What's the worst that happened to you while public speaking?

Well almost exact like you blushing heart beating very fast and i stopped to speak this was very awful for me

handheart wrote:Well almost exact like you blushing heart beating very fast and i stopped to speak this was very awful for me

How's your public speaking now?

Well, I started off like that as well. My face got bright red, I spend the whole speech looking at the ground, my hands were in my pockets, I was shaking like a leaf.... it was bad. However, that was seven or eight years ago, and I've had some more hilarious ones happen to me more recently.

I was presenting a sketch at a conference and my partner and I did some comedic improv during the second act. We got at least a chuckle and at most a rofl from everyone in the room, but we also completely lost our place because we didn't know the script all that well. We ended up jumping into the third act which was supposed to happen during the next assembly, and had to come up with extra material to cover our mistake.

Another fun story: When I was on stage I grabbed a wireless mic off its stand in order to be able to pass it back and fourth between myself and the other speakers (if I remember correctly we were doing a group introduction) and the back half of the mic stayed on the stand. I tapped the mic to see if it was still working, and once I found out it was I said, "Well that's awkward." I then grabbed the second half off of the stand and re attached it to the mic. The audience got a kick out of it.

If you learn how to just go with the flow when some of these kind of things happen then you can make mistakes a part of the presentation.

Complete blank out. It was very embarrassing. Couldn't recover from it.

Just a few months ago I was giving a speech and I actually started to cry on stage --Hard. Could hardly recover myself once the tears started flowing. I thought I had just completely bombed, but the crowd was eating it up. Some of them started crying with me, and several people afterward came up to me letting me know they really enjoyed the speech. They asked if I practiced crying during that part. What a crazy question! Of course I didn't practice lol

Long story short, there's lots of things that can go wrong during a speech/presentation, but know that the sun will absolutely rise the next day.

As if public speaking isn’t already an intimidating task, there are times when things can go completely wrong. The problem for nervous speakers is that if one thing goes wrong, everything else begins to crumble like the domino effect. As a practice, I prefer to be aware of the worst things that can happen and how I would overcome them.

• Forgetting the talking points can mar your confidence. You’ve got to stay calm. Remember that the audience has no clue about your speech. You can use cue cards to jog your memory.

• Public speaking is about connecting with the audience. Not being able to do that can affect your confidence. Keep your audience engaged from the beginning and ask them questions mid-speech/presentation.

• A slight technical difficulty can mess up your presentation. It is better to use your own laptop and have hard copies handy while making the presentation.

Worst thing is people walking out. Honestly, might not have been me they were at an all day event and I believe had to leave early to get back home. Still hurts though.