Surviving a bad memory!
On 2017, Theresa May the prime minister of the United Kingdom had an unpleasant public speaking experience during her speech in the conservative conference.
It started with an ongoing cough, then her struggle to maintain herself speaking and it ended with an interruption from a prankster.
Putting politics aside, such incident is one of the hardest moments in any speaker's life.
That incident is what we call the black spot and it can affect how your whole speaking future would look like.
Most people when they go through such a bad experience they either decide to run from any future speaking opportunities, or they decide to forget and move on, but even when they try to do so, they find that their speaking level isn't getting any better!
So what is going wrong here?
That single incident can either remain a black spot or it can turn into a turning point in your life.
Your trials to forget are simply wrong, because you need to confront that memory and to start questioning:
How do i feel about it?
Why did that happen?
What are the possibilities that this might happen again?
Am i the only one who went through this?
How can I avoid repeating such situation and how it could have been handled in a better way?
You need to accept that dark spot, confront it and learn from it.
Most great speakers have their own dark spots and they are grateful for it, because it made them who they are today.
On 2018, Theresa May went back to the same conference hall, dancing while rising up the stage and throwing a joke about her past performance. And it was crystal clear for us that she accepted that past happened for a reason.
They say it takes a lot of courage to speak in front of people, but i would say it takes a lot of courage to rise up with determination and try again when things go wrong.