Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,

Good morning.

(Standing here.) Now facing the screen is the same as standing on the stage, my heartbeat is over 100 times/minute. I have fear. I feel nervous.

Dear audience, contest chair.

Have you ever felt the same when you took part in the speech contest? Do you have a good way to deal with this situation?

I was told to take a deep breath. That worked, just a little bit.

I was told to regard the audience as cabbages. I cannot, and you wouldn’t.

My secret weapon is to tell myself a story.

In the story, I am standing on a large stage just as we have in the Toastmasters International speech contest. The bright light sheds over my head. I turn around (Sherrie Su 2018) and start my speech naturally like Dananjaya Hettiarachchi (2014): I see something in you, but I don’t know what it is.

From that moment on, I feel myself becoming Dananjaya. I am a championship speaker. The nervousness has gone after telling myself a story. I have no more fear to speak on the stage.

Dear Audience, telling myself a story is the magic for me to conquer my fear. This is true for you, too. Let me ask you a question.

How many of you have kids?

Well, we all were kids once, and some have kids now. Little kids are fantastic storytellers. They often tell themselves stories. We may notice that kids sometimes talk to themselves. They sometimes talk to their toys. Sometimes they talk loudly, sometimes they talk gentlely, and sometime they even laugh out happily. They are developing a whole story. They are telling the story to themselves. This means we all have the ability to tell ourselves a story.

From psychological point of view, telling oneself a story is a good thing. Private self-talking has mental benefits and practicing it positively can make you feel confident and help you reach your goals.

I remembered that I was in school many year ago. There was a lot of home work, no less than today’s students. Sometimes we had to write the new words 10 times each. It was like a work impossible. How did I deal with this? Once I told myself the story about the magic pen of Ma Liang. If I got that magic pen, I could do my homework effortlessly. In the story, I asked Ma liang for his magic pen. Maliang gave his magic pen to me？ No, he gave my own pen to me, and said, “write another word.” I wrote, and wrote, as if I had that magic pen. Finally, I finish all the writing magically. I was happy and the hardwork was gone.

Now I realized that in the story I was actually telling myself Aaron Beverly (2019): This is my mission, take it very seriously.

Today, many of us are in the Toastmasters clubs. We practice public speaking in front of people. This is not easy. Many people become nervous. It is natural because fear of public speaking is the biggest phobia for all of us. To conquer it, my secret is to tell myself a story of a glorious victory in speech, and the real information is to tell myself Mike Carr (2020): The victory is not in the result. The victory is in the try.

Dear fellow members, and distinguished guests, you can do the same. Have you ever faced a difficlut situation? Tell yourself a story to solve the problem. Have you ever faced a joyful moment? Tell yourself a story to double the happiness. Have you ever wanted to tell your story loadly? Come to the stage. Everything will be ok. By all means, after 5 to 7 minutes, Ramona J. Smith (2018): I am still standing.

Thank you.