In college, I took public speaking first semester freshman year to try to get it out of the way since I dreaded it so much. I wasn't comfortable talking in front of people. In addition to getting nervous, my hands would shake and sometimes my voice. My mind and heart would race too. I generally felt like I could be sick at any moment. I was jealous of people who could talk about any subject while being carefree and engaging. Despite all the presentations I made during college, I never got comfortable with it. I always prepared, but never felt like it showed that much.
In my first job out of college, I was no better. Every time I had to speak, I was awful. Once I had to give a briefing to top military officials, my boss, and a group of 75. Despite all the practicing I'd done and the fact that I knew my topic, my voice betrayed me and made it sound like I was on the verge of crying.
When I got my current job, I ended up speaking to 17 classes, of up to 400 students at a time, in the span of two weeks. It was hard, but I didn't back away from it. From then, I vowed that any time someone asked me to speak I would do it. How else was I to get better? That doesn't mean it was easy.
Once, I hadn't left my office early enough, so I was rushing to a building up a slight hill. Once at the building, I climbed three flights of stairs. I took a deep breath, went it, was introduced and started speaking. Soon, I realized that I wasn't getting oxygen fast enough and needed to catch my breath, meanwhile I'm speaking to a class of 45 students. I wasn't sure what to do. I tried to take short breaks to suck in some air, but it wasn't enough. I was panicking. I thought about running out of the room. Finally, I made a slight joke about how I was short of breath from running up the stairs. Thankfully, the instructor started talked and let me catch my breath. Later, we laughed about it, but at the time it was mortifying.
Last fall, my job changed even more. My coworkers and I started teaching professional development topics to College of Business students. So, each week, I taught two different sessions to up to 80 students. For someone with a fear of public speaking, this was intimidating. Starting out, I always had my note sheet by my side, but now I can remember everything I want to say. This experience and presenting in my Masters classes has made me a much better, more relaxed speaker. I work to find ways to engage my audience and show them why the subject is important. I use student feedback to constantly improve on my presenting ability.
I still have a lot of room to improve, like being able to speak off the cuff on other subjects than my area of expertise. The point is that I'm improving. While, I will never be paid to go around the world and speak for a living, that doesn't mean I shouldn't work to get better at it.
