From Stage Fright to Live National TV: A Journey

Sometime back, I gave a talk on tips on public speaking and presentation styles. That made me reflect on my own little journey.

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Visualize a 14-year-old boy participating in a school competition. For many days, his mother had prepared him to act like the circus clown in the Hindi movie “Mera Naam Joker”, replete with actions and dance steps et. al.

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On the day of the event, this boy walks up on stage, dressed up as a circus clown. A torn slipper on one foot, the other foot with a shoe that has a hole in it, face covered with a clown's make-up, topped up with a red bob on the nose, a ridiculously colorful outfit, the complete works!

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As the boy makes his way to the stage, the audience just erupts with laughter. They find it absolutely hilarious. However, this silly boy becomes nervous. He thinks that there is something wrong. As he falters while climbing on to the stage, he stumbles and falls. The audience roars again, possibly thinking that it is all part of the act. The boy walks up to the mic, gets even more nervous, mumbles something incoherently, and forgets all his moves and dialogues. A visibly upset child, he walks away from the stage trying his best to hide his tears!

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Imagine the same child, several decades later, delivering motivational speeches on stage, connecting with his audience like never before, advocating his personal views, and so on.

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As you may have guessed by now, this silly boy was me. As I made my way through school and college, I always had the desire to be on stage, performing. A few more halfhearted attempts led to lukewarm responses, for various reasons.

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Let us flash forward to sometime in 1995. Internet usage was just starting in India. I had been using it through “not so official” means since 1993. Along with a few other passionate friends, I started talking about the future of the internet and how people could maximize its use. We even formed a nonprofit organization to disseminate the information. At the 1st public event, in front of a large audience, I explained various factors: from a technical as well as from an end-user perspective. I got fantastic applause and some even stood up.? Post the talk, a person told me that this was one of the best talks she had ever heard on the topic.

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As I reflected on the experience, I suddenly realized that I had experienced very little stage fright. There had been a certain excitement within me, to share whatever I had known and had learnt about the internet till then. I had been true to my authentic self, and had shared whatever I had learnt openly, and had also expressed my ignorance on certain matters when it came to the Q&A part of the talks.

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Bingo! I had arrived as a public speaker.

In all the other opportunities that followed, whether it was speaking in public gatherings, or corporate “all hands” meetings, or any other occasion, which included being on live video on National TV, with the inimitable Arnab Goswami on Republic TV, I had always stuck to topics that I was totally comfortable with.

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Once, I even dressed up as Michael Jackson to dance very clumsily on stage in front of an audience of about 2500 odd people, just to make them laugh! By then, I was quite comfortable in making an ass of myself on stage ??

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As with any other public speaker, I have my own style and approach to public speaking. It is crucial for me to identify my own unique style and strengths so that I can maximize them. Whenever my strengths are capitalized effectively, my so called “weaknesses” simply become redundant. They don’t matter anymore. My alleged “weaknesses” include: a possible stage fright, getting emotional while talking, worrying about the audience's attention, questioning my personal appearance, and so on.

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To summarize, my style includes:

• Being true to my authentic self, to my own nature of being, being aware of my core values & beliefs.
• Choosing to talk only on those topics that I am passionate about.
• Using visual cues such as presentations, with very minimal content.
• Wherever possible, using the “presenter view” on Microsoft Powerpoint, so that I have my own view of the presentation.
• Using the “pecha-kucha” style where appropriate or adapting it to suit my purpose.
• Being aware of the “message” I want the audience to retain, post my talk.

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If you are already a public speaker, what’s your style?

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Alternatively, if you would like to become an effective public speaker:

• What are some of your alleged “weaknesses”, that you would like to make redundant?
• How can you maximize your own strengths?
• How can you be your true authentic self to the maximum extent possible?

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Some Useful Links

• The Pecha Kucha Style
• A set of playlists on Pecha Kucha
• My last appearance on National TV, live on Republic TV

#publicSpeaking #stageFright #motivationalSpeaking #speaker

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