Picture this. It's the year 2009 Tuesday morning. Snow is everywhere. I'm attending community college at CCP (Community College of Philadelphia). I'm in a classroom setting filled with people who are dying to see me present my speech in the Public Speaking course. Everyone in the classroom knew that I was an Acting major and they expected an Oscar award winning performance. I looked to my left and to my right at my peers. I could see the anxiousness in their eyes as they were eager to see what I was going to do. Everyone begins to clap as Taneisha finishes her speech on women rights as it relates to education. "Educated women are essential to ending gender bias, starting by reducing the poverty that makes discrimination even worse in the developing world." "Very good speech," stated Professor Conway. "Arik your next." I marched up to the front of the class with my raggedy note cards. The notes were kind of damp because of the moisture in the air. I was so embarrassed. I didn't know why I existed. Before I said anything I heard slight chuckles which made me slightly nervous. I started off really good. I said "Today I'm going to talk about the harmful effects of heroine, I'm going to give a brief description of heroine, what it does to the body, and then I'm going to share a tragic story about someone who was addicted to heroine." I was doing good. I started thinking about how loud the class was going to clap and what Professor Conway was going to say "Well done Arik, very nice speech." I began to praise myself a little to soon and suddenly my mind just went blank. I also dropped one of my note cards on the floor which threw me off even more. The class looked at me ready to hear the speech and I couldn't say a word. I stuttered a few times throwing out random facts about heroine and because the class was about to burst into laughter, I ended the speech saying one thing I remembered from my research. I said "drugs are bad." I walked back to my seat with haste, flopped down and looked forward away from everyone's faces. They burst into laughter. What was wrong with me. I did all the research. I mean yeah it was 3 days before the speech but I knew everything I was going to say. I felt like a loser. I would've picked on me. After a while I started to laugh along with the class because I realized It was just a classic case of public speaking anxiety.
Most of us believe parts of life are inherently stressful. In fact, most of us have been taught to believe that life as a whole is very stressful! To deal with any type of stress effectively, you first must understand that life itself, including public speaking, is NOT inherently stressful. Thousands of human beings have learned to speak in front of groups with little or no stress at all. Many of these people were initially terrified to speak in public. Their knees would shake, their voices would tremble, their thoughts would become jumbled . . . you know the rest. Yet they learned to eliminate their fear of public speaking completely. You are no more or less human than they are. If they can conquer the fear of public speaking, so can you! It just takes the right guiding principles, the right understanding, and the right plan of action to make this goal a reality.
I'm starting to understand what hinders me from being a good public speaker, but I'm still not a master at public speaking though. It's still a skill that I'm working on. When I look back at that experience, It makes me utilize the 24 hours I have in a day. This breaks down into 1440 minutes. Each person gets the same amount. I can't save them like vacation days. When they are over, the time is gone. Whether I spent my time wisely or foolishly, it doesn't matter, I can't get it back. So, if I can't manage "time", what can I manage? I believe public speaking anxiety can be cured.
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