Self-Improvement

I am going to write about my experience on giving a brief speech in front of approximately 80 people.

Our unit is the organizer of a semi-annual forum which is an event where everyone from our division gets together and learns from each other. Recently, we held one and the theme was “What We Do, Who We Are and Why We Matter”. There are six branches in our division, and each branch was given 5 minutes to present what they do.

I am with a small team and there are just three of us. As soon as I had a feeling that I would probably be the person to do the preparation and even to present for our unit, I began contemplating ideas of how to describe what we do and what examples to use for the presentation.

At first, I really wished my feeling would be wrong and I would not need to say anything in front of the audience. However, I knew I could not say no (if someone asked me)  as it was supposed to be teamwork.

I kept telling myself “ it is going to be only five minutes, and I only need to deal with it once every six months, it is not a big deal.  Even if it does not go well, so what!”

I remembered once someone told me, a janitor who works for NASA was being interviewed and asked what he does there at NASA. He answered “ I help sending people to the moon”. He could say that he cleans the facility or anything he actually does everyday. Instead of giving the job description, he drew a big picture to the audience. It was a thinking outside of box with an eye-opener idea for me. I can never forget how my brain was stimulated when I heard it. Words are infinite and only limited to their creators.

“Let’s do it. I can do this.” I repeatedly told myself. 

Next, I came up with an elementary idea for the presentation material to provide visual effects. When I share the idea with my team members, they all loved it. I was pleased.

I drafted an one-minute speech just the day before and practiced it with my husband who helped me edit it. By having the speech checked by a native English-Speaker person for the grammar as well as in a colloquial style was definitely helpful with my confidence as I would like my pronunciation was correct and clear for people to understand me well.

I practiced my speech about 5 times at the night before because I did not want to stress out myself too much, and I had to tell myself stop worrying or thinking about. “What will be, will be.” again, I was trying to make it light for myself.

Overall, the presentation went alright. I did it even though my hand which was holding my note was shaking. It is done. I felt so relieved. I don't really remember if my speech was exactly the same words as I prepared.

Now I can say that it was a valuable experience. Although I will probably never get used to giving speeches in public, I hope I will learn and gain more confidence in myself from each time. I hope my experience will make you feel encouraged by speaking in public more.