Public Speaking: Any Horror Stories?

Kirk Gillock

Kirk Gillock

Rebel with a cause
In about 2 hours there will be a ceremony and I'll be forced to speak a language I've never officially studied (too lazy and too old). The last time I did this I said a few words wrong and a serious speech about motorcycle safety became a comedy routine.

Instead of saying, "I saw 4 people on a motorcycle and wanted to take a photo." I actually said, "I saw people having sex and wanted to take a photo." And it was in front of a group of Jr. High students. Pretty sure I'm never welcome back. There was also an incident with my pants zipper being broken, but we won't talk about that. ...It's much better to be behind the camera. Don't you think?

What about you all. Any horror stories? Or do you actually enjoy public speaking? This goes for all the Bootcamp hosts too. You must get nervous, right?

pk
 
You are a fine public speaker PK, your video posts have been great!
Just be sure to wear your favorite threads :thumbsup:

- Mikko
 
PK, you sure seem to have bad luck with public speaking! I suspect that's because you do it more than me though. I can't even begin to imagine speaking in public in a foreign language like Thai! French? German? Yeah. Thai? Heck no! If it's anything like Mandarin I'd be running out the door as fast as possible.

Speaking in public, in ENGLISH, hasn't ever really been a problem for me so long as I feel I have something meaningful to say. I get a little nervous before hand of course. I find that this is almost entirely mitigated when i'm prepared though. That doesn't mean having a speech written out word for word but rather know my topic intimately enough to really talk about it while staying on track with a bulleted list.
 
You'll do fine PK good luck.

I tryed the picture the picture them naked thing one time it wasn't so good I got scared. Of course it was at a senior center.
 
Public speaking horror story. Not very public, but I have one-
I had written a story for English, and because the teacher loved it so much, I had to read it to a bunch of much younger children. When I got into the classroom (2nd grade, maybe), I slipped on some water and knocked over some of their arts and crafts projects, and made on kid cry. I felt awful.
 
Shaw said:
. . . I can't even begin to imagine speaking in public in a foreign language like Thai! French? German? Yeah. Thai? Heck no!. . .
Click to expand...

When I got married (this year, Church wedding. Civil was last year.) I had to read some stuff about something because I'm not Orthodox*.

The priest handed me a book to read from. My choices were Romanian or German. No way in hell was I going to attempt the Romanian, so I picked German.

It seemed like I droned on for hours, but it was probably only a minute or two. When I was finished, everyone was beaming at me, so impressed by my command of the language.

I have absolutely no idea what I read.

Dan

*But, since I don't know what I read, I may very well be Orthodox now.
 
When I was making a trek through central emerica I got asked to talk about my experiences to a group of people, I wanted to tell them that I was embarrased to be up there talking to such a large group, instead I told them that I was pregnant :) At least I only made that mistake once, and came to find out it is a pretty common Gringo mistake, so all was good after a pretty hardy laugh.
 
LOL :) Those were good. Knocking over kids art projects, speaking without knowing what you're saying, and telling people you're pregnant. :)


Well the event went ok. No big embarrassing moments. That I know of.

ceremony.jpg


We gave awards and helmets to students who wrote essays on why they should wear a helmet. We also had a game and gave out free helmets to people just eating in the nearby food court. But they had to answer a question first.
 
It is a proven fact that the brain works from the moment of conception to the last breath you take... except for when you have to get up for public speaking.

66% of all people would rather be DEAD than speak in public.

I do LOTS of public speaking and it NEVER goes as good as I want. Thankfully I usually get 10 to 15 tries in any given tour. Problem with that is the band gets to hear the same "heart-felt" speech every time and have different terms for how I screw up and get out of it... and then rate me after the show on how successful it was or wasn't.

Plus, I usually have theater lights in my eyes and can't see anyone in the audience... so I can't tell if they're walking out or not.

I guess you just need thick skin and remember, YOU are the expert they came to hear, so it really doesn't matter what you say... what you SAID was what was important. Ya?

CaptM

EDIT -- Nice job PK!!
 
When I was a little kid I had to give an address a couple times per year at my mom's cult meetings... as I remember it always freaked me out.
 
Before I moved to California I practiced as a trial lawyer in the midwest. Once as a young lawyer I was trying a case in Federal Court and did not realize that one of the shoulder seams in my suitcoat had ripped (it was a horrible cheap jacket that was way too small anyway). I wasn't aware of anything until the Federal Judge interrupted the trial to tell me in open court that the jury's attention was being distracted by watching my rip getting bigger. It was so embarassing. I ended up taking off the jacket for the rest of the morning but then developed flop-sweat over the incident and my shirt got soaked so it looked like I had been working out on a farm. The balliff said he had never seen anyone with such a red face and he was worried I was going to have a stroke.
 
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