[Music] I'm sorry I I can't do this sorry I can't do this I just can't too nerve-racking what do you mean you can't what's wrong of course you can do this no it's just there too many people I'm just freaking out and this look at my heart be just going crazy and what if I forget something and I just want to escape this just I just want to skape this you want to escape this fine what about the consequences you know what happens to people who don't speak up in front of others you know what
happens to their careers what about tomorrow when you have to speak up in a board meeting in front of an interview panel what are you going to do then how long you going to keep escaping this you want to have a lifetime worth of anxiety and pain and escape and regret and failure I don't know I it's just I I I know make sense but I I don't know I just I just can't there's so many people who who can't speak up in public I mean these people sitting here and a lot of them can't
speak up in public so it's just have to deal with it what do I do okay hold on a second hold on a second I can prove to you that you can okay watch how many of you guys over here can come up here and confidently speak up can I get a show of hands so just just maybe what 10 15% right but watch hold on how many of you who didn't raise your hands if I were to put a gun to your parents' heads and told you then you have to come up here and
speak or I'm going to shoot them would you then be afraid or would you come up and speak how many of you say you would still not come up and speak to save your parents life show your hands zero what about you put a gun to your parents head you wouldn't come up and speak no of course what are you say I mean this life and death situation of course I'd be able to speak that's not a big deal then exactly life and that situation your career is on the line that's life isn't it what
are you going to do isn't that a big thing for you because when you look at the big fear of life and death then you start thinking this is easy this is nothing but you know what your career your entire life is at stake that is a big consequence it is like a gun to your head and if you start focusing on the big pain that you're going to be getting tomorrow if you don't do this today you are going to think that this is nothing isn't it okay it makes sense uh I suppose I
could uh all right so how do how do I how do I get comfortable and be able to do this like like you okay so it's got to start from the outside all right it has to start from the outset what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about speaking in front of a crowd the first thing that comes to my mind H do you want me to say it yeah go ahead and and say it it's the first thing that comes to your head when you look at a group
of people first thing that comes to my mind is oh okay he made me say it um there's a lot of other swear words that come also which I definitely can't see right now and then I start saying oh my God I need to escape this and I start finding ways of escaping it oh no wonder you have a fear of public speaking okay so we're going to be making a choice right now okay you're either going to accept the short-term anxiety and you're going to perform and develop and learn all right or you're going
to just say you know what I can't deal with this so let me just go back to that entire lifelong of pain two choices so because you've decided to go and kill this short-term anxiety you're going to say you know what I want this I want to face the crowd and I want to develop I want to learn so because the other choice is just too painful so the first thing you're going to say to yourself is I wanton this not oh my God how do I escape it okay and you you know that nervousness
you're talking about you want to pump up your fist just like sports people do all right look at that guy that's why he performs you want to pump up your fist and you want to say I want this all the time every single time before the day of your presentation during the night when you can't sleep in the morning when you can't eat and when you're on the way and when you're before you're facing the audience every single time you want to say I want this you got it you know what you make it sound
easy it's not it's just not easy it's just there's so many things so many issues you know what if I I just forget and I stand there and I look at the audience and I forget I didn't think of that that's interesting yeah I don't know in that case I think they're going to hang you they're going to hang you obviously how can you forget you know you're you're going to be on the front page of times of India for forgetting your speech it's going to be insane oh I didn't think of that okay so
let's do one thing because you think you might forget make a fool of yourself let's just go with option of a lifetime of mediocrity and failure how about that that makes sense right and when you're in that lifelong mediocrity and you're looking back at your life and regretting maybe then you can say you know what I chose this life because hey what if I forgot my speech that other day and if people looked at me weird do you want to do that because you're making a choice and you know what what do you say about
an interview tomorrow if you have an interview tomorrow or an exam tomorrow there are chances that you might not get picked up in that interview or you might not pass that exam but do you say that let me not go for that exam let me now go for the interview doesn't work like that and and and come on I don't know what to say if you forget who cares yeah I know that's not what I meant of course you're not going to be published on the times that's stupid but you don't also don't want to
look like an idiot right I mean seriously if I just forget everything and doesn't that is that a big deal okay you know what do one thing you write everything down and you just read it out okay then what I mean if forgetting is a big concern read out your entire speech because slowly and and steadily you will start gaining confidence to remember that entire thing but the point is not to escape that and go back because remember the other choice that's not really a good choice anyway okay okay all right but um but English
okay yeah you know what English is also a problem for me I I'm not I'm not fluent and and I fumble a lot so so what do I do about that it just makes me awkward English what about all the successful Europeans who speak and broken English all the time people are not judging you on your English speaking people are testing you on your confidence and do you really want to go back because you don't speak English you want to escape the situation and enter that entire life of mediocrity because your people would laugh at
your English who's the Prime Minister of our country what if he said that come on man you think smarter than that okay okay okay fine um there's too many people there just too many people you know you give me four five people six people 100 people and then there's an IIT Professor sitting in the audience what are you saying I can't do this and it's and the eyes looking at me I can't even make eye contact with them there's too many eyes looking at me all right hold on isn't that what you want you want
more people you you want more people to notice you right that's the whole point isn't it what do you want like a entire two people audience clapping for you what is wrong with you you want more eyes and and by the way what's up with his eyes you know that's how people see people see with their eyes how do you want them to see with their ankles or something doesn't make sense you want them to and you want to say you want to first of all get out of that little days you're hiding behind come
out in front and say you know what look at me I want people to look at me and by the way don't say this out loud you're going to be looking like a okay in your head you want to say look at me I am going to share an idea with you which by the way might bore the crap out of you today I don't know but still even if it B and here's the beauty of entering this short-term anxiety even if it bores the crap out of you today I will still walk away from
here feeling a little more confident for the next presentation I'll have moved a few steps closer towards my desired self and that is what matters to me right that's the choice you're making isn't it so who cares eyes say you want more eyes looking at you okay um it okay I know I'm not trying to make an excuse I I know it all sounds rational and it's all logical but uh it's not me that's not natural it's it's just not me I've always been this way man I mean if I was younger that'd be okay
but I'm I'm 40 years old like 15 20 years I've been this way 40 50 I mean come on I can't I can't you know what it's not it's not natural maybe it's someone else's style but I can't natural you know what else is natural disease so next time you get sick don't let the doctor interfere say you know what I don't want you to interfere this natural process let me die of whatever disease I have and what about rapists if they tomorrow walk away and say you know what yeah I raped a girl I've
been raping a girl for 20 years it just naturally feels feels okay to do so God made me this way it comes naturally to us so why are you stopping us now let us rape in peace what's wrong with you are you going to accept that do you really want to be natural and worthless and living a lifelong of pain and mediocrity and look at other people push you down and pass you by just because you didn't speak up and you want it to be natural natural and worthless or do you want to be unnatural
and confident learn grow succeed and be in control you making that choice again so you decide okay all right all right you know what definitely you're right I I can't go back to the other choice I need to do this and and it doesn't make sense to pick the other choice I have to do this obviously okay I I you make perfect sense but but I and I'm pumped up believe me I'm pumped up with your talk I really want to do this but then suddenly I get this this bounding heartbeat and I just all
of that talk just goes and I just feel that there is nervousness I just won't be able to perform what do I do about this nervousness seriously I'm I'm not making an excuse okay you know what there's a lot of things that you're going to be doing in your life look at this okay all of this is going to make you nervous but it's fun too okay so you're going to have to just channelize your nervousness Sachin Tendulkar 200 test match was he not nervous of course he was 100 Century every single Century scored he
was nervous every time he wanted to get off the mark he was nervous and we're talking about sjin dkar 200 test match 20 years of career and he was still nervous I am not saying that you're not going to be nervous you are going to be nervous you are going to be feeling a little scared okay the biggest orator in the world Anthony Robbins he jumps up and down 500 times before an audience because he's nervous so you are going to be a little scared your heartbeat is going to be a little crazy but that's
that's how you use it you want that energy okay so you want to breathe just like that you want to come out and you want to move around you want to use your gestures you want to speak loud you don't want to just be stiff and stand like this you're going to get even more you want to use that energy inside of you and you want to start thinking in your head and you want to start looking at people and smiling at people that's how the eyes become comfortable to look at so you want to
use that energy and every single time you get more nervous every single time you get more more nervous you're going to have to look at that picture of pumping up your fist and saying you know what I'm ready for this challenge because there is no other choice frankly is there so nervousness is going to happen and slowly and slowly you're going to build it up into confidence now clock's taking what do you say okay so fine um if I forget I'm not going to be published on the times of India come on it's just stupid
what was there to be afraid of um people yeah I want more people um English I don't care about my English I care about moving out of that situation that I'm designing for myself I don't want to be in that situation okay I can do this this is scary okay hey what watch me ladies and gentlemen that was the dialogue I used to conquer my phobia of public speaking [Applause] and I'd like to assure you I know a lot of you are shocked I am not mentally I don't have any multiple personality disorder okay this
is this is a dialogue that I wanted to demonstrate it's based on a very powerful technique called neural linguistic programming and um so it's a way of of talking back to yourself in the proper body language one of the things that we do is we try to escape this short term and then we think that everything is fine we're going to stay in our comfort zone and we'll be fine that is the biggest lie ever because if we start to realize the gun to our head we're going to notice that it's a big problem so
you respond back with that powerful dialogue that I just demonstrated when uh when I was in high school my parents believed a lot in my academic potential they knew that that I was not getting through any of the top colleges okay so so they worked really hard um saved up a lot of money and sent me to Toronto um and by the way those of you who are and a lot of people today's time that thinking of Canadian immigration uh do not be fooled by Google okay I I Googled Toronto on on Google Images I
thought I was going to see this and guess what I end up seeing that that's what I ended up seeing when I actually went there okay um the the 1% of you um who don't have relatives in Canada because frankly that's how you know if you're a real Indian how many of you have relatives in Canada show fans okay at least in North India pretty much every single person every time they hear Toronto or Canada they say oh yeah I have a relative there so for the 1% of you who don't uh let me tell
you a little about the weather for 8 months of the year it's like living in your freezer okay and and I used to I remember because I was on a limited budget I used to save every single dollar so I used to be walking a few kilometers carrying big heavy bags of groceries 15 to 20 kilos um and walking just to save $2 or3 on the bus fair right and um I I I realized that you know my last name um I am a bu but I assure you it's not because it runs in my
blood to save money the the actual fascinating thing is I needed to save that money okay wait for this to pay off people in my class so that they could present instead of me because I was just too afraid of coming up and speaking so I actually paid off people the way I I started this talk was was exactly the way I was a few years ago the the only difference the the only change that I made is that I started responding back to myself and I started asking myself what choice are you willing to
make that entire lifelong of pain because you're hiding today it's not going to work out for you so you got to decide and of course it was it was tough but compared to the other situation it was easy so many people with amazing potential a lot of you raised your hands a lot of you raised your hands when I asked if you're not going to be confident coming up here you have a lot of friends there's there you know as faculty for sitting here we know the number of people who would do brilliantly but don't
because they get stuck at a group discussion at an interview their credits get taken away from them their ideas get stolen from them they don't get respect in their social gatherings because they don't speak up and imagine what would happen if they started having this dialogue with themselves because no one else regardless of how much another person tells you you're not going to get this in your head you have to have this dialogue with yourself you have to be true to yourself and imagine what would happen if you started having this dialogue with yourself and
putting yourself up to the challenge I mean your your your growth would just explode wouldn't it I had a dad there she is um so one of those one of those exceptional people can you have a chat with her for half an hour I don't care how unemotional you are you will break down and cry after that conversation listening to her life stories and inspirational struggles at 90 years old I thought this is going to be the end uh old age catching up with her medical ailments I thought it was going to be the end
um she went to icus a lot came back regained her health um 91 ICU visits increased um in fact you know to the point that if there was ever such a thing called a frequent fly program for ICU visits she'd own half the hospital okay she was that regular every third week she was in the ICU and I was thinking you know I'm 92 years old 93 94 finally had it I was like okay what's happening what's your motivation how do you keep regaining your health and she smiles and she says um you know and
she told me and this one of the things that that she had to talk with herself about and she said you know even I I I tell myself I'm not able to write anymore I when I when I try to move it's I feel the pain of breaking a bone and I can barely talk so I sometimes ask him I ask myself what's the point why don't I just give up and then she said immediately like right away she gets another sound inside her saying you've always been a fighter so how can you give up
now and she gathers just enough courage to write one more poem so so I thought to myself you know the kind of life I was choosing paying people off and moving away I am filling my life up with anxiety and pain and regret I mean I don't want to be at my D's and look back in my life and and say I'm I'm a nobody I kept running away and because you know the consequences of your choices and beliefs um is exactly what fills your life up with either the pain or or or the pride
or the freedom that my dad experienced and so for me you know this just an easy decision right and I want to ask all of you um who are actually facing that problem or or are afraid to speak up in front of a crowd are you are you really willing to go in that entire situation every single day escaping hiding oh my God what if I forget something what if this person thinks this about me I don't I I just want to escape this anything but this or do you want to just move out of
there okay come up in front of the crowd pump your fist and say you know what anything but that you want to laugh at me go ahead because frankly I don't really care about this audience I care about what I'm going to be 10 years from now what I'm going to think about myself 10 years from now now so you know what Bring it on I want this because there is a gun to your head and those are the only two choices that you have thank you [Applause]
