The number one fear in the world

Jerry Seinfeld, an American comedian, once noted 

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

For many of us, public speaking is in fact that frightening. What if we mess up? What if they can’t understand us? What if they don’t listen? What if they laugh at me? These are all realistic possibilities, and it’s hard to push them out of your mind. 

This weekend, I helped facilitate the Duke Career Conference. Many successful alumni returned to Duke to give guidance, advice, and to network with current Duke students, and I ended up meeting a lot of interesting people. One alumni who stood out in particular was Ben Sands. He’s a life coach that works with people to help them figure out what they really want out of life and how they are going to get it. In order to really understand yourself, he said, you have to go through some questions. You’re afraid of public speaking. Why? Once you come up with an answer to that, ask yourself “why” again. For example, I might say I’m afraid of public speaking because people might laugh at me. Why am I afraid of people laughing at me? Once you’ve answered that, ask “why” again. 

You need to go through this process until you’ve asked “why” 5 times, according to Ben. Then you will have gotten to the root issue that bothers you. Maybe it’s fear of not being good enough or fear of disappointing people. Dealing with that issue is much more difficult than simply imagining the audience in their underwear to make you more comfortable, but recognizing this underlying issue for what it is and dealing with it as best as you can will certainly have a much more lasting effect. Better yet, the positive impact from this understanding will likely extend into areas of your life far beyond public speaking. 

Julia’s 5-Minute Face Workout

Betty better butter Brad’s bread. Red leather yellow leather. Sally sells seashells by the sea shore. Tongue twisters are hard enough in your native language, but in a second language, the difficulty increases exponentially.

As Dr. Hemphill pointed out, though, different languages use different muscles of the face to produce sounds. In fact, your face will get sore if you practice tongue twisters long enough. So how can you mimic these sounds if you don’t have the right muscles developed? To help with that, I’ve developed a 5-minute face workout to help with American English sounds. 

Throughout this workout, you should be looking in a mirror. Watch what your mouth is doing, and pay attention to what a native-speaker’s mouth looks like when they speak. Repeat each of the tongue twisters below ten times a day. It’s the easiest workout you’ll ever do!

1. “Lily ladles little Letty’s lentil soup. “

I chose this one because the “L” sound is difficult to reproduce in some languages. (Letty is a girl’s name.)

2. “They threw three thick things.”

Once again, the “TH” sound can be tricky. Notice that “TH” sounds differently in words like “They” versus “thick”. Have an English-speaker say this for you, and pay attention to the subtle differences. 

3. “Betty better butter Brad’s bread”

This was one of the one’s Dr. Hemphill used as an example. 

4. “Toy phone. Toy Phone. Toy Phone.”

Seems easy, right? Try it. 

Take a break from your busy academic and professional work schedule for 5 mins to try some of these exercises  Yes, you’ll look ridiculous speaking gibberish at yourself in front of a mirror, but it’s better look foolish now than in front of an audience. 

Happy practicing!

Julia

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Dale Carnegie Group Public Speaking Workshop

Our club is proud to have been able to hold this event. So that we can continue providing you with workshops that meet your needs, please provide your feedback on the event in the comments section of this blog.

Thanks,

2LA Exec Board

Dale Carnegie Workshop

A history-making event of Duke 2LA. We pulled it off successfully and we hope to continue to do so.

         The Dale Carnegie workshop was a success! About twenty members had the opportunity to interact with the presenter in a 3hr long training session focused on overcoming fear of public speaking and improving confidence in presentation skills. The presenter was extremely knowledgable. He had interesting stories to tell in a manner that kept us engaged. In the last hour we all had the chance to participate in a fulfilling exercise. We had to prepare a five minute presentation explaining a particular complex topic with a simple relatable analogy. All of the analogies were well thought out, and in a friendly, mistakes-are-normal atmosphere we were impressed by our membership.

The Dale Carnegie Group also offered one of our members an opportunity to participate in two month public speaking course free of charge. Given the great success of the workshop, we are looking forward to having another workshop later in the semester. Also, we may choose to bring back the Dale Carnegie Group next school year. Stay tuned!