Transcriber: Miruna Mălâia Reviewer: David DeRuwe
According to Forbes magazine,
about 10% of people are absolutely terrified of public speaking,
80% of people have some reserves or fears regarding public speaking,
and the last 10% of the population is where I fall -
people who actually love public speaking.
This study and many others have led
to the pretty striking conclusion that public speaking
is one of, if not the biggest fear of today’s society.
That means that talking in front of people has beat out bugs, heights, death,
and, for some, even zombies,
but I got lucky, and public speaking
doesn’t even rank in the top 100 things that can scare me.
So it seems fitting that I should be the one to talk to you all about it.
Bringing up public speaking as a construct and a tool
I use in my day-to-day life,
I find myself with a couple questions about it:
Why isn’t it something we prioritize in school?
Why are people so afraid of it?
And how can we use public speaking as a mechanism
for promoting connection and communication in such a technological age?
Since I was a child,
I’ve always had a really hard time expressing my thoughts.
I was always the first one to raise my hand and interrupt the teacher
in order to get those thoughts heard.
I always found writing down thoughts difficult and limiting
compared to what I was able to communicate with the power of my words,
but growing up, that form of communication was never really an option for me.
Instead, I was taught how to analyze what I read and write that down,
not taught how to talk about it.
And even when we did have discussions,
I often found myself being the only one talking.
But ultimately, I liked it when people looked at me for what I had to say.
This is public speaking in its most basic form,
being able to talk to your coworkers, your peers,
your friends about your ideas,
and being excited about what you have to say.
Thinking of public speaking,
we often think of board meetings or lecture-style presentations,
but the basis of public speaking
is communication that is fundamentally a part of who we all are as humans.
Now, if we can all agree that communication is incredibly important,
it’s pretty easy to see how the public school system dims that ability.
Beginning from day one of kindergarten,
behaviors that we become accustomed to in previous years are stifled.
We stop being able to play for as much or for as long.
We are taught to think within the lines:
sit still, read quietly, and speak when given permission.
This continues elementary school,
where we continue to sit still and read quietly
and write a perfect summary about what we read, all done quietly.
Less students begin to raise their hand
for fear of being wrong or simply just because they do not wish to speak at all.
We become accustomed to silence. This continues on into middle school.
Harder books, harder writing,
but ultimately, more listening than speaking.
This will continue on into high school,
college, and ultimately, the rest of our lives.
The education system has become a standard of silence,
using reading and writing as its currency.
For years and years, this has been the situation,
a blanket system for children all across the world,
and the best way to enforce that system is through silence.
This is the beginning of an aversion to public speaking -
being taught to be quiet
right up until it’s time to present in front of your class.
But how are you going to give a good presentation
if you’ve never been taught how to before?
So uncomfortable presentations in front of the class
become discomfort in speaking at all,
and we become more and more quiet until we develop comfort in that silence
and a fear of the alternative.
It sounds pretty dark, doesn’t it?
Now of course, this isn’t what the school system’s trying to do;
it’s not that they don’t care
about the well-being or expression of the students,
but the reality is that as society has progressed,
education has remained relatively stagnant.
In the past, schools didn’t need to supplement communication
because outside of school is where it existed
in its most raw person-to-person form.
Now, face-to-face communication has taken a backseat to social media,
instant messaging, and just general technological distractions.
The integration of technology has phased out face-to-face communication,
and schools have yet to adapt.
So public speaking has become not only seemingly obsolete.
So public speaking has become not only seemingly obsolete,
but has developed into a legitimate fear that follows people from their education
into the rest of their lives.
And technology often exacerbates this fear by allowing people to avoid
the perceived consequences of public speaking altogether.
Instead of pushing through that fear, we have ways to get around it.
We use the tools that we have to soften that fear
and quite literally ignore it.
We are using technology as our comfort zone,
and because it's so readily available,
that comfort zone is endless, and it never needs to be stepped out of.
So we are left with two main issues:
We’re never taught these fundamentals,
and we’re never forced to teach ourselves these fundamentals.
But of course, we can’t expect our society to do a 180
towards enforcing this public speaking mentality.
So what can we do?
Well, we can begin to integrate this mentality into our lives
to reap the benefits that it has to offer.
For me, those benefits have been improved self-confidence, improved self-esteem,
higher level critical thinking,
and being really, really comfortable connecting with people.
Because when you break it down,
that’s all public speaking really is -
being able to share who you are and how you think and feel
with the world without limitations or boundaries.
Humans are imperfect and different.
We don’t have the ability to draft who we are or will be,
and we shouldn't expect that of ourselves or each other.
We need to get comfortable leaving that first draft behind
because only then can we truly be who we are face-to-face.
This is when public speaking becomes so crucial.
We can use that mentality to enforce that face-to-face communication
and allow ourselves to be who we are and just get comfortable with just being.
From then on, this develops into true and meaningful conversation
that can allow us to bring ourselves outside of ourselves
and look in at ourselves, vulnerable and unapologetically raw.
It sounds deep and difficult, but it really just starts by recognizing
that those thoughts in your head deserve to be heard.
That means you can tell the Starbucks barista they made your drink wrong,
politely, of course,
or have actual, meaningful conversation
with your mother-in-law about religion or something.
Talk all you can all the time, even if it’s to yourself.
I wrote most of this speech by talking to myself.
Get comfortable saying your thoughts out loud,
and get comfortable with the world hearing it.
Ask for that extra ketchup because you deserve it.
And from then on,
we can build on these fundamentals to create a hierarchy of communication
that can allow us to approach any communication situation ever.
Once we develop those fundamentals,
we can begin to conversate with other people.
We can build a comfort level for conversating with those other people
and not let it go past anything that we’re not comfortable with.
From then on comes interaction -
recognizing that those people you’re conversing with
have thoughts and ideas of their own.
Then we start to engage with those thoughts and ideas,
creating critical thinking and higher level empathy
with every word that we’re capable of exchanging with each other.
From here on, we can go on to approach any communication situation ever,
regardless of platform, generation, or ideology.
to not only bridge our fear of public speaking
but to contain complete comfort in our communication,
and thus, comfort in our public speaking.
The best part about this is my journey or yours
could be the key to someone else’s.
We can use our voices to actively coax it out of people that might be quieter.
Ask your kids how their day was and try not to take a one word answer.
Engage all you can all the time.
Order your food over the phone instead of online,
and ask that waiter how their day was.
Call your mom.
When you open up to them,
they’re going to feel like the world is opening up right back.
When you open up to them, they’re going to feel like the world
is giving them a space to open up right back.
And how cool is that?
I mean, truly, how cool is it what we’re capable of when we decide
to embrace our communication instead of shy away from it?
Public speaking is more important now than ever,
and it's more prevalent now than ever.
We need to embrace these fundamentals and build on them
so we can develop our communication and connection
to not only bridge that fear, but to contain complete comfort.
So now a presentation in front of your class
is nothing more than another way to connect with people.
Thank you.
(Applause)