Public Speaking Fears
If you asked me what my greatest fear is, one of my answers would be public speaking. I have always been very personable and not had a problem speaking to people one on one, but when it comes to speaking in front of large groups I freeze. To face this fear I recently became a member of a group called, Toastmasters International.
Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational program made up of a community of clubs that helps members develop public speaking and leadership skills worldwide. My club consists of about 25 members and still growing!
As a member of Toastmasters you wear many different hats. Today I want to talk about the role of being a speaker since I recently earned my Ice Breaker Speech ribbon a few weeks ago. Speakers do exactly what you think they would do...give a speech.
Each speech presented has an objective that comes from a booklet with a series of projects. When you begin as a new member your first project is the Ice Breaker speech. The Ice Breaker is a speech about yourself. It is designed to help you become comfortable speaking in front of an audience and help you hone in on skills you already have as well as skills that need improvement. You also get this awesome ribbon and Toastmasters Certificate!! 🙆🏼😱
I want to share my Ice Breaker speech with you for anyone that is in Toastmasters or thinking of joining. I was extremely nervous before my speech, but I realized once I got started I felt much more comfortable talking by the end of it. I received a lot of positive feedback from the other members and some good constructive criticisms to help me improve in my next speech. So, here it is!
Who Am I ❓
Three simple words. Yet when combined together proved to be a seemingly difficult question for myself to answer.
Who am I?
My first thought was how am I going to answer this question, let alone give a speech on it. 🤔 I didn’t think I had anything interesting in my life to talk about and I haven’t experienced any major life changing events. But after I sat down with paper in front of me and pen in hand the ideas and stories of my memories started to come back to me. This provided me with a whole new challenge. How was I going to tell who I was in a short 4-6 minute speech. I decided to do it by telling you this story, with a series of stories.
The date was November 9, 1992. After 36 hours in labor and 11 days past due date a baby was born. 👶 When the baby was lying on the table she was not crying like most babies, but surprisingly she was lifting her head up looking all around the room. The nurse said to the parents “I have never seen a baby have strength to lift their head like that, she must be curious whats going on.” Well that baby was me.
Ever since I was little I was always an outgoing curious little kid. I always wanted to know what everyone was doing and how to do it. I wanted to do everything by myself and be independent. Like dressing myself in pre-k (of course always wanting to wear the same outfit)
When I was 3, my parents took me to the fair and they let me go in the booth where you could meet the world’s smallest lady. After half an hour my parents started to get worried so my dad had to pay to go in to see why I was still in there. He said that I had been talking to the lady the entire time. I can only imagine what I must have been asking her.
When I was younger my dad worked carpentry 👨🏻🔧 jobs to make extra money and my brother and I always went with him on the jobs. He always had us help him, giving us the job of picking up scrap carpet and throwing things out. I remember one house we went to the lady wouldn’t let me go in the room because she thought it was too dangerous and I was mad because I wanted to watch him work like I always did.
Growing up both of my parents worked full time, so during the day we were lucky enough to have our grandma watch us. At my grandma and grandpas house my great grandparents lived below them so we got to see both when my grandma watched us. 👴🏼 👵🏼 My great grandparents were always working on craft projects with me and showing me how to knit and make new things. I always loved crafting with them and being creative.
My love for crafts and building things comes from my dad and my great grandparents. When I was 12, I started a small purse 👜 making business. I got the idea from looking at a purse I saw at a craft show and studied how it was made and decided to try it out myself. I sewed together placemats to create purses and soon I started to sell them to friends and family.
When I was in HS I went to BOCES for cosmetology. My dad likes to say that if it wasn’t for him I would have not discovered my interest in cutting hair since I decided to cut my own bangs while he was watching me when I was 3. He didn’t even notice I cut my bangs until my mom came home and said what the heck happened to her hair! After high school I passed my written and practical and got my cosmetology license a month after turning 18.💇🏽
Recently, my most accomplished project is when I decided to try reupholstering for the first time. One night my mom called me and told me that she had found an old wingback chair 💺 in the garbage. I always wanted to try reupholstering so I decided to get the chair. On the side of the road in the dark and pouring rain I loaded the soaking wet chair in my brand new 3 day old car. The next day when the chair was dry I started taking the fabric off. 16 hours and what felt like a million staples later it was finally all off.
10 months went by and the chair sat in the garage untouched(I think I was nervous to attempt actually reupholstering it). I finally decided to picked some fabric out and it was delivered to my house a few weeks later.
8 more months went by and I still had not started it. It wasn't until my grandma told me I had to do something with the chair or she was going to throw it out that I decided I was actually going to do this.
I reached out to a local reupholstery business and he gave me a few pointers to get started. I had all the old fabric to use as a template and I started putting the chair together. I watched some youtube videos and figured it out through trial and error. After two weeks of working on the chair every single day it was finally done and I felt so accomplished.
What do all of these stories have in common? They are all a series of events in my life that make me who I am today. My curiosity for learning new skills and figuring out how to make different things will always be a common theme in my life. Although I have learned a lot so far, I know I have much more to learn, and I hope that I continue to grow and learn as many new things as I can. And that no matter how old I get my curiosity never fades.
Thank you Toastmasters for providing me with a wonderful opportunity to grow as a public speaker!🤗
I also share your same fear. It's an odd fear. It's not that I'm terrified of it but I become less of my normal self. I say things that I otherwise wouldn't say if it was 1 on 1. Things that may or may not make sense that I look back and ask myself "what the hell did I just say?" It's a very foreign feeling, and so I just call it fear, and it may be the root cause that just manifests itself in slurred speech, nervousness, speaking fast, and a persona that I don't recognize to be myself. Public speaking is so strange to me.
I was also looking into toastmasters but their meetings around me are sooooo early. I'm not an early bird. Let's see if I can find some evening meetings. Thanks for sharing!
Good luck!! Mine is at lunch time right in the building I work at so it works out perfectly!!
You should maybe pick one and just go as a guest to see how you like it. I have become more comfortable speaking out loud in front of people since joining!
I think the biggest thing with public speaking is that you aren’t getting any response back like you would in a one on one conversation. It’s just you talking. I think that’s the part that makes me nervous!
Well done! Most people fear public speaking.
Thank you!!
That is really well written. Congrats!
Thanks!!