Public Speaking: How I Started with An Audience of 600
“If there are no further questions… thank you very much!”
*Audience clapping*
Several people from the audience approached me after my speech to ask a few questions and thank me before leaving. Their last words were: “It was very useful! Thanks a lot!”
That still feels so good 72 hours later. Public speaking is really fun when I’m on fire like that. That audience laughed with me, they frowned with me, they got curious with me, they answered my questions and asked many questions… the satisfaction I get from a well-received speech like that lasts for days.
Just to clarify though, there were nowhere near to 600 people attending my speech that day. It was closer to 30. The audience-of-600 speech–the one that transformed me into somebody who could actually enjoy speaking in public–had happened roughly about a year ago.
The many, many false starts
Before that 600-people speech, I had always been very much aware that I had had a problem speaking in public. I mean, it was kinda difficult not to notice when your palms felt like vibrating wet ice slabs, your armpits were dripping Niagara Falls, your lips were doing tectonic shifts, your voice was… okay, I kinda run out of metaphors here. Let’s just say my voice was shaky and weak, like somebody was choking me the whole time. None of the usual strong, melodious, testosterone-dripping voice that I have when I’m alone (I might be a little biased on this one).
The thing about nervousness and fear is that they are not something that can be analyzed and rationalized away. Hey, I tried. I tried NLP, I tried Hypnosis, I tried telling myself that the fear’s not rational, that nobody actually cares whether I suck or not, just calm down, and so on, and so on. None of that worked.
I even tried joining the Toastmasters in 2001. I did register myself as a member at the end of the session, but that’s it. I never went there again despite the good people there trying to call me up and persuade me to attend again.
It was just that terrifying. Ice Breaker Speech?! No way man. No way I’m gonna let all those strangers see me shaking and sweating and choking my own voice like that!
It took me twelve years (yes, 12 long years) to finally start enjoying speaking in public again. Well, twelve years, and 600 people, to be exact. Or probably it wasn’t the 12 years, but the 600 people. Anyway.
The audience of 600
“You have to deliver a speech in July to a large audience,” said my Dad.
“Er, eh, what? How large, exactly?” *start sweating*
“Around 600, probably 700.”
“Huh! Er, are you sure?” *palms getting icy*
…
To cut a long story short, yes, he was sure. That was not a pleasant prospect for me. But I had to take some drastic action not to make my Dad lose face, and even gain face if possible. Face, you see, is very important for us Asians.
But at this point I’d kinda run out of options. If hypnosis, both self and expert-inflicted, doesn’t work, visualization doesn’t work, NLP doesn’t work, rationalization doesn’t work… what else can work?
I had no other choice
Well, I decided to give the Toastmasters another try. But this time, after hemming and hawing for a few weeks, finally, I really did the Ice Breaker. I had no choice! Given the prospect of embarrassing myself in front of less than 20 people and embarrassing my Dad and myself in front of 600… it was a no-brainer.
Fortunately, it turned out to be a very small meeting. There were only 5 present then, including myself. My ice breaker only took slightly more than 2 minutes, although it felt more like 20 minutes to me. Ten seconds into my speech, I started trembling and my heart started beating really, really fast.
Man. I can still even remember the exact shirt I was wearing that day.
One thing that really sticks to my mind until today was how supportive the Club President was. He maintained eye contact throughout my speech. He smiled when my nervousness was peaking and I was able to relax because of that. He laughed the hardest when I attempted a joke. It’s something I probably will never forget, ever.
That night when I was going to sleep, I remember saying to myself: “Wow, man. You can do this. Wow.”
The rest, as they say, is my story
My Dad considered my audience-of-600 speech a success. No, I didn’t move them the way truly great orators do. Nobody broke down and cried, although they did laugh once or twice at my jokes–probably thanks to a few loud friends that were in the audience. I was quite nervous too back then, but my voice was steady. I did look normal on video. That night, I truly had come a long way.
I stayed with that Toastmasters club until late 2007, when I had to move to another part of the country. I still keep in touch with the President, and to this day I’m still thankful for his support during my Ice Breaker.
Today, I know that as long as I come prepared, I will deliver a decent speech. I’ve come to accept the nervousness that sometimes precedes a speech, if they come. I have done enough speech to know that I will do OK despite the initial nervousness. But then again, they rarely show up these days. Because I know that I can do this.
Lessons I learned
Looking back, there were a few things that helped me to grow to what I am today. Not all these things happened by design, some of them were coincidental. That was my luck, because I didn’t know any better back then. But with my 20/20 hindsight, I see what those things are, and I’m gonna share them with you now to end this post:
- Practice is everything. Nothing can substitute real practice. You can do all the hypnosis in the world, all the intellectual discussion in the world, all the NLP, EFT, Silva, and whatever mind techniques in the world, but the best way to get better at something is by doing it, evaluate, and improve. I never really improved until I actually started doing public speaking.
- Practice without pressure. In his excellent book “Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life
“, Dr. Maxwell Maltz emphasizes the importance of practicing in no-pressure situations. Pressure retards learning. I didn’t realize this until much later, but the fact that I was starting “small”, with a small Toastmasters club and very supportive and friendly members, I was practising without pressure. As little pressure as possible and as much encouraging feedback as possible in the beginning are essential.
- Always come prepared. In the beginning, forget impromptu speech, unless you have to. If you know in advance that you need to deliver a speech, deliver the entire speech at least once before you do it in front of an audience. I always do that, while visualizing the audience in front of me. That way, I don’t get nervous because I know I’m coming in prepared, and my speech will have a logical structure and conclusion.
- Accept that you may get nervous or jittery. That is fine. Trying to fight nervousness, acting as if I wasn’t nervous, and all those mental tricks never really worked for me. The more I tried to not becoming nervous, the more nervous I became. Instead just accept that you will become nervous. Success breeds confidence. As you’ve seen yourself delivering speech after speech with no problems, your will become less and less nervous.
- Keep improving yourself. I’ve always been a voracious reader–I’ve read many books about public speaking and try to put them into practice, and that would be my recommendation to you as well. It’s hard to recommend one because there are so many good ones, but if I have to pick just one, it would be this: Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story
, by Jerry Weissman. It’s a superb book that has brought my public speaking and presentation skills to another new level. Highly recommended!
- And finally: don’t believe yourself when you tell yourself you can’t do something. I surprised myself many times when people say good things to me about my speech. Especially when they tell me about something I never knew I was good at! Just focus on constant improvement, and see how far you will go. My guess is, it’ll be pretty dang far!
I submitted this post to the Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog Carnival. Please do check it out, as well as the earlier editions–there are many really useful and informative entries!
September 15th, 2008 at 2:42 am
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