Years later, only after I entered the professional world, did I realize the importance of communication and public speaking.
I joined Toastmasters and started competing in professional speech contests. Of course, I lost a lot of them!
I went through all the tough experiences you might be going through now. Stage fear, fear of judgment, fear of failure, fear of mistakes, fear of forgetting, shaky hands and legs, going blank, forgetting lines, nervousness, anxiety, hesitation to speak, low confidence in standing before the audience, choosing topic, writing a speech, structuring, starting a speech, ending a speech, making a speech interesting, adding humor, lack of storytelling skills, audience engagement, vocabulary issues, speaking fast, pacing, body language issues, and I can go on and on. You name it, I've gone through it.
Then I met my mentor, Jerry Ayyathurai, in Connecticut, USA, who changed the way I approached public speaking. Slowly and steadily, I went on to win over 25 speech contests, reaching the top 3 at the district level in both the U.S. and India.
Even more importantly, I got the confidence to ask a girl out, who eventually became my girlfriend. Now I’m married (same girl!), and we have a son. I started behaving more confidently in my professional career, that lead to new opportunities.
I realized that the transformation was much bigger than public speaking. It was communication intelligence. And thus, I began my journey by writing books and coaching to help others gain communication intelligence.
Today, after writing over several books (Toastmaster's Secret, Connect Using Humor and Story, Public Speaking Essentials, Public Speaking Topic Secrets, The Ultimate Public Speaking Survival Guide, Write Effective Emails at Work), a hundred thousand readers have used my books to speak with clarity, confidence, and impact.
And I still get excited every time a reader or a coaching client says:
“They asked me to speak again.”
When communication is simple to understand and easy to implement, anything becomes possible. That’s the spirit behind everything I create.
I'd encourage you to get this book and see the results that you'll love.