How I overcame my Fear of Public Speaking.
So yeah…I just wanted to say that I have managed to overcome a big part of my fear of public speaking. Not entirely yet, that will come with time and more presentations and speeches I give. But most of it is gone.
Let me put it this way: If my boss told me 2 or 3 years ago to give a presentation to my team, I would have shit myself before thinking: How am I going to get over the embarrassment, the cringe, when I mess up and stutter my way through the speech? Today, if I’m told to give a speech, I would still shit myself and get super-nervous, but for a different reason: How can I give a good presentation and entertain the audience? I want them to feel happy after my talk.
Notice the difference in attitude? The outside expression is still somewhat the same(shitting myself and getting nervous!), but the source of it has changed for the better. And I want to tell you about how I managed to undergo this change. Hopefully, it might inspire you on a similar journey(if you share the same fears), else you’d hopefully find my tale interesting.
To put it in simple terms: it was a scene from a Christopher Nolan movie; a quote from Jeff Bezos; Toastmasters; and watching fellow presenters mess up their speech, that helped me on this journey :)
1. Seeing others mess up their presentations boosted my confidence
April, 2017. Final semester of my Bachelor’s. We are supposed to give a presentation to our teachers, about a project we did. They will judge our work and award marks at the end. Some of our classmates would be in audience as well(judging as well, but thankfully not responsible for awarding marks).
This was a solo assignment, no group presentations. So I was on my own, so I got nervous as usual. A mild panic attack, thoughts of running away on the D-day and hoping they’ll just let me get away with it, etc. spring to my mind. But I had to attend, this was a compulsory assignment. So I worked on the PowerPoint presentation, and started rehearsing a few lines to say for each slide.
Cut to presentation day, I managed to give a good-enough talk to impress my teachers well enough. Somehow, I ended up being relaxed and calm during the talk. But what made me calm and relaxed? It was the fact that several of my fellow classmates F’ed up their talks!
I was No.10 or 11 on the list, so I first had to watch others give their talks. And a lot of them messed up. Particularly, I remember one guy just stood there with his hands behind his back, and made his speech in such a monotonous tone that it looked as if he was mindlessly reading off a teleprompter(personally, this is my reference to How not to give a talk). When I saw my classmates give such talks, it just struck me like lightning: I just knew that I was not as bad as that. I knew I could easily do better than what I’m seeing others do. I knew my subject well enough to answer any questions posed by the teachers, I was just nervous that I would stammer or forget my exact words. But seeing others mess up their talk, and getting criticized by the teachers gave me the confidence I needed!
I know it sounds wrong to say that I fed off the failure of my fellow classmates, but that is the truth. It just struck me that there are others who aren’t that great at public presentations as well, and are going through the same struggle as you are. I realized that none of us had to give any presentations in college until this final semester, and hence our weak presentation skills were now getting exposed. It made me realize that this “fear of public speaking” is not as bad as it seems, especially since others too are going through the same fear and hence there is room to improve and do well.
So there you go…that was my first real “motivation” that I experienced that made me realize that I can actually do better than a lot of people out there when it comes to public speeches.
2. Jeff Bezos’s decision-making strategy of minimizing regrets.
These next two examples came from unexpected sources — Jeff Bezos and Christopher Nolan.
I was watching interviews of CEOs on YouTube, when I stumbled upon this gem from Jeff. It was about how he takes complex or difficult decisions: He asks himself “Many years later, when I’m 80 or 90 years old and look back on this moment, would I regret taking this decision?”
Say you’d regret option X, then it means you should probably take option Y, and vice-versa. When Googling to find a reference to this quote, I stumbled upon this article from Aly Juma which explains this concept well, do give it a read.
I simply applied this logic to myself when I saw that video. Imagine being 80 years old, retired, and sitting on your porch reminiscing your life. Now imagine that 80-year old version of you still suffers the same old fears of public speaking! It sucks to know that the “future you” still has the same fears and problems, because it indicates a lack of progress. I immediately realized that that is not how I wanted my future self to be like. And if my future version should not have the same public speaking fears, I must start to work on it now.
And this is what inspired me to join Toastmasters, which helped me overcome this fear a great deal. But the initial inspiration came from Jeff himself. If not for him, a major catalyst that pushed me ahead on this journey would not have happened, and I really don’t know if I’d make as much progress on this road as I have done.
Thank you, Jeff.
3. The Prison Escape sequence from Dark Knight Rises!
If you haven’t watched the movie, the context for this scene is simple(Spoiler alert): Bruce Wayne is thrown into a prison located at the bottom of a well. The only way to escape is to climb the walls, including an improbable jump between two platforms in the middle of the climb. Bruce is up for it, and ties a rope around himself for safety, “just in case” he doesn’t make the jump. He doesn’t. He thinks he is not physically fit enough: So he starts working out in the prison, while confidently claiming to have no fear. But he still keeps falling short.
Finally, after several failed attempts, he admits to the prison elder that he is afraid, he is afraid of dying there while his city burns, and he isn’t there to save it. The elder then tells Bruce to “find his fear” by making the jump without the rope! And voila, Bruce makes the jump without having the safety of the rope. Had he failed this time, it would have been certain death.
I don’t know if Dark Knight Rises will be in my top 10 favorite movie lists, but I can say that this scene has possibly changed my life.
We all should learn from this single scene: Identify, and face your fears. Bruce was hiding his fears and claiming to have none. When he went at the jump without the safety of his rope, he had to face his fears and look at in the eyes. When he did that, he was able to make the jump because now he had no choice — it was either make the jump, or fall to death.
Putting myself in Bruce’s shoes: I am afraid of public speaking. I am afraid I will mess up my talk, stutter, embarrass myself, and see the audience laugh at me, completely humiliating myself.
But I cannot overcome it unless I first recognize and accept this weakness of mine, until I accept this fear. Only by acknowledging the above fear, accepting that it lurks within me can I then begin to overcome it. How can you fight something you don’t know or recognize?
Only after acknowledging it, can I begin to understand the source of my fears: Why am I afraid of giving even a small speech in front of my class or team? What’s the worst that could happen? Am I really that bad in presenting?
This scene has done wonders for me, I can tell you that. Here’s an article I found online that talks more about this scene, and it’s meaning. Do give it a read to understand more about it
4. Toastmasters.
The Jeff Bezos and Prison Escape experiences I mentioned above motivated me to join Toastmasters. Those motivations wouldn’t mean anything if my experience at Toastmasters hadn’t helped me to actually “overcome my fears”. Points 2 and 3 above were just the catalysts, the inspiration moments. They were like me finding out I am The One. I was yet to wake up and stop the bullets(that’s a reference to The Matrix) to show the world that I am.
At Toastmasters, I gave 5–6 impromptu speeches, and ended up winning the “Best Impromptu Speaker” award on 3 occasions! The impromptu topics were something like “Your Favorite Quote”, “Your favorite travel destination”, etc. What surprised me during these speeches, was that I ended up getting into a natural flow while delivering them. Until then, I imagined myself stammering my way through the speech and struggling to find the words to say. But that wasn’t the case. These speeches, albeit being only 2–3 minutes long each, made me realize the amount of “content” I had within me, courtesy all the books I read, the movies I’ve seen, etc. I realized I had so much to share with others, either via writing articles(like this one), or giving speeches at venues like Toastmasters.
The fact that I was able to deliver those speeches without much hiccups and stutters, in front of an audience consisting of strangers, made me realize that I did not have any “natural weakness” when it comes to public speaking. It was all artificial fear created by my mind, and as long as I knew the content of what I wanted to say, I would be able to deliver a good speech. As of writing this article I can remember just one speech at work where I messed up, although that was before I experienced points 2, 3 and 4 here. Apart from that, every other speech I gave were good speeches where I had managed to not embarrass myself.
I eventually had to leave the club after a few months, as I realized I would not be able to dedicate the required amount of time & effort towards giving the mandatory Prepared Speeches. I would have loved to continue at Toastmasters. Apart from improving your public speaking, it is a platform to showcase yourself, share your knowledge, experiences, and wisdom with others, and to just “be yourself”.
Through my short stint with Toastmasters, I managed to get the confidence I needed to gain self-confidence.
So there you go. Those were four personal experiences(2 inspirations + 2 actual speeches) that helped me get rid of my fear of public speaking.
I’m not perfect yet. There is still some fear lingering around, and there is a voice in my head that tells me to “run away” at the opportunity to give a speech. I have to suppress that thought every time it hits me. But with time and experience, my brain will slowly grow to the realization that I’m actually good enough at giving speeches and there is nothing to be afraid about :)
Hopefully, this would inspire you to go on this journey yourself. Hopefully, you’d be able to relate to my experiences, and how one can find inspiration from any source even when they were just looking to watch a nice Christopher Nolan movie, or a CEO’s interview, or simply sitting through a classmate’s presentation and getting inspired by their failure!
To the Reader: I started writing on Medium, as a means to open up myself to the world, and give me an outlet to express some of my thoughts, opinions, and experiences. The thoughts expressed in my articles are a purely personal opinion, formed based on my observances of the world around me. I would like you to share any feedback you have with regards to my writing — critical, positive, suggestions for improvements, etc., because I want to become better at it. I am currently pursuing this part-time, writing non-membership(meaning free to read) articles and would like to explore the option of doing this more frequently. Thank you for taking the time out to read this article :)
