Tackling the Fear of Public Speaking

my name is max

and i am a teacher i know the teachers

in the audience are a bit confused right

now

max a teacher is he trying to mock us

right now

hear me out i really am a teacher and

these are my students

look at them they’re adorable i lead an

organization called united speakers

a program that empowers youth through

public speaking

we currently have over 80 enrolled

students across four cities in canada

and over 200 youth have been directly

impacted by our organization

so how did we get here let’s take it

back to grade four

a time where young max had many fears

i hated the dark i was scared of her

household vacuum

and since i was a bigger kid the scale

was my enemy

however there was one thing that i was

especially scared of

public speaking i remember my first

class presentation

i avoided eye contact with my teacher

please don’t call me i thought to myself

my palms are completely soaked it was

dead silence

shake shake shake shake shake shake the

teacher pulls out a small wrinkled sort

of piece of paper

max you’re up my stomach sank

i took a deep breath and i grabbed my

cardboard sundial and i walked right

up i stood at the front of the room in

my costco reeboks and an

oversized polo i remember a wrinkled

balloon

stuck on the ceiling of that classroom

the smell of the crayons

the brown the three prong folders

my name is max and my product is the

sundial

the kids were whispering making fun of

my stutter or at least i thought they

were

it was grade 4 history class we were

supposed to research a medieval product

and present it as if we were in a 15th

century market

funny thing i actually found my usb

stick where i saved my powerpoint so i

could project on the school smart board

my slogan for the project was let’s tell

time with the shine

that same history teacher said in a

parent-teacher interview

i recommend that max should go see a

speech therapist

his communication skills are behind and

his stuttering is preventing him from

achieving success in this class

the world wants silence just a few

seconds ago i was smiling with my

parents at a miniature desk as the

teacher applauds my phenomenal

creativity

now all i can think about is the chatter

of the kids in that classroom

and the wrinkled balloon stuck on the

ceiling

i zoned out to my sweaty hands my shaky

legs

my stuttering as time went on i slowly

grew out of my fears

i went trick-or-treating by myself at

night i realized that the vacuum only

sucked up dust

and it eventually got taller and slimmer

i also started to have weekly meetings

with a speech therapist

slide middle

smooth week by week my stuttering got

better

however i still hated public speaking in

the summer before grade 8 my parents

insisted that i try a leadership program

i had to give an icebreaker speech in my

second meeting

i decided that i am not going to

embarrass myself again so i practiced

i practiced everywhere in front of the

mirror the backyard

even in the shower but i was still

terrified to give a speech in front of a

bunch of strangers

the day eventually came my heart was

pounding

my hands were shaking my nose was

sweating

but when it was my turn to speak words

slid out of my mouth

i thought to myself hey this isn’t that

bad and since then i’ve looked at public

speaking with a different eye

today i’m here to answer the question

why is public speaking so scary

clearly my grade 4 self would have

agreed

that giving a class presentation is

indeed petrifying

even as i give this talk my heart rate

is at 104 beats per minute

as much as 77 of the population have

some form of presentation related

anxiety

it is so common that it even has its own

name glossophobia

after many hours of teaching others how

to overcome this common fear

i’ve discovered that there are two main

causes of presentation anxiety

one we hate failure no one wants to make

a mistake

and many are overwhelmed by the idea of

not succeeding

we feel immense pressure to perform well

when there is an audience

especially when there is someone

important watching like a teacher

boss or mentor we can’t imagine

the horrid consequences of messing up

what many don’t realize is that we all

have different definitions of failure

simply because we have different

benchmarks values and belief systems

a failure to one person may just be a

great learning experience for another

martinemco a doctor who specializes in

educational psychology mentioned

in my experience with clients and myself

failure is often not as villainous as

claimed

a person can easily survive failure and

learn from it yet in many cases we are

scared of taking that first step

two our internal critic with the show of

hands

who here has had a moment where they

doubted themselves when a little voice

pops in the back of their head and says

i don’t think you’re capable of doing

this are you sure you aren’t making a

mistake

your friends in the audience are

laughing at you

i call this little critic minnie

max mini are you catching on

minnie hates a large crowd and he also

is a huge

pessimist minnie wants you to be perfect

but he knows it’s not achievable

minnie is evil a villain his words can

easily you on stage

leaving you frozen stuttering or shaky

so how do you deal with your internal

critic your mini

what can you do to become fearless on

stage

well firstly you need to accept your

current relationship with public

speaking

know what you’re feeling is okay and

even though you may still feel

uncomfortable on stage

that is completely normal if you

approach public speaking with an open

mind you will be able to improve

the next step is to practice no one

is born a great public speaker all of

those great speakers

have to start from somewhere if you put

in hard work and constant repetition you

will see results

try practicing in front of a mirror it’s

going to be awkward

embrace it make these uncomfortable

situations comfortable

lastly you need to relax a group of

northwestern researchers investigated a

couple of public speaking anxiety

interventions

and discovered that just by taking a few

deep breaths you were actively managing

onstage stress

just by reminding yourself to breathe

you can decrease your heart rate

and reduce negative thoughts as

amy cuddy emphasizes in a ted talk on

posture

just take two minutes before your next

evaluative situation and put yourself in

a power pose

put your hands on your hips get your

back straight and look up

because we are superheroes we can use

our brains to control our mouths and

communicate our unique ideas to inspire

others

we have the power to control our

internal critic

we are capable of standing in front of a

classroom

to passionately talk about the history

project

we are all different unfinished

sufficient i wish grade 4 max knew just

how important it was to keep his head

high

because mastering public speaking is

much like a balloon

one pinprick sweaty hand shaky legs

one poke in the right spot and pop down

that goes

back to the pump again back to the

overthinking the teeth grading the

self-hating

but what grade 4 max didn’t understand

yet is that the first breath

is the hardest the next speech you will

have to give is going to sting

from there on out it’s more about

sustained effort

it’s about practicing and once you get

ready to show your balloon off

stand in front of the classroom with

confidence

thank you

you