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