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

Summary

Donna SH shares her journey from experiencing the fear of public speaking as a child in Tanzania to overcoming it through various methods. She discovered public speaking is a skill that can be learned, not just an innate talent. Inspired by the idea of personal AI assistants, she and her roommate created 'Aural AI,' a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to provide personalized speech coaching, practice, and instant feedback. Donna's story encourages others to face their fears, seek solutions, and use technology to improve themselves.

Takeaways

• 🎓 Donna's fear of public speaking began on her first day of school in Tanzania, where she was unable to introduce herself in front of the class.
• 🌟 Despite overcoming other childhood fears, her fear of public speaking persisted into college in America.
• 🔍 Donna sought solutions on Google and discovered public speaking is a skill that can be learned, not just a talent you're born with.
• 🗣️ She experimented with various methods to improve her public speaking, including online courses and Toastmasters, but found them not entirely satisfactory.
• 🤖 Inspired by AI assistants like Siri and Alexa, Donna envisioned a personal, on-demand speech coach using artificial intelligence.
• 💡 She co-founded Aural AI, a mobile app that counts 'ums' and 'uhs,' provides personalized lessons, and offers instant feedback to help users improve their public speaking.
• 🛠️ Despite lacking expertise in speech coaching or data science, Donna and her roommate leveraged internet resources to build Aural AI.
• 📈 The app uses computational linguistics and machine learning to analyze speech and provide constructive feedback.
• 🚀 Donna's story encourages facing fears and creating solutions, emphasizing that improvement in public speaking is an ongoing journey with no finish line.
• 🎙️ Aural AI is a testament to the power of technology in personal development, aiming to help anyone become a better speaker.

Q & A

What was Donna's initial reaction when she was asked to introduce herself in front of the class?

Donna felt extremely nervous and embarrassed, which led to her crying in front of the class due to the fear of public speaking.

How did Donna's fear of public speaking affect her throughout her life?

The fear of public speaking became a part of her soul and persisted even into her college years in America, despite her overcoming other childhood fears.

What was the first step Donna took to overcome her fear of public speaking?

Donna searched on Google for ways to overcome the fear of public speaking, which led her to discover various techniques and the idea that public speaking is a teachable skill.

What solutions did Donna find during her online research for overcoming her fear?

Donna found solutions such as hiring a speech coach, practicing in front of a mirror, taking online courses, and attending public speaking clubs like Toastmasters.

Which solution did Donna find to be the most effective for her?

Donna found attending Toastmasters club to be the most effective, as it allowed her to practice in front of others and receive feedback on her performance.

What was the realization Donna had about public speaking that changed her perspective?

Donna realized that public speaking is not something one is born with but a skill that can be learned and improved upon.

What idea inspired Donna to create a mobile app?

Donna was inspired to create a mobile app that could act as a personal, on-demand speech coach using artificial intelligence to provide instant feedback and personalized lessons.

What challenges did Donna and her roommate face when they started building the app?

They faced challenges such as lack of expertise in speech coaching, public speaking, and data science, but they overcame these by learning from research papers and consulting with speech coaches.

How does the app Donna helped create assist users in improving their public speaking skills?

The app counts arm movements, provides personalized lessons, allows for quiet practice in privacy, and offers instant feedback using artificial intelligence.

What message does Donna want to convey to others through her story?

Donna encourages others to face their fears, seek solutions, and create them if they don't exist. She emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement and self-empowerment.

How does Donna's app provide feedback on speech?

The app provides feedback on aspects such as filler words, pace, energy levels, and overall speech quality, and allows users to playback their audio for self-assessment.

Outlines

00:00

😨 Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

Donna SH shares her personal journey of overcoming the fear of public speaking, which began with a traumatic experience at school after moving from Pakistan to Tanzania. She describes the anxiety she felt when asked to introduce herself in front of her new classmates. This fear persisted into college, where she decided to actively seek solutions to overcome it. Through online research, she discovered various methods such as hiring a speech coach, practicing in front of a mirror, and joining public speaking clubs like Toastmasters. She realized that public speaking is a skill that can be learned and not just an innate talent. Donna experimented with different techniques, finding some more effective than others, and ultimately sought a simpler way to improve her skills.

05:01

🤖 Introducing Aural AI: Personal Speech Coaching Through Technology

Donna and her roommate embarked on a project to create a mobile app called Aural AI, which uses artificial intelligence to provide personalized speech coaching. They were not experts in the field but leveraged the power of the internet to educate themselves on computational linguistics and machine learning. They consulted with speech coaches and incorporated their feedback mechanisms into the app. Aural AI offers on-demand coaching, personalized lessons, and instant feedback, aiming to help anyone overcome their fear of public speaking and become a more powerful communicator. Donna's story is an encouragement to face fears and find or create solutions, emphasizing that improvement in public speaking is an ongoing journey without an end. She concludes by showcasing the app's feedback on her own speech, highlighting its capabilities in providing constructive criticism and encouragement.

Keywords

💡Public Speaking

Public speaking refers to the act of addressing an audience in a public forum, often with the intent to inform, persuade, or inspire. In the video's theme, it is presented as a skill that the speaker initially feared but later sought to overcome. The script illustrates this fear through the speaker's experience of being put on the spot in a classroom, which led to feelings of anxiety and embarrassment.

💡Fear

Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat or danger. In the context of the video, the speaker describes overcoming the fear of public speaking, which is a common phobia. The script uses the fear of public speaking as a catalyst for the speaker's journey to self-improvement and the creation of an AI-based solution to help others.

💡Overcoming

Overcoming implies the act of surmounting or conquering an obstacle or challenge. The video's narrative revolves around the speaker's personal journey to overcome the fear of public speaking, which is a central theme. The speaker's realization that public speaking is a teachable skill and not just an innate talent is a key moment in this process.

💡Google

Google is a search engine used for finding information on the internet. In the script, the speaker mentions using Google to search for solutions to overcome the fear of public speaking, highlighting the role of technology and information access in personal development.

💡Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The video introduces the concept of AI as a tool for personal development, specifically in the form of an app that provides personalized speech coaching, demonstrating the application of AI in everyday life.

💡Personal Assistants

Personal assistants, like Siri and Alexa mentioned in the script, are AI-powered virtual assistants that can perform tasks, answer questions, and interact with users. The video suggests the potential for these assistants to evolve into speech coaches, indicating a broadening of their capabilities.

💡Speech Coach

A speech coach is a professional who helps individuals improve their public speaking skills. The script discusses the idea of hiring a speech coach as one method to overcome the fear of public speaking, but also explores the possibility of AI replacing this role through technology.

💡Toastmasters

Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that focuses on the development of communication and leadership skills through a program of self-paced learning. In the video, the speaker mentions attending Toastmasters clubs as part of their journey to improve public speaking skills.

💡Aural AI

Aural AI is the name of the mobile app created by the speaker and their roommate. It is designed to count 'arms and us' (presumably a reference to aspects of speech delivery), provide personalized lessons, and offer instant feedback using AI. The app represents the culmination of the speaker's efforts to overcome their fear and help others do the same.

💡Empowering

Empowering refers to the process of giving someone the authority or ability to do something. In the video, the speaker's fear of public speaking becomes an empowering force that drives them to find a solution and create a tool that can help others, thus transforming a personal challenge into a source of strength.

💡Journey

The term 'journey' in the video metaphorically describes the speaker's personal development and growth in overcoming their fear of public speaking. It is a continuous process of improvement, as the speaker emphasizes that there is no finish line in public speaking, and one can always become better.

Highlights

Donna SH's full-time job is counting people's arms and us.

Donna's first experience of public speaking fear occurred in school in Tanzania.

Donna's fear of public speaking persisted into college in America.

Donna sought solutions for overcoming her fear of public speaking online.

Public speaking is a teachable skill, contrary to Donna's initial belief.

Donna experimented with various methods to improve her public speaking.

Online courses helped Donna learn to vary her tone and pace in speaking.

Toastmasters provided a platform for Donna to practice and receive feedback.

Donna realized there must be a simpler way to improve public speaking skills.

Donna researched artificial intelligence as a potential solution for speech coaching.

The concept of a personal, on-demand speech coach through AI was born.

Donna and her roommate built an app, Aural AI, to help with public speaking.

Aural AI provides personalized lessons and instant feedback using AI.

Donna's journey began with a childhood fear and evolved into creating a solution.

The importance of facing fears and seeking solutions is emphasized in Donna's story.

Donna encourages continuous improvement in public speaking with no finish line.

Aural AI's feedback feature was demonstrated during Donna's speech.

Donna's speech received positive feedback from the Aural AI app.

Transcripts

my name is Donna SH and my full-time job

is to count people's arms and us and

like it all started at my first day of

school after my family moved from

Pakistan to Tanzania

I was busy sketching my dream cars in my

notebook and all of a sudden I hear a

voice in my direction the teacher

Daanish can you please rise up and

introduce yourself she had put me on the

spot I was in this foreign land 30 pairs

of eyes staring at me how would you feel

when a teacher puts you on the spot in

this kind of situation my mind went

blank my heart started racing I kept

quiet I started hearing giggles in the

classroom and then tears ran down my

cheek that was the first time I felt the

fear of speaking in front of others the

first time I felt the fear of public

speaking

fast-forward a few years I was at

college here in America that fear still

stuck with me it wasn't slow it was part

of my soul now when I was little I had

many other fears I was afraid of the

dark the monsters under my bed the

cockroaches and I don't mean the tiny

cockroaches here but the big flying

cockroaches I had back home in Pakistan

in Tanzania but I outgrew these fears I

overcame them as I grew older but public

speaking no way I was still afraid of it

but I decided enough was enough I

decided to do something about it to take

that step and find a solution and so I

went to the one place on the internet

where we all look for problems - our

solution to our problems Google I

searched on Google how to overcome the

fear of public speaking the first link

told me about the great things I could

be if I overcame this fear sound like a

leader

get a great job share your ideas give a

TED talk change the world the second

link showed me all the different ways I

could overcome this fear hire a speech

coach talk in front of the mirror do

online courses attend public speaking

clubs like Toastmasters that's when I

realized that I had it wrong all this

time I thought you are either born a

public speaker or you're not I was wrong

I realized that public speaking is

actually a teachable skill that means

that if any one of you here wants to

speak powerfully like any of your famous

public speakers yes you can we all can

now some of these solutions work for me

others not so much

like hiring a speech coach that was

outside of my student budget but online

courses that's where I learned how to

vary my tone up and down how do talk

pretty really fast that I could get

someone's excited or to slow right down

to get someone's attention and I

practiced I practiced in front of the

mirror at least that's where I had one

friend who thought I was good as for the

public speaking club Toastmasters that

was fantastic I got to go in front of

others and I got feedback on what I did

good and what I did bad so I did all

these things and I realized that first I

was trapped in this cold dark hole where

the fear of public speaking haunted at

me it pulled me down and over here was

this promise of sunshine of green

pastures no anxiety but the path from

here to here was all over the place I

had to do all these things and I thought

to myself there had to be one simpler

way there had to be one way that I could

go from here and leap to here so I went

back to Google the source of all wisdom

did some research and I started learning

and reading a lot about artificial

intelligence about these personal

assistants we have in our pocket like

Siri Alexa who understand what we're

saying hey Siri was the next meeting I

have they understand what we say what if

they could also understand how you're

saying something and analyze your voice

what if they could be your speech

coaches what if every single person in

the world anywhere had their own

personal on-demand speech coach can you

imagine a world where anyone has this

help to help them overcome this fear of

public speaking to help them speak

powerfully to help them share their

ideas that's the idea that God has

started that's the idea that helped us

create or I aural AI a mobile app that

counts your arms and us a mobile app

that gives you personalized lessons a

place to practice them quietly in

privacy and an app that gives you

instant feedback using artificial

intelligence now a year and a half ago

when my roommate and I started building

this we were no experts all we knew is

that we want to build something we want

to create a solution we were no speech

coaches we were not public speakers we

were no data scientists but we had the

power of the Internet so we read bunch

of research papers on computational

linguistics

we spoke with hundreds of speech coaches

trying to understand how they give

feedback on their speech we watched

videos on machine learning and

artificial intelligence so that we could

codify all these things and create this

app because we believe that we can use

technology to help people become better

versions of ourselves and the reason I'm

sharing my story with you guys today is

not to tell you guys go out and build

or be entrepreneurs I'm saying go out

and face your fears don't burry them

deep inside if you have a problem look

for a solution if nothing exists create

that solution if you don't have the

skills go to Google find how you can

improve your knowledge and create

something for me it's all started when I

was little that first time I felt the

fear of public speaking

that's what empowered me to act that's

what empowered me to go on this journey

of becoming a better speaker and this

journey is never ending you will never

see the finish line in fact there is no

finish line in public speaking you can

always get better remember that you can

always become a better speaker you only

stop if you tell yourself you're good

enough thank you

by the way I was recording my speech

let's see what feedback or I gives ok so

I had a few filler words like you know

and um my pace

ok 107 worse for a minute not too bad

good energy and then some feedback or I

was giving almost perfect I think I need

to practice a little bit more and it's

saying looks like you'll be hosting a

TED talk at no time and my speech 30 a

plus and my transcript and I can even

play back my audio and listen to itself

check it out

[Applause]