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Writer's pictureThirteen

All Three Pens

In 12 years of schooling and 4 years of graduation, I went only once on the stage to perform. It was a big deal for a shy kid like me who never ever went in the living room to meet guests at his own house. That performance was to sing a song, that too in chorus. I was standing on stage with 15 other students, and visible only to my mother in the audience! Standing there, I was having sweat on my palms, heart jumping and dryness in my throat. Is it bad to be shy? I don't think so. I am still shy and I am fine with it. It took me some time to realise that one can be shy and still be fully self-expressive. The thing I wanted to deal with was my fear of speaking in public, especially standing on stage. Do you think other people who are not shy, or the ones who are extroverts can do this easily? At least studies don't say so. Extroverts are good at striking conversations, even with strangers. But public speaking on stage is not a conversation, it's a monologue. And there are quiet, watchful eyes staring at you. Then there is the fear of judgement which doesn't differentiate between introverts and extroverts.

...the trainer told about three awards of the program. One was 'Best Improvement Award' a green pen, second 'Best Achievement Award' a blue pen and third 'Best Speech Award' a red pen.

When I started working, I could see how important it is to acquire the art of public speaking. This running away under the label of 'I am a shy person' would not help. I started talking about this with my friends and also read a few books. Attempting to learn public speaking by reading books is no different than trying to learn swimming in a similar way. No book, no video, no podcast, no blog-post can help you with public speaking. The only way to learn swimming is to jump into the water pool, of course under the guidance of an able coach. I did the same, I joined a 12 weeks program on public speaking. On the very first day, the trainer asked me to speak in front of 40 other participants, and for a whole minute. I never knew that ONE minute was such a long duration. Standing up-front and speaking whatever I can speak about myself that one minute was simply not getting over. And my mind was full of thoughts like, "Am I speaking correct English?"; " Is everyone laughing at me?"; "Oh, I should have changed my shoes"; " What if I stop in the middle?"; " When will this minute get over?" There were non-stop internal dialogues. Of course the sweating of palms, the heart jumping and dryness in the throat were very much present. I somehow managed to complete my speech that day and went back to my seat. Before my turn, there were few others too who spoke but I was worried about my own turn and so didn't listen to any of the previous speeches. After me too, there were few participants left, but now my own analyses about my talk captured my mind. Thus, I didn't listen to their speech either. Maybe in that first session we all 40 participants did the same. The only thing I remember was that in the end, the trainer told about three awards of the program. One was 'Best Improvement Award' a green pen, second 'Best Achievement Award' a blue pen and third 'Best Speech Award' a red pen. Then Week after week we were given different topics to design a speech, practice it a hundred times, and come and deliver it in front of the class. The topics were happiest day in my life, most embarrassing moment etc. I took help from my friend to practice. My friend was kind enough to give me honest brutal feedback. Every time I delivered the speech, he would find mistakes and thus reject it. I worked on the story-line, the words, the delivery and most importantly on my body-language. I also did the mirror exercise as suggested by the trainer. Now I could clearly see how the narrative flows, where I should put more stress, how to play with my voice modulation, how to use my shoulders, my eyes, my facial expressions. Now I started looking for Wednesday evenings - which is when the classes were organised. Now I want people to see me, hear me, watch my performance. Yes, public speaking is a performance and you fear your best companion to give you that peak performance. Weeks passed by, I kept on getting into the water and swimming in the ocean of eloquence. A shy boy who was hiding in chorus songs in school functions could now speak alone, in front of thousands of people in an auditorium. By the way, I completed the 12 weeks public speaking program winning all 3 pens.


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