This article was written by myself and was published in the newsletter of Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club issue number 1. I republished this article here and welcome your feedback. I appreciate if you could give some valueable feedback or comments or any suggestions that related to this article so that everyone will have benefit of getting more ideas on public speaking. Thank you.
Public speaking has always been a challenge for me. I still remember… at the tender age of 10, I took part in my primary school’s speech contest. As I stood in front of my teachers and fellow students in the school hall, I experienced my first stage fright… I felt extremely nervous, my palms were sweaty and my hands shook like in an earthquake. I wish the stage would swallow me up.
Ironically, despite my fearful childhood experience, I became a trainer. I am also sometimes engaged to be master of ceremony, speaker introducer and facilitator. I have to confess… in spite of my profession and the advantage of speaking in front of people, whenever I am in front of an audience, I still shake, get butterflies in my stomach, heart pumps faster and sometimes my mind goes blank.
Luckily, over the years, with practice, I look confident and comfortable enough training in front of any new audience. I count my lucky stars when I joined Toastmasters because I finally learned proven methods to conquer my fears. I started my Toastmasters journey with the first project speech, “The Ice Breaker”. Then, during evaluation, my speech evaluator gave me valuable feedback and ideas on how to improve and that is when I knew, my Toastmasters training would help me become an even better trainer. We can overcome our fears with action.
Life is an adventure… every one of us will definitely have moments where we need to speak in public. When you want to do something, there will always have a risk. After all, if you never take risks, you will never experience change and growth. In fact, everything in life involves some form of risk. When you learn to ride a bicycle, drive a car or swim, you could fall, crash or drown. Though you should not take every risk, you should take the risk that will reward you in some way.
Carolyn Kerner Stein, author of the book “Delivering Powerful Speeches”, recommends the following 3 questions to help you check if the risk you wish to take is worth taking:
1. Will I regret not trying?
2. Win or lose, succeed or fail, will I be proud of myself for trying?
3. What is the worst thing that can happen if I try?
For example, for me to take the risk to take part in our club’s International Speech contest, I did check:
Q: Will I regret not trying?
A: Yes, I will regret if I did not take part in the speech contest. I will miss the chance to perform and better my speaking skills. This way, I get a chance to compete with other talented members to improve further.
Q: Win or lose, succeed or fail, will I be proud of myself for trying?
A: Yes, I am proud of myself to take part in the contest. Win or lose, at least I tried my best to get rid of the fear to do it.
Q: What is the worst thing that can happen if I try?
A: I may still get nervous, hands will shake and make a fool of myself in front of the audience but at least I try and even if I did not win the contest, I will never give up. I will keep on contesting because one day, I will win.
Another confession… I do not enjoy taking risks, but I learned that things will happen and when we take action to deal with them, we still come out standing tall.
So, remember to ask yourself these 3 questions whenever you endeavor to take risks. You will never know, once you practice answering these 3 questions every time, you will have no fear to do the things that you have never done before. So, take the risk, break the ice and break the barriers. Instead of letting fear conquer you, conquer your fears.
As Roscoe Drummond says, “The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public”.
Thank you for reading. If you want to get a copy of Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club’s newsletter, click the link here: http://www.victorwan.com/248/money-mastery-kl-toastmasters-clubs-newsletter-issue-no-1/.
Victor Wan
www.VictorWan.com
