How Public Speaking Will Change Your Life | Bridget Sampson | TEDxCSUN
Communication Consultant and Professor Bridget Sampson encourage you to embrace public speaking so that you can share your unique gifts with the world. Learn why it’s so important to overcome this common fear and the paradigm shift it requires. Bridget reveals her own transformative journey as a speaker and lessons from 25 years of experience as a teacher and trainer. Be inspired to push yourself out of your comfort zone to speak your mind.
Shaklee International Toastmasters Club invite everyone interested to learn or improve your speaking skills.
Read the transcript of the speech
00:21 bring to mind the entrance to your home
00:25 picture your front door you’re about to
00:29 walk in and to your surprise you see
00:32 that your home is filled with gifts
00:35 wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling gifts
00:38 everywhere you look they’re all wrapped
00:41 in beautiful wrapping paper with shiny
00:43 ribbons and bows they’re all different
00:46 shapes and sizes so you start to examine
00:49 all of these gifts and you notice that
00:53 they each have a little gift tag and on
00:56 the gift tag next to the word from you
00:59 see your own name on every single gift
01:03 these gifts are not for you they’re from
01:07 you and then you look to see what names
01:11 might be next to the word to but they’re
01:14 all blank
01:15 none of the gift tags say who these
01:18 gifts are for so you have no idea who
01:21 these gifts are meant for and you have
01:24 no idea what on earth you’re going to do
01:26 with them that is the question that I’m
01:30 here to answer for you today
01:33 you see these gifts represent the gifts
01:37 inside of you right now right here they
01:40 are your brilliant ideas your unique
01:44 experiences the wisdom that only you
01:47 possess but those gifts could remain
01:51 trapped inside of you forever
01:54 undelivered and unopened unless you make
02:00 the choice to embrace public speaking
02:06 yes you heard me if you want to reach
02:12 your full potential in this lifetime you
02:15 must embrace public speaking and it
02:19 doesn’t matter how you feel about public
02:22 speaking right now my goal is to get you
02:25 to push yourself outside of your public
02:28 speaking comfort zone whatever it is for
02:31 you if you dread public speaking I
02:34 want you to summon the courage to give
02:36 it a try if you’re mediocre at it I want
02:40 you to bring more energy and enthusiasm
02:41 to it and if you’re already a great
02:45 public speaker then why don’t you apply
02:48 to give your own TEDx talk it could be
02:51 you here on this stage now I didn’t
02:56 start out as a confident speaker far
02:58 from it I was a wreck the entire week
03:02 before my very first speech in my
03:04 college public speaking class I could
03:07 barely eat or sleep or think about
03:10 anything else I envisioned every
03:13 possible horrific scenario that you
03:16 could imagine projectile vomiting all
03:19 over the front row fainting and falling
03:22 to the floor with a fatal blow to my
03:24 head or worst of all standing there and
03:29 forgetting everything I plan to say as
03:31 the entire class howled with laughter at
03:34 me can you relate this kind of
03:39 catastrophizing by the way is one of the
03:42 reasons that psychologists label the
03:44 fear of public speaking an irrational
03:46 fear the things were so afraid of do not
03:50 actually happen so I didn’t vomit I
03:54 didn’t faint and I didn’t forget all my
03:57 points but to be honest that
04:01 self-fulfilling prophecies go I
04:03 certainly blew it I couldn’t make eye
04:07 contact with a single person the entire
04:09 time I read straight from my outline
04:12 with trembling hands and I only spoke
04:15 for three of the required five minutes
04:19 after that speech I knew that I had two
04:21 choices I could continue to torture
04:24 myself and let my anxiety run the show
04:27 or I could embark on a mission to
04:31 conquer my fear and become a confident
04:34 public speaker I chose to accept that
04:37 mission and it profoundly changed the
04:41 course of my life if you had told me
04:44 back then
04:46 that just two and a half years after
04:49 taking that class I would be teaching it
04:51 I would never believed you but it’s true
04:55 or that I would happily continue to do
04:58 so for 25 years and Counting and I
05:02 certainly could not have imagined that
05:04 that choice all those years ago would
05:08 lead me to a career I loved as a
05:10 consultant getting to travel the world
05:13 teaching people to improve their
05:15 communication skills my mission back
05:19 then was to embrace public speaking in
05:22 my own life so that I could unlock my
05:24 true human potential my mission now is
05:28 to encourage all of you to do the same
05:32 so now that you know a little bit about
05:34 my journey and my goal let’s focus on
05:37 two areas why it’s so important for you
05:41 to embrace public speaking and how you
05:43 can begin to do it to answer the
05:47 question why let’s look at some examples
05:49 the list of people who overcame a
05:52 debilitating fear of public speaking to
05:56 go on and become great leaders and
05:58 entertainers is long it includes people
06:01 such as Gandhi Barbra Streisand Julia
06:05 Roberts Abraham Lincoln Warren Buffett
06:07 Tom Hanks Nicole Kidman I could go on
06:09 and on but you know their names right
06:13 you know all those names because those
06:15 people worked hard to overcome that fear
06:18 so that they could give their gifts to
06:20 the world to us so you’ve heard of all
06:28 those famous people but I bet you’ve
06:30 never heard of Mary Ellen Peterson she’s
06:33 not famous but her story is the most
06:37 inspiring one to me as a mother
06:40 especially
06:40 Mary Ellen Peterson didn’t set out to be
06:43 an outspoken activist but everything
06:46 changed for her in the 1970s when she
06:49 gave birth to a special needs baby she
06:52 joined with a small group of other
06:53 mothers to advocate for their children
06:56 other mothers of special-needs babies
06:59 and together they decided to form the
07:02 now nationally acclaimed nonprofit
07:06 organization parents helping parents
07:08 which Mary Ellen Peterson served as the
07:11 CEO of for four decades secure in the
07:15 knowledge that her gift to the world was
07:18 to help families like her own with
07:20 special needs children
07:21 Mary Ellen Peterson knew that she could
07:24 not afford to avoid public speaking
07:27 neither can you so you may be thinking
07:31 well I’m not fighting to save the world
07:35 like Gandhi or advocate for
07:37 special-needs children like Mary Ellen
07:38 Peterson that’s okay
07:41 maybe for you it’s music health business
07:46 finance love parenting yoga anything no
07:52 topic is too small if it’s what you are
07:55 passionate about and I get it I’m a
08:00 university lecturer and trainer and
08:02 coach who teaches communication skills I
08:04 see people’s reactions sometimes I know
08:07 that a lot of people don’t think that’s
08:09 as important as math or art or history
08:12 but I do it’s what I care most about and
08:17 so I bring all my energy and passion to
08:20 every talk I give on communication
08:22 skills in fact that’s why I’m here today
08:26 I was asked to give three little
08:29 one-hour workshops on communication
08:32 skills for a student group here on
08:33 campus that I had never heard of and of
08:36 course I said yes
08:37 I love to do that kind of thing but I
08:39 didn’t know if any of those students
08:41 would have already taken a class with me
08:43 so I spent hours coming up with all new
08:45 examples and stories they even made up a
08:48 new acronym and I showed up that first
08:50 day at that first workshop so excited to
08:53 be there to give it my all and to engage
08:55 with those students even though I had no
08:58 idea that in that audience sat the
09:02 curator of this TEDx conference it was
09:06 an audition even though I had no idea
09:08 that it was and that’s why I’m here
09:12 I hope all these examples have proven to
09:15 you that you every single one of you
09:18 cannot afford to avoid or suffer through
09:21 public speaking if you do you will
09:27 absolutely miss out on opportunities to
09:29 share your gifts with the world so now
09:36 let’s look at how you can begin to do it
09:38 a couple of ideas regarding how you can
09:40 begin to do it it all comes down to
09:45 being confident building up your
09:47 confidence if you google the definition
09:49 of the word confidence you’ll see
09:51 something along these lines belief in
09:54 someone or something firm Trust Trust is
09:58 the key to become a confident speaker
10:01 you must trust yourself and your
10:04 audience to trust yourself you’ve got to
10:08 believe that you have something of value
10:10 to share I know you do I just wonder if
10:14 you know that you do and you not only
10:17 need to know that you have something of
10:18 value to share you need to believe that
10:20 you already have everything you need to
10:23 do it you’ve done harder things in your
10:26 life I guarantee you have one of the
10:29 speech classes that I teach here on
10:31 campus is for the educational
10:33 opportunity program which serves
10:35 historically low-income first-generation
10:38 college students and I’ll never forget
10:42 when I first started teaching that
10:43 particular course many years ago sitting
10:46 in my office talking to a young woman in
10:49 that class as she looked me straight in
10:51 the eye and said with complete certainty
10:54 I am never going to be able to get up in
10:59 front of the class and give a speech
11:00 there’s just no way she was terrified
11:07 she also shared some of her life
11:10 experiences with me things that I could
11:14 not fathom homelessness witnessing gang
11:19 violence domestic abuse drug addiction
11:22 incarcerated family members
11:25 I used that information to convince her
11:28 that giving a five-minute speech in
11:31 front of 24 other students was going to
11:33 be way easier than all the things she
11:35 had already been through and survived in
11:37 her life that the courage it took her to
11:41 break out of that kind of environment
11:43 and make it to college to a university
11:45 was way more courage than she would ever
11:48 need to become a confident public
11:50 speaker thankfully she believed me and
11:55 it was one of the most rewarding
11:57 experiences of my entire career to watch
11:59 her blossom over the course of the
12:01 semester into a powerful articulate
12:04 speaker and in fact her final speech was
12:07 one of the best I’ve ever seen she moved
12:10 us all to tears as she shared the ways
12:14 that we could contribute to a world
12:16 where children don’t have to grow up the
12:18 way that she did I have been privileged
12:22 to see hundreds of other students in the
12:27 educational opportunity program with
12:29 similar backgrounds go through the same
12:31 exact transformation over the years if
12:33 they can do it so can you
12:37 now you not only have to trust yourself
12:40 you need to trust your audience you need
12:43 to believe that the people in your
12:44 audience are kind and compassionate the
12:47 vast majority if not all of them are I
12:50 guarantee you they are on your side
12:53 aren’t you on my side right now yes they
12:56 want you to win your audience’s they’re
12:58 cheering you on
13:00 don’t you do that when you’re in the
13:01 audience we don’t sit there wishing that
13:03 the speaker will be boring or will fall
13:05 apart in front of us we want the speaker
13:08 to win remember that when you’re the
13:10 speaker not long ago I was about to
13:14 start a training program an all-day
13:16 training program for executives of a
13:18 fortune 500 company and just as I was
13:22 about to begin the day somehow my foot
13:24 caught on the computer wire and I
13:26 tripped right in front of them and I
13:28 stumbled and I Teeter and tottered back
13:30 and forth and forward and back and I
13:32 couldn’t get my balance for what felt
13:33 like forever
13:35 and finally in my last attempt to steady
13:37 myself I kicked my foot out tugged the
13:39 wire and watched as my laptop computers
13:42 slid across the desk and slammed onto
13:44 the hard floor with a bang I hadn’t yet
13:47 said a word they’re all staring at me
13:50 this is not the impression you want to
13:51 make on fortune 500 senior executives
13:53 write that you’re gonna spend the entire
13:55 day with before you’ve said a word all I
13:58 could do was trust that they were human
14:01 beings just like me so I looked at them
14:04 and all I could see on their faces was
14:07 concern and empathy that empathy feeling
14:10 of who that could have been me or more
14:12 likely that has been me at some point
14:14 right we’re all in this together so all
14:18 I could do was say the first thing that
14:19 came to my mind which was to look at my
14:21 laptop and say I hope it still works
14:23 because I really like the PowerPoint
14:25 slides I created for you today and they
14:28 laughed and they were happy when it
14:30 worked just fine rest of the day went
14:32 great nobody expects perfection from you
14:35 and your audience is perfectly fine with
14:37 a mistake here or there as long as you
14:39 move on don’t make a big deal out of it
14:41 the people in your audience are your
14:44 allies not your enemies earlier in this
14:49 talk I shared with you how terrified I
14:52 was of public speaking when I was in
14:54 college and I also told you about how I
14:57 overcame that fear but please do not let
15:00 that lead you to believe that it’s
15:02 always easy for me it is not I choose to
15:06 challenge myself in new public speaking
15:08 situations constantly this for example
15:12 I’m not used to having lights on me and
15:15 cameras filming me in a microphone this
15:18 is new for me this is scary to be
15:22 completely honest with you most of this
15:24 version of this talk was composed in a
15:27 complete fit of panic at 3 a.m. a few
15:30 weeks ago and most of it was also
15:35 inspired by a two-hour desperate
15:38 FaceTime conversation with Carina the
15:40 curator I had spent too many sleepless
15:43 nights and stressed out days trying to
15:45 figure out what to say in this talk so I
15:48 reached out
15:49 her for help and we sat there across
15:51 staring each other across our computers
15:53 through FaceTime in our pajamas on a
15:55 Saturday morning for two hours sifting
15:58 through a Google Doc with my ninth
16:00 crappy first draft of this talk and I
16:04 asked her to just tell me what I was
16:06 trying to say and thankfully she had the
16:10 answer
16:13 so public speaking and getting
16:18 comfortable with public speaking and
16:20 being a confident public speaker is
16:21 required if you want to reach your full
16:25 human potential it is not optional it’s
16:31 not your home that’s filled with gifts
16:33 it’s you and there are people out there
16:38 that those gifts were meant for people
16:41 who need them people who are waiting for
16:43 your gifts so the next time that you’re
16:47 asked to speak the next time you get the
16:50 opportunity to speak whether it’s in a
16:55 meeting at work in a class at a funeral
16:59 or a wedding or at a TEDx conference
17:02 first I want you to say yes with
17:07 enthusiasm and then I want you to look
17:10 deep inside yourself and find that
17:13 perfect gift that’s in there wrap it up
17:17 in gorgeous wrapping paper put a big
17:20 pretty bow on top of it and give it away
17:26 thank you thank you
Please share our post with your friends and social media
Communication Consultant and Professor Bridget Sampson encourage you to embrace public speaking so that you can share your unique gifts with the world. Learn why it’s so important to overcome this common fear and the paradigm shift it requires. Bridget reveals her own transformative journey as a speaker and lessons from 25 years of experience as a teacher and trainer. Be inspired to push yourself out of your comfort zone to speak your mind.
Shaklee International Toastmasters Club invite everyone interested to learn or improve your speaking skills.
Read the transcript of the speech
00:21 bring to mind the entrance to your home
00:25 picture your front door you’re about to
00:29 walk in and to your surprise you see
00:32 that your home is filled with gifts
00:35 wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling gifts
00:38 everywhere you look they’re all wrapped
00:41 in beautiful wrapping paper with shiny
00:43 ribbons and bows they’re all different
00:46 shapes and sizes so you start to examine
00:49 all of these gifts and you notice that
00:53 they each have a little gift tag and on
00:56 the gift tag next to the word from you
00:59 see your own name on every single gift
01:03 these gifts are not for you they’re from
01:07 you and then you look to see what names
01:11 might be next to the word to but they’re
01:14 all blank
01:15 none of the gift tags say who these
01:18 gifts are for so you have no idea who
01:21 these gifts are meant for and you have
01:24 no idea what on earth you’re going to do
01:26 with them that is the question that I’m
01:30 here to answer for you today
01:33 you see these gifts represent the gifts
01:37 inside of you right now right here they
01:40 are your brilliant ideas your unique
01:44 experiences the wisdom that only you
01:47 possess but those gifts could remain
01:51 trapped inside of you forever
01:54 undelivered and unopened unless you make
02:00 the choice to embrace public speaking
02:06 yes you heard me if you want to reach
02:12 your full potential in this lifetime you
02:15 must embrace public speaking and it
02:19 doesn’t matter how you feel about public
02:22 speaking right now my goal is to get you
02:25 to push yourself outside of your public
02:28 speaking comfort zone whatever it is for
02:31 you if you dread public speaking I
02:34 want you to summon the courage to give
02:36 it a try if you’re mediocre at it I want
02:40 you to bring more energy and enthusiasm
02:41 to it and if you’re already a great
02:45 public speaker then why don’t you apply
02:48 to give your own TEDx talk it could be
02:51 you here on this stage now I didn’t
02:56 start out as a confident speaker far
02:58 from it I was a wreck the entire week
03:02 before my very first speech in my
03:04 college public speaking class I could
03:07 barely eat or sleep or think about
03:10 anything else I envisioned every
03:13 possible horrific scenario that you
03:16 could imagine projectile vomiting all
03:19 over the front row fainting and falling
03:22 to the floor with a fatal blow to my
03:24 head or worst of all standing there and
03:29 forgetting everything I plan to say as
03:31 the entire class howled with laughter at
03:34 me can you relate this kind of
03:39 catastrophizing by the way is one of the
03:42 reasons that psychologists label the
03:44 fear of public speaking an irrational
03:46 fear the things were so afraid of do not
03:50 actually happen so I didn’t vomit I
03:54 didn’t faint and I didn’t forget all my
03:57 points but to be honest that
04:01 self-fulfilling prophecies go I
04:03 certainly blew it I couldn’t make eye
04:07 contact with a single person the entire
04:09 time I read straight from my outline
04:12 with trembling hands and I only spoke
04:15 for three of the required five minutes
04:19 after that speech I knew that I had two
04:21 choices I could continue to torture
04:24 myself and let my anxiety run the show
04:27 or I could embark on a mission to
04:31 conquer my fear and become a confident
04:34 public speaker I chose to accept that
04:37 mission and it profoundly changed the
04:41 course of my life if you had told me
04:44 back then
04:46 that just two and a half years after
04:49 taking that class I would be teaching it
04:51 I would never believed you but it’s true
04:55 or that I would happily continue to do
04:58 so for 25 years and Counting and I
05:02 certainly could not have imagined that
05:04 that choice all those years ago would
05:08 lead me to a career I loved as a
05:10 consultant getting to travel the world
05:13 teaching people to improve their
05:15 communication skills my mission back
05:19 then was to embrace public speaking in
05:22 my own life so that I could unlock my
05:24 true human potential my mission now is
05:28 to encourage all of you to do the same
05:32 so now that you know a little bit about
05:34 my journey and my goal let’s focus on
05:37 two areas why it’s so important for you
05:41 to embrace public speaking and how you
05:43 can begin to do it to answer the
05:47 question why let’s look at some examples
05:49 the list of people who overcame a
05:52 debilitating fear of public speaking to
05:56 go on and become great leaders and
05:58 entertainers is long it includes people
06:01 such as Gandhi Barbra Streisand Julia
06:05 Roberts Abraham Lincoln Warren Buffett
06:07 Tom Hanks Nicole Kidman I could go on
06:09 and on but you know their names right
06:13 you know all those names because those
06:15 people worked hard to overcome that fear
06:18 so that they could give their gifts to
06:20 the world to us so you’ve heard of all
06:28 those famous people but I bet you’ve
06:30 never heard of Mary Ellen Peterson she’s
06:33 not famous but her story is the most
06:37 inspiring one to me as a mother
06:40 especially
06:40 Mary Ellen Peterson didn’t set out to be
06:43 an outspoken activist but everything
06:46 changed for her in the 1970s when she
06:49 gave birth to a special needs baby she
06:52 joined with a small group of other
06:53 mothers to advocate for their children
06:56 other mothers of special-needs babies
06:59 and together they decided to form the
07:02 now nationally acclaimed nonprofit
07:06 organization parents helping parents
07:08 which Mary Ellen Peterson served as the
07:11 CEO of for four decades secure in the
07:15 knowledge that her gift to the world was
07:18 to help families like her own with
07:20 special needs children
07:21 Mary Ellen Peterson knew that she could
07:24 not afford to avoid public speaking
07:27 neither can you so you may be thinking
07:31 well I’m not fighting to save the world
07:35 like Gandhi or advocate for
07:37 special-needs children like Mary Ellen
07:38 Peterson that’s okay
07:41 maybe for you it’s music health business
07:46 finance love parenting yoga anything no
07:52 topic is too small if it’s what you are
07:55 passionate about and I get it I’m a
08:00 university lecturer and trainer and
08:02 coach who teaches communication skills I
08:04 see people’s reactions sometimes I know
08:07 that a lot of people don’t think that’s
08:09 as important as math or art or history
08:12 but I do it’s what I care most about and
08:17 so I bring all my energy and passion to
08:20 every talk I give on communication
08:22 skills in fact that’s why I’m here today
08:26 I was asked to give three little
08:29 one-hour workshops on communication
08:32 skills for a student group here on
08:33 campus that I had never heard of and of
08:36 course I said yes
08:37 I love to do that kind of thing but I
08:39 didn’t know if any of those students
08:41 would have already taken a class with me
08:43 so I spent hours coming up with all new
08:45 examples and stories they even made up a
08:48 new acronym and I showed up that first
08:50 day at that first workshop so excited to
08:53 be there to give it my all and to engage
08:55 with those students even though I had no
08:58 idea that in that audience sat the
09:02 curator of this TEDx conference it was
09:06 an audition even though I had no idea
09:08 that it was and that’s why I’m here
09:12 I hope all these examples have proven to
09:15 you that you every single one of you
09:18 cannot afford to avoid or suffer through
09:21 public speaking if you do you will
09:27 absolutely miss out on opportunities to
09:29 share your gifts with the world so now
09:36 let’s look at how you can begin to do it
09:38 a couple of ideas regarding how you can
09:40 begin to do it it all comes down to
09:45 being confident building up your
09:47 confidence if you google the definition
09:49 of the word confidence you’ll see
09:51 something along these lines belief in
09:54 someone or something firm Trust Trust is
09:58 the key to become a confident speaker
10:01 you must trust yourself and your
10:04 audience to trust yourself you’ve got to
10:08 believe that you have something of value
10:10 to share I know you do I just wonder if
10:14 you know that you do and you not only
10:17 need to know that you have something of
10:18 value to share you need to believe that
10:20 you already have everything you need to
10:23 do it you’ve done harder things in your
10:26 life I guarantee you have one of the
10:29 speech classes that I teach here on
10:31 campus is for the educational
10:33 opportunity program which serves
10:35 historically low-income first-generation
10:38 college students and I’ll never forget
10:42 when I first started teaching that
10:43 particular course many years ago sitting
10:46 in my office talking to a young woman in
10:49 that class as she looked me straight in
10:51 the eye and said with complete certainty
10:54 I am never going to be able to get up in
10:59 front of the class and give a speech
11:00 there’s just no way she was terrified
11:07 she also shared some of her life
11:10 experiences with me things that I could
11:14 not fathom homelessness witnessing gang
11:19 violence domestic abuse drug addiction
11:22 incarcerated family members
11:25 I used that information to convince her
11:28 that giving a five-minute speech in
11:31 front of 24 other students was going to
11:33 be way easier than all the things she
11:35 had already been through and survived in
11:37 her life that the courage it took her to
11:41 break out of that kind of environment
11:43 and make it to college to a university
11:45 was way more courage than she would ever
11:48 need to become a confident public
11:50 speaker thankfully she believed me and
11:55 it was one of the most rewarding
11:57 experiences of my entire career to watch
11:59 her blossom over the course of the
12:01 semester into a powerful articulate
12:04 speaker and in fact her final speech was
12:07 one of the best I’ve ever seen she moved
12:10 us all to tears as she shared the ways
12:14 that we could contribute to a world
12:16 where children don’t have to grow up the
12:18 way that she did I have been privileged
12:22 to see hundreds of other students in the
12:27 educational opportunity program with
12:29 similar backgrounds go through the same
12:31 exact transformation over the years if
12:33 they can do it so can you
12:37 now you not only have to trust yourself
12:40 you need to trust your audience you need
12:43 to believe that the people in your
12:44 audience are kind and compassionate the
12:47 vast majority if not all of them are I
12:50 guarantee you they are on your side
12:53 aren’t you on my side right now yes they
12:56 want you to win your audience’s they’re
12:58 cheering you on
13:00 don’t you do that when you’re in the
13:01 audience we don’t sit there wishing that
13:03 the speaker will be boring or will fall
13:05 apart in front of us we want the speaker
13:08 to win remember that when you’re the
13:10 speaker not long ago I was about to
13:14 start a training program an all-day
13:16 training program for executives of a
13:18 fortune 500 company and just as I was
13:22 about to begin the day somehow my foot
13:24 caught on the computer wire and I
13:26 tripped right in front of them and I
13:28 stumbled and I Teeter and tottered back
13:30 and forth and forward and back and I
13:32 couldn’t get my balance for what felt
13:33 like forever
13:35 and finally in my last attempt to steady
13:37 myself I kicked my foot out tugged the
13:39 wire and watched as my laptop computers
13:42 slid across the desk and slammed onto
13:44 the hard floor with a bang I hadn’t yet
13:47 said a word they’re all staring at me
13:50 this is not the impression you want to
13:51 make on fortune 500 senior executives
13:53 write that you’re gonna spend the entire
13:55 day with before you’ve said a word all I
13:58 could do was trust that they were human
14:01 beings just like me so I looked at them
14:04 and all I could see on their faces was
14:07 concern and empathy that empathy feeling
14:10 of who that could have been me or more
14:12 likely that has been me at some point
14:14 right we’re all in this together so all
14:18 I could do was say the first thing that
14:19 came to my mind which was to look at my
14:21 laptop and say I hope it still works
14:23 because I really like the PowerPoint
14:25 slides I created for you today and they
14:28 laughed and they were happy when it
14:30 worked just fine rest of the day went
14:32 great nobody expects perfection from you
14:35 and your audience is perfectly fine with
14:37 a mistake here or there as long as you
14:39 move on don’t make a big deal out of it
14:41 the people in your audience are your
14:44 allies not your enemies earlier in this
14:49 talk I shared with you how terrified I
14:52 was of public speaking when I was in
14:54 college and I also told you about how I
14:57 overcame that fear but please do not let
15:00 that lead you to believe that it’s
15:02 always easy for me it is not I choose to
15:06 challenge myself in new public speaking
15:08 situations constantly this for example
15:12 I’m not used to having lights on me and
15:15 cameras filming me in a microphone this
15:18 is new for me this is scary to be
15:22 completely honest with you most of this
15:24 version of this talk was composed in a
15:27 complete fit of panic at 3 a.m. a few
15:30 weeks ago and most of it was also
15:35 inspired by a two-hour desperate
15:38 FaceTime conversation with Carina the
15:40 curator I had spent too many sleepless
15:43 nights and stressed out days trying to
15:45 figure out what to say in this talk so I
15:48 reached out
15:49 her for help and we sat there across
15:51 staring each other across our computers
15:53 through FaceTime in our pajamas on a
15:55 Saturday morning for two hours sifting
15:58 through a Google Doc with my ninth
16:00 crappy first draft of this talk and I
16:04 asked her to just tell me what I was
16:06 trying to say and thankfully she had the
16:10 answer
16:13 so public speaking and getting
16:18 comfortable with public speaking and
16:20 being a confident public speaker is
16:21 required if you want to reach your full
16:25 human potential it is not optional it’s
16:31 not your home that’s filled with gifts
16:33 it’s you and there are people out there
16:38 that those gifts were meant for people
16:41 who need them people who are waiting for
16:43 your gifts so the next time that you’re
16:47 asked to speak the next time you get the
16:50 opportunity to speak whether it’s in a
16:55 meeting at work in a class at a funeral
16:59 or a wedding or at a TEDx conference
17:02 first I want you to say yes with
17:07 enthusiasm and then I want you to look
17:10 deep inside yourself and find that
17:13 perfect gift that’s in there wrap it up
17:17 in gorgeous wrapping paper put a big
17:20 pretty bow on top of it and give it away
17:26 thank you thank you
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