The one presentation that changed my future forever
You know you’re afraid of speaking in front of others, when you simply go “on stage”, you’re shaking like hell, and you suddenly start laughing. Laughing because you can’t be serious. Because you don’t even take yourself serious, neither do you respect yourself for who you are.
Laughing because you’re too idle to accept, that you’re badly nervous, could be better organised and you’re having a huge ego.
That, my friends, is a problem. A problem I know, for sure, having it faced in my own life, when I was a teenager in Grammar School.
My teacher advised me to speak about my dream job. That was the topic that everybody in our class had to prepare for this particular lesson. Ain’t too difficult, isn’t it?
When the final moment came: In an unbelievable time lapse, I went out in front of my classmates, who were used to view me as a shy, quiet outsider that didn’t talk a lot. With shaking knees, I gave them a few introducing words. My heart rate turned faster and faster. I lost unbelievable amounts of sweat. I mumblingly mentioned the topic to the people. After 5 sentences, I saw all the grinning faces, that laughed about me, because my way of presenting was so funny to them.
At the age of 13, I didn’t realize at first how much damage I did to my soul with this behaviour. The topic I chose was “Why I want to become a movie director”. This didn’t really change until today. I still want to be responsible for making and producing inspiring movies one day. But the way I presented it could rather be compared to a senseless TV commercial. I didn’t take rhetoric serious at that time. Actually, I didn’t even know what public speaking really meant and how it can positively effect your whole life, whether in career, job, relationships, family harmony, finances, etc. Nobody would have taught me to.
But let’s now take a quick look into the future: What’s changed today?
Thursday, 6:30 pm. My weekly rhetoric club begins in our host’s living room.
Twice a year, Monday and Wednesday, 7 pm: Six weeks of rhetoric at my buddy Phil’s rhetoric course “Sprechturbo” in Vienna, Austria, where I’m living at the moment.
All this practice is of invaluable worth to me. Not only the exercises and the speeches I held there helped me to become a better speaker.
So many of my earlier insecurities had disappeared throughout the journey, without me realising that at first. Suddenly, I had no fear of arguments any more. Suddenly, I was confident enough to simply talk about any given topic spontaneously, because I practiced this a lot.
So I can truly declare, that in comparison to those teenage days, I have become a good public speaker, with a unique style and way of presenting. Every time I gave a speech in the recent past, no matter about what and in which surrounding, I have almost not felt anxiety at all. I’m not saying I am never afraid of these situations, but at least I practiced enough to trick my mind to think that everything’s ok, and there’s nothing to feel fear of.
What happened?
Years went by. I was 20 and already out of school. For some reason, I had the opportunity to prepare a speech at a poetry slam event hosted by former school mates, who invited me. “What do I have to lose? That sounds like fun”, was my response. At that point of time I enjoyed listening to german rap music and lyrics so well, that, in combination with years of reading books, I had gained an enormous amount of vocabulary, allowing me to start writing some good rhymes and realising, this seemed after another talent of mine.
And so I commited to writing a huge poem. I had no sense for the length, and with almost 8 minutes of speaking, I was the longest and deepest presenter that evening. But it initiated a feeling inside of me, that this “presenting”-thing or “public speaking”-thing was something I could get really good at. No one laughed about me, just with me, as the jokes that I built inside the poem went down well in the audience.
So, if that’s the only thing you can take for yourself, then this article had it’s purpose. If you have the thought in your mind, that you actually want to become a good presenter and speaker on stage, then simply go out, seek oportunities to throw yourself into cold water and speak at a poetry slam event or any kind of event, that allows you to give your opinion about something to a live audience. Because this will make you enormously confident, after you finished it.
Which brings me to the next point…
Your audience should be huge. At least 60 people. Why, you ask? Because this diminishes the chance that someone shouts their opinion loudly during your talk, which could lead to discouragement for you. When it’s a bigger group of people, chances are low that a person will disrupt you, because they’re afraid themselves.
You’ll also find that you won’t “get hurt” if it’s not a perfect speech. How could it even be one, when it’s the first time you’re doing it? Do you remember the first time, you rode a bike? The first time you drove a car? Was it perfect? I don’t think so. — Lay down your perfectionism! It’s the same with me, writing this article: I know that it’s probably not at my top-level of structure, vocabulary, etc. And that a lot of people might say: “Hmm… I would’ve taken a completely different style of writing or words.” or “Who does he think he is, starting a blog ??! Haha, good luck, you little idiot!”
So, what’s the worst thing that could happen? — I can guarantee: You won’t get thrown tomatoes at, if your presentation is at least well organised and you are not dressed like a jerk.
So what are you waiting for? — Go outside, and put this into practice as fast as possible. Do not wait any longer, for that magic “public speaking”-fairy to flying into your comfortable room, lighting some magic glitter over you and declaring: “From this moment on, you will be the best speaker in the world with zero anxiety of talking in front of a crowd”. That simply won’t happen! Except in your dreams.
I believe that truly anybody can give excelent speeches and develop their public speaking skills up to a brilliant level. But we all faced certain moments in the past, mostly when we were in puberty, that we got laughed at for our presentations, in that very age, where even stumbling while playing football or wearing a sweater, that your mom bought for you — because she thought you’d look sweet in it *eye-roll* — was a common reason for every other little teenager to laugh about you. And these experiences burn so deep into our souls, that we get afraid as hell of speaking in public, because we want to avoid this pain at any price. If we are too idle to crush our fear, by practicing it a lot of times, we’ll always stay in that comfort zone. And this is by far the bigger tragedy than being
Where does my public speaking journey continue… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll join a debating club soon. Maybe I’ll start earning money, giving lessons on becoming a better communicator and speaker in a not too distant future. But one thing I know for sure: that if anyone asks me, what my dream job is…even if I had to declare it in public, like back then in school … I can look them in the eyes, take a deep breath, and start talking, on why becoming a movie director would be my dream job.
Thank you for reading.
