Raghav Daga Week 15: Negative Aura
I walked into my homeroom class and energetically landed in my seat, excited for a new day of sixth grade where I would get to play with my friends and have a good time. Then, I looked up at the board and saw the agenda for the class: Speeches for the Month. My middle school had decided that it was a valuable skill for students to learn how to speak in front of a crowd on a new topic each month—a topic that is assigned a month in advance for students to prepare a one minute speech. Not only had I completely forgotten to prepare my speech, I had little knowledge on the topic of Sustainability Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, and I hated public speaking. With a last name starting with ‘D,’ it was only a few minutes before I would be called up for my opportunity to speak.
I walked up, feeling the weight of everyone’s stares, the expectations of my teacher as an excellent student in all other subjects, and my own personal image among my friends. In the few minutes I had, I wrote down 3 bullet points on my single notecard. I wrote to myself, “this development goal is about clean energy, it talks about providing energy with net-zero admissions, talk about whatever you know to fill up one minute.” At this point in my life, I had little experience with failure, little understanding of how to deal with social pressure, and an unimaginably high amount of self-confidence in my ability to do well in any challenging situation—all three of which I had never put up to the test in a situation like this.
I introduced myself, my topic, and mentioned the two bullet points I had prepared. By this point, my forehead was already covered in sweat, and as I looked for my next work, my throat dried up. I had completely blanked on my content just 15 seconds into the speech, and I could feel tears bead up in my eyes and a heaviness fill my throat, as I croaked out, “thank you for listening.” I scurried back to my seat and just put my head down and closed my eyes to hold my tears in. Not only did I score a terrible score on that speech, but my entire belief of my greatness came crashing down.
That moment of breaking under pressure opened a new world for me, where I suddenly realized that now that I have made this one fatal error, any future mistake would pale in comparison to that feeling. The shock of that moment broke my shell of shyness, and it showed me that irrespective of how large a mistake I made, people would forget about it in under a week, just like they did with my speech. From then, I became heavily involved in public speaking, winning multiple middle school Model United Nations tournaments and becoming a part of high school speech and debate where I still compete (occasionally) today.
Hey Raghav, your blog really resonated with me as someone who also was not a confident public speaker at a young age and also found love in it through activities like debate. Besides feeling more confident from being able to comfortably speak in front of a crowd, I do believe that being able to do so is a good life skill. There are times where we will be asked to give presentations for work in front of our peers, our boss, or even to a wider audience learning to communicate a message to a larger audience can help receive understanding. Your story added a humorous and relatable feeling to the blog because I think we can all relate to that feeling of panic before a speech, but now I think I can have a little laugh whenever I remember my moments. Like you I think my ease when it comes to public speaking is that fact that everyone will forget one day and my mistakes will soon be forgotten, if I do make any. Seeing your growth when it comes to public speaking is truly amazing, and who knows maybe we’ll have a debate one day!
ReplyDeleteHello, Raghav! I admire how your blog begins with a heartfelt anecdote and ends with a positive update towards the end. I think that many can relate to your feelings of uncertainty and nervousness towards presenting, especially as a kid. I am glad that you were able to overcome your fear however and become proficient in public speaking by becoming apart of speech and debate and Model UN. I applaud your dedication and strive to improve your public speaking skills. Being able to speak confidently in front of a large group of people is an extremely important skill that will take you very far in life! This blog was very inspiring, keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteHi Raghav! Your blog is an experience that I am sure many— including myself— relate with, and I loved your depiction of a scenario that ended up being a formative experience. I am often wracked with anxiety when I have to speak in front of others, and this was especially intense when I was younger. However, I also joined public speaking clubs briefly and found that a lot of that anxiety disappeared after practice, despite the intense fear that I associate with public speaking to this day. I found your conclusion of winning MUN tournaments and competing in speech and debate to be so inspiring, as you not only got knocked down early on in your life, but instead of taking that as reason to leave public speaking behind, you returned to it and improved to the extent where it was recognized through competitions.
ReplyDeleteHello Raghav! The experience you described in your blog is so extremely relatable to me because my public speaking skills are horrendous. One example is in the recent POAS presentation where i completely blanked out on a couple of slides despite extensive practice. I find your story of becoming a proficient public speaker very inspiring. It is comforting to know that despite my mess ups, people won't remember them after a while.
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