I'll never forget the first time I was asked to give a presentation to give a speech. It was 1975. I was about to graduate from elementary school. It was at Bruns Avenue Elementary in the inner city of Charlotte, North Carolina. My teacher came up to me one day sort of pulled me by the sleeve and said, Hey, Timmy, that's what I went by then. I'll make a deal with you.
Right now. You've got good grades in every subject except for handwriting. I'll give you an A in handwriting. If you give the welcoming speech at graduation to parents, teachers and students. Now I was an incredibly shy kid. I was someone who rarely talked in class basically never put my hand up.
I had no natural aptitude whatsoever for Publix. I stayed no idea why she asked me to do this. But I figured Kinda like to have an A and handwriting. How hard could it be? So I said, Okay, I'll do it. And I told this group Okay, yes, I will do that speech.
So I went home wrote rewrote a couple of things stood up I think actually read the speech. fellow students, parents teachers of burns Avenue Elementary, thank you for coming to this graduation ceremony and sat down it was pretty much that brief. That uninteresting. But you know what, I got through it. The world didn't open up, swallow me. Nothing bad happened.
In fact, something good happened. I got an A on my handwriting on the report card. Now I don't know if that's a good thing with the teacher did. But it taught me an important lesson. At an early age. If you're just willing to stand up and speak.
Good things will happen to you the fact that I was nervous scared uncomfortable, didn't really matter. I still got the good things afterwards. So that's the lesson I learned. Okay, so why did i tell that story? Why do I tell that story in speeches because I want people to know. I'm not some natural born speaker.
I mean, we've all seen some kindergarteners are just Mr. pizzazz, Miss pizzazz and they're really out go. I wasn't like that. I want people that I teach on how to give presentations and speeches and how to speak to the media to know I wasn't a natural, you don't have to be a natural. Everyone can start off uncomfortable, even shy. It doesn't matter. These are skills, people can learn and you can learn at any age.
Now I especially try to stress this from time to time because some people will look at my videos or see me speak and they just naturally assume I'm just so confident, relaxed and smooth and I can't even relate to someone being Nervous or uncomfortable, And truth be told, this sounds a little arrogant to say I apologize. I really not nervous when I speak these days and haven't been for decades. I'm more nervous when I don't get to speak in a certain day or a certain week. So that can make me seem out of touch with some of my clients who are uncomfortable. That's why I tell this story and that's really the message. You're not born being a great speaker.
It is a learned skill, and most people are naturally nervous and uncomfortable about speaking