I do! I love it! I do it every single chance I get. In fact, I had a chance today.

There's a conference being held by an insurance aggregator. These guys sign up lots of insurance agencies and then provide them with insurance products to sell. Our company provides one of those products so they asked us to speak. The group is about 150 people.

So here I am in Dallas, Texas. I wrote my speech two days ago, and read through it once. Then O drove up here yesterday but I went to dinner at my favorite pizza place, so I didn't rehearse any yesterday. But I'm not scheduled to speak until 3:15 PM (it's 1:15 PM as I write this) and I figured I'd have a few hours to practice. It's not a long speech - 15 minutes - and since I wrote it myself, I already know what it says.

But then CATASTROPHE!

We took a break at 10:15 AM. I was on the phone to the office when the convention organizer came running up to me. "How do you want to be mic'ed? Lapel mic, or hold a mic like a rock star?"

"Lapel," I said, "But I don't speak until this afternoon, right?"

"No, you're next! My assistant sent the wrong schedule. You're on in 2 minutes!"

AWESOME. TOTALLY AWESOME.

I loved it! I killed the speech - obviously - and the adreniline was incredible. Heck, I'll give the speech again at 3:15 if they want me to!

Any of y'all like to speak in public? Got any great/funny stories about it? I've got dozens!

Congrats!

I shout to people sometimes, assholes anyway. Does that count?

I've been an introvert most of my adult life; however, through positive thinking I can break the ice with total strangers at social gatherings and engage an audience with confidence. It helps that people regularly tell me I have a pleasant voice.

RodeoSchro said:

I do! I love it! I do it every single chance I get. In fact, I had a chance today.

There's a conference being held by an insurance aggregator. These guys sign up lots of insurance agencies and then provide them with insurance products to sell. Our company provides one of those products so they asked us to speak. The group is about 150 people.

So here I am in Dallas, Texas. I wrote my speech two days ago, and read through it once. Then O drove up here yesterday but I went to dinner at my favorite pizza place, so I didn't rehearse any yesterday. But I'm not scheduled to speak until 3:15 PM (it's 1:15 PM as I write this) and I figured I'd have a few hours to practice. It's not a long speech - 15 minutes - and since I wrote it myself, I already know what it says.

But then CATASTROPHE!

We took a break at 10:15 AM. I was on the phone to the office when the convention organizer came running up to me. "How do you want to be mic'ed? Lapel mic, or hold a mic like a rock star?"

"Lapel," I said, "But I don't speak until this afternoon, right?"

"No, you're next! My assistant sent the wrong schedule. You're on in 2 minutes!"

AWESOME. TOTALLY AWESOME.

I loved it! I killed the speech - obviously - and the adreniline was incredible. Heck, I'll give the speech again at 3:15 if they want me to!

Any of y'all like to speak in public? Got any great/funny stories about it? I've got dozens!

Congrats Rodeo!

When I was younger, I hated speaking in public. Took public speaking as a course when I was an undergrad and gave a speech in front of a classroom that was mostly made up of jocks. My speech was about women in the military. I had called recruiters in researching the subject, and spoke with other military personnel that I knew, and was all set for my speech.

Before I took the course, however, my cousin told me I would only make a C in the class, no matter what I did. For one, I wasn't a guy. (The instructor liked the guys.) Secondly, I wasn't involved in his drama course, which he favored those in drama. I was determined I would do good, so I put a lot of time and effort into developing my speech.

As I'm giving, my instructor starts to laugh, the guys in the classroom start to laugh. I'm getting breathless, because I'm so nervous and being serious, and everyone is laughing. At the end of my speech, my instructor said, "I hope you did that as a joke. Women in the military? Never! They should stay home." I ended up with a C in the class. The ONLY C I ever made in college, undergrad or grad courses.

But after I graduated with my Master's, I finally found what I was passionate about (social work). I was able to speak out about it in public. Then I became a case manager trainer and had to get in front of classes of 30 to 50 people and speak. I was consistently told I was the best trainer, that they could tell that I cared about case management and about our clients. And soon, I actually loved getting in front of people and talking. I even had to give presentations in front of the Director of the State Agency I worked for and my supervisor, her supervisor, and his supervisor, as well as 200 state employees. Before I gave my presentation, they were having to mess with the projector for the power point, and instead of dead air, I started talking to them. Told them they would have to bare with me, that I was still on a purple high. I told them that I had just seen Prince in Atlanta 5 days earlier and was still "in the groove" and did a sideways dance slide. I was keeping them entertained until they got the projector working. And then, two days later ... Even the director of the state agency emailed me, to tell me how sorry he was to hear about Prince, and how he hoped I (and all of Prince's fans) were doing alright. I quit training within 6 months and went back to case management. But I do still miss training and getting in front of people and talking, which is really weird for me, since I've been shy and timid most of my life.

Yep. When i did my first degree, we were required to do oral presentations in class and that taught me to speak up. My second job also entailed giving presentations, including in foreign languages. At the moment, I do rap and poetry (not for a living... yet ) and that also involves getting on stage and speaking up. I like it and I'm not nervous anymore. The biggest reward is when the audience laughs (I try to make my poems and lyrics funny) and cheeringly applauds.

Sure why not. If I start to bomb I'll make things up.

One time I had to give a short speech to 4,000 Boy Scouts. It was just before the grand opening of NRG Stadium (then known as Reliant Stadium). Not wanting to repeat the fiasco that happened when the New England Patriots opened their new stadium and forgot to check what would happen when everyone went to the bathroom at the same time (it was VERY gross, LOL), we decided to have the Scouts run a test. They would turn on all the sinks and then flush every toilet at the same time. The object was to find out where any line back-ups or overflows might be, and fix them before the first Houston Texans football game.

So we had these 4,000 Scouts in the stands and the two organizations involved in the stadium had representatives give a short speech. I was chosen to represent one of those organizations; the other was the county government and it was represented by a fellow named Mike. He went first.

Mike gave his standard Rotary Club speech, where basically he thanked all the corporate sponsors. Needless to say, this went right over the heads of these 13 - 16 year-olds. I thought to myself, "Thanks for the great warm-up, Mike!" as I took the mic. Here is the joke I opened up with:

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?" said 4,000 Scouts.

"Peas!"

"Peas who?" said 4,000 Scouts, who were laughing hysterically.

"Peased to meet you, I'm RodeoSchro!"

I killed it! They were laughing like crazy at a corny joke! Except.....

....this was an event specifically designed to test toilets. To test what happens to toilets when everyone does the same thing at the same time. And that thing was.....

.....peeing!

I said, "Peas!"

The Scouts heard "Pees!"

I was a BIG HIT.

.

[Edited 4/30/18 14:47pm]

I'm rather good at it by now, but I don't like it.

Depends on if I've had a few drinks before hand