Finding My Voice: Learning to Speak up by Failing.

The silence that followed my presentation when it crashed and burned in the classroom I

still remember. I took my note cards and walked away, my hands shaking, and I could not turn

my head to see anybody, I wanted to go down the ground. The feeling of being a total failure

happened that time when I was at the first semester of college standing stance frozen before a

group of thirty students and my speech that was well planned, collapsed. I had never been vocal

before, and I did not like open speaking at all, as I thought that there were certain people who

were not created to speak. But what I thought was my greatest academic nightmare turned out to

be the reason behind one of the most valuable lessons of my life: failure is not the vice versa of

success but a step that should be made to grow. By bombing that presentation and the hard work

that came with it I realized that to find my voice, I would not have to be perfect, I would have to

be brave and persistent and willing to be uncomfortable.

Prior to that presentation, invisibility was my art that I had perfected over the course of

eighteen years. I sat in the back row, made no eye contact with teachers in high school and my

heart would run wild whenever I heard the detested words, group discussion. I persuaded myself

that I was silent because of my personality and not because it was a weakness. When I did speak

it was only a whisper and I felt my face burning all the way through. It was not complicated in

my strategy because I could not fail, as long as I remained quiet. I took up Public Speaking as a

mandatory subject and I was already afraid of it, but I was telling myself that I would only have

to get through one semester. I would prepare great speeches, rehearse them to perfection, and

read them as fast as I could to spend as little time under the limelight as possible. This had

worked with my graduation speech in high school where I delivered it within ninety seconds. I
really thought that being a risk-averse and trying to protect myself to the least is the intelligent

way of dealing with my fear.

My first big presentation day happened in the most dramatic way, everything went

wrong. I already knew my seven minute informative speech on climate change I had practiced it

dozens of times in my dorm room mirror. But as I was standing up at the podium and I was

looking out on the sea of faces I was completely blanked out. The sentence I had prepared to say

at the beginning disappeared. I fumbled in my note cards, and the words were disconnected and

incomprehensible. "Um... so... climate change..." I stammered, my voice shaking. The silence

stretched on. I would feel the sweat dripping down my spine. Someone coughed. I attempted to

proceed, but I persisted in losing my way, and repeated the same statistics two times, or omitting

whole passages. Seven minutes were reduced to little more than four before I relinquished the

task, and uttered the words, thank you, and virtually fled back to my seat. The remaining part of

the lesson I spent in front of my desk crying hysterically, but unable to leave the course because I

was sure that she failed me, and everyone now regarded me as a loser. It was a failure that was

absolute and final.

The next thing to come as a surprise was more than the failure. In her office, my

professor requested me to see her after the class. I anticipated some sort of criticism, yet I

received her story on bombing a presentation in graduate school. It is the only way to get through

fear, she said to me. She volunteered to work with me on a one-on-one basis, and assist me in

coming up with strategies that were not centered on simple memorization. During the following

few weeks, I was taught skills that I have not thought of before: maintaining eye contact with

friendly faces, practicing breathing to reduce anxiety, creating pauses instead of hurrying, and

most importantly, speaking with real intentions and not with references to scripts. Professor
Williams has assisted me in realizing that being authentic is more important than perfection. The

next time I made a presentation, I did not memorize a word, but I researched thoroughly on a

subject that I was passionate about, food insecurity on college campuses, and presented in a

manner that was based on knowledge, enthusiasm, and not fear. I continued to shake and I was

still nervous, but I was able to press through. By the time I completed, some of my classmates

made follow-up questions, and was keen on what I had to say. That connection of contact

revealed to me an important thing: genuine people react to genuineness, not to perfection.

This experience changed my core perception of learning and development. I used to think

that failure was a sign that I was incompetent that it was some immutable setback. I now

understand that failure gives information - it gives me an idea where I should develop and what I

should learn differently. This change of attitude is linked to what Carol Dweck refers to as a

growth mindset the realization that a person can acquire skills through hard work and dedication.

My poor performance in a presentation did not mean that I was unable to deliver a speech in

front of people; it meant that my (then) method of avoidance and memorization was not

effective. Failure would have been failure in itself to drop the class and never give it again. Ever

since that semester, I have made myself push to speak in classes, form study groups, and go so

far as to attend a panel discussion in the campus. The nervousness is still there every time but I

have learned to look at it as a sign of energy instead of a stop sign. I also find that my listening

style is different now as well, when other students have trouble saying what they need to say, I

am able to sympathize, rather than be judgmental, as it takes bravery to make your voice heard.

In retrospect, I am thankful that awful presentation, which is odd as it may seem. My

worst moment turned out to be my turning point. I got to know that not being a perfect or fearless

person, but rather someone who was ready to fail, who could be vulnerable, and continue to try,
even when it was uncomfortable, is what brought me my voice. The quiet girl who used to sit in

the back row has not disappeared, she still exists somewhere within me but does not determine

what I choose. I have learned that growth occurs not in our comfort zones but in such fearful

situations when we go out of our boundaries. There are instances that my voice trembles when I

address crowds, but now I do so. On my part, I have been taught that courage does not mean the

lack of fear but the choice to take action despite the fear.