumeirah hotels, Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces, ITC welcome hotels, Adani group, the Indian administrative service, Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT), Pitman Group, University of Leicester, Westminster University, Edinburgh Business School, Swaminarayan independent school.
In 2007, Paresh personally raised more than £5,000 pounds for the British Heart Foundation during an annual 10k challenge. He has also raised money for other charities including: Kids UK, Age UK, Barnardos, Anthony Nolan Trust, Cancer Research, Oxfam, Diabetes UK, Rotary International and others.
