Jayanti arrived in Brisbane in 2017 to start her PhD, and her very first day in the research lab involved watching a fellow student struggle through a presentation in front of a room full of people asking tough questions. She thought: what have I signed up for?
In this episode, Jayanti talks about the journey from that intimidating first day to delivering a TEDx talk in front of 200 people, in her Indian accent, on her own terms. She shares what it took to get there, including years of Toastmasters, deliberate exposure to different audiences, and a shift in how she thought about vulnerability and failure.
She also gets into some of the cultural gaps that hit migrants in Australia harder than expected: the dry sarcastic humour you can't always tell is a joke, the discovery that Aussies have hobbies and actually talk about them, the word "arvo" almost ruining a social plan, and why saying "please" is not as universal as you'd assume.
And she tells a story about a date that knocked her confidence right before her biggest speaking moment, and how she decided to show up to that TEDx stage as fully, visibly Indian as she could.
Topics Covered
• Arriving in Australia as a PhD student and the culture shock of the first research group meeting
• How Australia's multicultural environment means learning not just Australian communication, but many cultures at once
• What Toastmasters actually does for confidence and why the incremental exposure matters
• Speaking to different types of audiences to build real communication range
• Why sharing your failures in Australia is often a strength, not a weakness
• The difference between Indian and Australian communication culture: politeness, humour, and identity
• The word "arvo," the magic word, and the word "candy" (Amanda's husband was not impressed)
• Why hobbies matter socially in Australia and how to build them into the life you already have
• How a comment about her accent almost derailed her TEDx week, and why it didn't
• What she would tell her younger migrant self about accent, identity, and self-esteem
Guest LinksLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayanti-mendhi/
TEDxtalk: https://cms.qut.edu.au/tedxqut/speakers/speakers-pages/2022/jayanti-mendhi
Resources Mentioned
• Toastmasters — toastmasters.org
• Three-minute thesis competitions — check with your university
• QUT Open Day — mentioned as an example of non-conference audience building
