Public Speaking (ft. @Infamous Swoosh)

Ah yes, public speaking. It is something that we will all go through at some point, whether that's at school, within a work environment, or even within a celebration environment. For those of us who aren't super extroverted, it can unfortunately be quite a traumatic time, filled with stress and panic. Just seeing all those eyes quietly staring back at you, expecting something. My first experience was news, a daily activity in early primary school, where each kid would talk directly to the class for roughly two minutes. My puppy ate spaghetti. At Macca's, I saw Nate. Hi, Nate. Hi. And that is why I think I have life. Little did I know that this was actually a tactical and cutesy way of introducing us all to public speaking. Oh my God. Then later in primary school came the yearly public speaking competitions. In hindsight, the entire event is kind of messed up. Every student had no choice but to make a long speech, present it to the class, and then get brutally criticized and ranked by the teacher. Sounds like so much fun. Am I right, guys? You forgot a line? Take away marks. You mispronounced a word? Take away more. You were so nervous and had an internal panic attack and struggled to make a single noise, let alone words to form sentences, and everyone staring at you, either thinking, wow, this girl is weird, or wow, can she hurry up? You're standing there frozen and you don't know what to do. Detention. Oh, and don't even think about trying to get out of it. Hey, miss, I accidentally left my speech at home, so I can't present it. Stay in for all of your lunch break and write it again. Nobody messes with my sacred lunch break. Three rounds. Each round you got through, the more people you would have to speak in front of. Like a tournament? What is this? It was like the Hunger Games, but public speaking. Part of me would be nervous, but to be honest, I think I was more excited to tell my peers stories. I guess that does make sense. However, most years I didn't even get close to passing the first round. Goodbye, speech! Most years, I said. Surprisingly, I did make it through a few times. In grade one, it was for talking about my dog, Cassie. You know the one. Rest in peace, Cassie. Grade fives was about haircuts. Yeah, I got through round one for talking about hair. Anyway, and in grade six, it was about going to a Taylor Swift concert. The jump from round one to round two was quite scary. You went from speaking in front of about 25 kids to speaking in front of about 100. Yes, it did make me a little nervous, as you would expect, and so I think that is the reason why I didn't make it any further in these competitions. Haha, hair. Am I right? I definitely wasn't mad though, because round three consisted of writing a speech on the spot and then performing them to roughly 400 kids right away. It was always funny watching this though, because it made it so obvious. Who had their initial speech written by their parents? Get exposed. Thank you for listening to my public speaking tea. You know what I find even worse than all that? Okay, maybe not worse than the competition structure as a whole, but something that makes me far more uncomfortable? Reading aloud from a textbook in high school, especially when you don't know how to pronounce a word and have to be like, sorry, um, I, uh, I don't know how to say that word. It says illiterate. Or when the teacher says we are going around to the classroom, each reading paragraph by paragraph, so then you count ahead to see which one you will read and you're stuck with the biggest one. Nothing like rehearsing it a million times in your head while people before you do their parts and realizing they're reading what you've been reading and you've been rehearsing the wrong section. No, I didn't run for school captain or anything like that. It just wasn't for me, but I did do a speech for my final high school assembly with a few of my friends. It was just a casual speech in front of the entire school, highlighting fun moments we all had throughout our final year and just high school in general. Funny thing was no one wanted to do it. So I got nominated and just went along with it. This crowd was a lot more than 400 kids, which was a little daunting. So little me would have been proud of that character development. From what I can remember, it couldn't have gone better and turns out I wasn't so nervous. It was actually kind of fun. Now to finish this off, I've got some quick public speaking hacks. Let's go! Number one, don't look at anyone in the eyes personally. It always made me more nervous. Some people imagine their audience are wearing underwear, but that's a little, uh, creepy. So just find something that works for you. Looking at the back wall is always a good option. Number two, when I'm nervous or I've got a lot to read, sometimes I'll forget to breathe. Highlighters are your best friend for this. Try highlighting each sentence a different color. It helps keep you on track with where you're reading, especially if you look up at your audience like the teachers want you to. You can find your spot on your cards quickly again. I still do this to this day. Number three, just like with anything, confidence grows over time. There's nothing wrong with stum- stumble- on words. Everyone does it. It's just a part of the process. Even to this day when recording scripts, I still always have countless stumbles. I'm not going to be cliche and say that practice makes perfect, but it gets you moving in that direction. Yeah, for me, public speaking is like, it's pretty, it's okay. Uh, I don't look at anybody in the eyes ever. I just look like right above their heads and I'm talking to a wall, but I mean, you know, it's efficient. So who cares? If you're public speaking in school, you should probably write out everything. So you, and like practice it a couple of times, so you know, like what you're saying and what you're doing. Don't just like go for it and definitely don't make jokes because I've been there, done that. No one laughed and my pride was destroyed. I made a joke about my hand because it was broken and I had a cast on. And basically I said to everybody to address the elephant in the room. Yes, I did get a haircut and I lifted up my hand, which I thought it was stupid, but kind of funny. And I think maybe one person giggled and it was just a lot of silence and it was very awkward. And, uh, I never made a joke ever again in my life. This whole topic is as divisive as pineapple on pizza. Some people like it and some people hate it. It's rare, but some people do actually fall in between where their thoughts on it are kind of meh. Like it's not a disgusting topping, but they're not dying to have it. But if their family wants it, then they'll still happily take a slice. Um, what's your most embarrassing public speaking moment? I'm starting a mini series on my second channel called Jolly Jess, and I'll be reading your comments and sharing your stories. It'll be a great way to make the conversation a little less one-sided. I'd love to see you over there. Catch you later, wobbly boys. Make sure to subscribe to Jolly Jess. She's Australian. Like that's, that's cool. Think about it. You're watching this video and she's probably upside down. Yeah. Think about that. Yeah. Just, so just like, like subscribe upside down, be upside down in your chair and then subscribe.