How I Overcame My Fear of Public Speaking | Danish Dhamani | TEDxKids@SMU — Transcript

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1. 0:02my name is Donna SH and my full-time job
2. 0:05is to count people's arms and us and
3. 0:08like it all started at my first day of
4. 0:11school after my family moved from
5. 0:14Pakistan to Tanzania
6. 0:16I was busy sketching my dream cars in my
7. 0:20notebook and all of a sudden I hear a
8. 0:22voice in my direction the teacher
9. 0:25Daanish can you please rise up and
10. 0:28introduce yourself she had put me on the
11. 0:31spot I was in this foreign land 30 pairs
12. 0:34of eyes staring at me how would you feel
13. 0:38when a teacher puts you on the spot in
14. 0:39this kind of situation my mind went
15. 0:42blank my heart started racing I kept
16. 0:49quiet I started hearing giggles in the
17. 0:52classroom and then tears ran down my
18. 0:56cheek that was the first time I felt the
19. 1:00fear of speaking in front of others the
20. 1:03first time I felt the fear of public
21. 1:06speaking
22. 1:08fast-forward a few years I was at
23. 1:10college here in America that fear still
24. 1:14stuck with me it wasn't slow it was part
25. 1:17of my soul now when I was little I had
26. 1:20many other fears I was afraid of the
27. 1:22dark the monsters under my bed the
28. 1:25cockroaches and I don't mean the tiny
29. 1:27cockroaches here but the big flying
30. 1:29cockroaches I had back home in Pakistan
31. 1:31in Tanzania but I outgrew these fears I
32. 1:34overcame them as I grew older but public
33. 1:37speaking no way I was still afraid of it
34. 1:43but I decided enough was enough I
35. 1:47decided to do something about it to take
36. 1:49that step and find a solution and so I
37. 1:53went to the one place on the internet
38. 1:55where we all look for problems - our
39. 1:58solution to our problems Google I
40. 2:00searched on Google how to overcome the
41. 2:03fear of public speaking the first link
42. 2:08told me about the great things I could
43. 2:10be if I overcame this fear sound like a
44. 2:13leader
45. 2:13get a great job share your ideas give a
46. 2:19TED talk change the world the second
47. 2:24link showed me all the different ways I
48. 2:27could overcome this fear hire a speech
49. 2:29coach talk in front of the mirror do
50. 2:33online courses attend public speaking
51. 2:36clubs like Toastmasters that's when I
52. 2:38realized that I had it wrong all this
53. 2:41time I thought you are either born a
54. 2:44public speaker or you're not I was wrong
55. 2:48I realized that public speaking is
56. 2:51actually a teachable skill that means
57. 2:54that if any one of you here wants to
58. 2:56speak powerfully like any of your famous
59. 2:59public speakers yes you can we all can
60. 3:03now some of these solutions work for me
61. 3:06others not so much
62. 3:07like hiring a speech coach that was
63. 3:10outside of my student budget but online
64. 3:13courses that's where I learned how to
65. 3:16vary my tone up and down how do talk
66. 3:18pretty really fast that I could get
67. 3:19someone's excited or to slow right down
68. 3:24to get someone's attention and I
69. 3:27practiced I practiced in front of the
70. 3:30mirror at least that's where I had one
71. 3:32friend who thought I was good as for the
72. 3:36public speaking club Toastmasters that
73. 3:39was fantastic I got to go in front of
74. 3:41others and I got feedback on what I did
75. 3:44good and what I did bad so I did all
76. 3:48these things and I realized that first I
77. 3:51was trapped in this cold dark hole where
78. 3:55the fear of public speaking haunted at
79. 3:57me it pulled me down and over here was
80. 4:02this promise of sunshine of green
81. 4:05pastures no anxiety but the path from
82. 4:08here to here was all over the place I
83. 4:11had to do all these things and I thought
84. 4:13to myself there had to be one simpler
85. 4:16way there had to be one way that I could
86. 4:19go from here and leap to here so I went
87. 4:24back to Google the source of all wisdom
88. 4:25did some research and I started learning
89. 4:29and reading a lot about artificial
90. 4:30intelligence about these personal
91. 4:32assistants we have in our pocket like
92. 4:34Siri Alexa who understand what we're
93. 4:37saying hey Siri was the next meeting I
94. 4:41have they understand what we say what if
95. 4:49they could also understand how you're
96. 4:51saying something and analyze your voice
97. 4:54what if they could be your speech
98. 4:57coaches what if every single person in
99. 5:00the world anywhere had their own
100. 5:03personal on-demand speech coach can you
101. 5:07imagine a world where anyone has this
102. 5:10help to help them overcome this fear of
103. 5:13public speaking to help them speak
104. 5:16powerfully to help them share their
105. 5:20ideas that's the idea that God has
106. 5:23started that's the idea that helped us
107. 5:26create or I aural AI a mobile app that
108. 5:31counts your arms and us a mobile app
109. 5:34that gives you personalized lessons a
110. 5:36place to practice them quietly in
111. 5:40privacy and an app that gives you
112. 5:43instant feedback using artificial
113. 5:45intelligence now a year and a half ago
114. 5:49when my roommate and I started building
115. 5:51this we were no experts all we knew is
116. 5:54that we want to build something we want
117. 5:56to create a solution we were no speech
118. 5:58coaches we were not public speakers we
119. 6:02were no data scientists but we had the
120. 6:04power of the Internet so we read bunch
121. 6:07of research papers on computational
122. 6:09linguistics
123. 6:10we spoke with hundreds of speech coaches
124. 6:13trying to understand how they give
125. 6:15feedback on their speech we watched
126. 6:17videos on machine learning and
127. 6:19artificial intelligence so that we could
128. 6:21codify all these things and create this
129. 6:24app because we believe that we can use
130. 6:28technology to help people become better
131. 6:31versions of ourselves and the reason I'm
132. 6:35sharing my story with you guys today is
133. 6:37not to tell you guys go out and build
134. 6:39or be entrepreneurs I'm saying go out
135. 6:43and face your fears don't burry them
136. 6:46deep inside if you have a problem look
137. 6:49for a solution if nothing exists create
138. 6:52that solution if you don't have the
139. 6:54skills go to Google find how you can
140. 6:57improve your knowledge and create
141. 7:00something for me it's all started when I
142. 7:03was little that first time I felt the
143. 7:07fear of public speaking
144. 7:09that's what empowered me to act that's
145. 7:12what empowered me to go on this journey
146. 7:14of becoming a better speaker and this
147. 7:17journey is never ending you will never
148. 7:20see the finish line in fact there is no
149. 7:22finish line in public speaking you can
150. 7:25always get better remember that you can
151. 7:28always become a better speaker you only
152. 7:31stop if you tell yourself you're good
153. 7:34enough thank you
154. 7:44by the way I was recording my speech
155. 7:48let's see what feedback or I gives ok so
156. 7:55I had a few filler words like you know
157. 7:58and um my pace
158. 8:00ok 107 worse for a minute not too bad
159. 8:03good energy and then some feedback or I
160. 8:07was giving almost perfect I think I need
161. 8:10to practice a little bit more and it's
162. 8:12saying looks like you'll be hosting a
163. 8:14TED talk at no time and my speech 30 a
164. 8:17plus and my transcript and I can even
165. 8:21play back my audio and listen to itself
166. 8:27check it out
167. 8:29[Applause]