Public Speaking

Public Speaking!! When I hear these words what comes to mind first is anxiety, nervousness, losing train of thoughts, dry mouth, increased heart beat and uncomfortable body language and that I am standing in front of the audience scared and lost. Yikes! That is kind of a nightmare. But this is what happens when you are not comfortable with public speaking and have issues like speech anxiety. It is surprising how an individual who is super smart, intelligent and very communicative in one-on-one or group settings may get totally stumped and be a completely different  personality when it comes to standing in front of the audience and speaking on a topic. The spotlight effect mentioned in the book always gets me.  During presentations, I feel like I am in a spotlight and everyone is looking at me. It’s like I am being analyzed or judged invariably by everyone standing in front of me, so instead of focusing on the contents of my presentation I start paying attention to the noise factors. I guess it sometimes results in a chicken and egg effect as the reason for speech anxiety, according to psychologist is the fear of making a mistake and due to nervousness if I do end up making a mistake not only it slipshod my presentation but also makes  things worse for the future. Therefore, it is important to not let any abject memories affect you as your past life experiences do have an impact on your ability or inability to deliver a good presentation. Also I agree with the uncertainty reduction theory and can totally relate to it. Having moved from another country and a different culture makes you a little diffident as you may not be aware of certain social norms or may not have the language proficiency. I have always felt that my anxiety is partly associated with this factor as sometimes I’m afraid to speak up for the fear of refutation. After reading the chapter, I felt that I can use some of the techniques mentioned in the book, to help me avoid public speaking anxiety and be an adept speaker. I guess the mantra is as long as you stay in control and keep your presentation interesting, your audience continues to stay with you and everyone has fun…..

A few things about me

This is the my first time blogging. It feels kind of awkward to talk about yourself like this, but I'll try. I'm a trained physician from a foreign country and have got my Masters degree in health management. I love to learn new things and strongly believe that, there is no age for learning, it's a life long process. There's so much stuff, too many things I don't know about that it makes me wonder gosh....do I have enough time. I recently attended a series of wine tasting classes.  The class included some aspects of wine making, which like everyone else I never thought I knew anything about. But a lot of it was basic chemistry. It was kind of interesting how the stuff you learn in school can be associated in a fun event like wine tasting and makes you thing....hmm so this is what it is. It was a great experience. The more interesting thing is that when you are a chemistry student it makes you think about all the chemical reactions that take place when you're tasting the wine or in the chemistry lab while experimenting you think about how your experiments can impact wine making....OK I guess that's a lot of chemistry talk. But that's the way I like it, learning and also passing on the knowledge to others in a fun non-stressful way. 
I am hoping to have a lot of fun in this class and looking forward to learning more about all of you. Because as much it is learning, communication is important too. Gaining knowledge is useless, If we are not able to pass on this heritage to next generations. Three cheers for learning and communicating.....

Testing.....