And it just sort of shows how bad public speaking apprehension can be and
how much it can hurt.
So anyway, he was teaching an introduction to public speaking course and
it was his first day.
Now typically on the first day what you do is ask the students to do
introductory speeches, here's who I am, here's what I do, so on and so forth.
And in this class we had about 25 students.
Now the majority of these students are what we would call traditional age
students, so they'll probably be between 18 and 21 years old.
But he did have one woman who was returning to school
after a couple of decades in the workforce.
So she is coming back to get her degree.
And so first day stuff.
He's having people come up and do their speeches.
Now this class just happened to be in a piano recital room.
So there were seats, there was a stage, and there was a piano up on the stage.
So he was having students go up, deliver their speech on the stage, and be done.
So it comes time for this woman who's probably in her mid-40s to come up and
do the speech.
So she goes up there and she's very nervous, that's obvious, and
she starts doing this speech and then just freezes, just stops talking.
This is totally common.
Speech teachers see this all the time.
So, Richard does what a lot of people do.
He's like no, that's fine.
Go ahead, take a moment,
whenever you're ready just tell us what you're interested in.
That sort of stuff.
None of that's working.
All the standard tricks just not working to get her to talk again, and so
finally she just kind of, it's been going on for so long, she just kind of snaps and
she crawls under the piano.
Now remember, it's elevated stage, so you can still see her.
It's not like she disappeared all of a sudden.
So, she crawls under the piano, and so teacher's like, well this is a new one.
Not experienced this before.
So, he goes up and he's trying to coax her out from underneath the piano.
He's like, yeah, come on, it's fine.
We're all just, we're curious to hear what you have to say.
So nothing's working.
So, his mind racing and he says, okay, well, here's what I'll do.
He dismisses the class.
So he says, okay, we're going to be done for today.
So all the other students leave.
So that just leaves the teacher and the woman on the piano.
And he's still trying to get her to come out.
Nothing. She's not saying a word.
So he runs out of ideas and he's like maybe I can just make it easier for
her to get out of there.
And he goes and he turns off the lights and he leaves.
And then he never sees her again.
She never comes back to class.
Nothing.
And it's awful, that's an awful story.
That tears at your heartstrings.
But it shows how bad public speaking apprehension can be.
It's an awful story and it's a little funny, it's tiny bit funny.
I mean it's kind of funny.
It's not a healthy funny, it's like when you laugh at each other like,
that's hilarious and I'm broken inside, why am I laughing at that?
But it shows that apprehension hurts, okay?
And everyone asks the same question.
Why do I fear public speaking?
And the answer is, because you're human.
You experience apprehension before, during,
and after a speech because that's kind of the right reaction.
Speaking publicly is a potentially face-threatening act.
Now, when you speak, your body is quickly assessing the threat, and
getting ready to respond.
This is fight or flight type stuff.
And it's the same basic reaction you would have if you had just
wandered across an angry bear in the woods.
Are you going to stand there and fight the bear?
Or are you going to run away, and
hope that your trail of fear pee doesn't lead him right back to you?
So I hope your next speech has a relatively low chance of disembowelment.
But in some ways your body doesn't know that.
We call the fear of speaking, public speaking apprehension.
And it's a communication-based anxiety where speakers in response to an actual or
just an expected presentation, experience physiological, cognitive, and
behavioral responses.
So let's talk about each one of those.