In “Why I Live In Mortal Dread of Public Speaking,” Megan Washington also implemented storytelling into her presentation. She explained how some of the techniques that she did at a young age that helped control her stutter allowed her to find a passion for singing. Washington also addressed how her profession requires her to speak and perform in front of an audience. Rather than hiding her stutter she chooses instead to embrace it. Her decision to do so was because she wanted to remain authentic. This shows the audience her credibility and trustworthiness as a speaker because she was vulnerable and decided to share her experience. She was able to keep the audience engaged by being genuine, trustworthy, and humorous. She maintained eye contact while using her phone as a guide for her presentation, had good pace, and a good choice of words.

One particular thing that both Joe Kowan and Megan Washington did in their presentations was perform their own personal songs in the end. This was a great and effective conclusion to their presentation, bringing the subject of stage fright full circle and allowed the audience to see the result of their experiences.

“How I Beat Stage Fright” Joe Kowan opens his TED talk with a chronological order meaning that he presents the facts in the order they happened. Joe Kowan starts talking with a great personal story, which catches his audience. He started by telling the story when he would make music/songs, but he was too afraid to let others hear his work. Until one day, he decides to go to a local open mind to sing a song and face his stage fright. However, at first, it was terrible and other times were too because his stage fright got in the way of performing multiple times. After he decided to write a song about his stage fright, which helped him perform and connect with the audience. Joe Kowan uses humor from the beginning, which helped keep his audience with him. After Joe Kowan finishes telling his story, he starts singing in his TED talk. He also uses another technique, which is music. This technique also helps to keep the audience engaged. Having him sing a narrative song that explains how he feels when he is on stage keeps the audience engaged and laughing. Through his TED talk, he maintains eye contact with the audience. Performing eye contact helps connect the audience and the presenter by connecting to a different level. Having no eye contact with the audience can cause awkwardness and disengagement. To conclude, Joe Kowan uses humor, eye contact, and proficiency in the subject. He uses proficiency in the subject because he is being prepared and well versed in the topic being presented, which shows dedication and commitment. 

“Why I Live in Mortal Dread of Public Speaking,” Megan uses storytelling about her everyday life challenges, which is stuttering. From the beginning of her TED talk, she uses humor in her telling stories. Using humor helps her keep the audience with her. Megan does not have full eye contact interaction with the audience because she would be looking at her phone. However, she uses nonverbal cues, which are using facial expression and body movement. This nonverbal cue demonstrates an excellent presentation overall. She also uses verbal cues because her tone and pace are perfect; she is not rushing or going too slow in presenting her topic. Verbal cues are used to help the audience connect with the presentation, including word accentuation pitch, tone, pace, and volume. Megan also uses another technique, which is music. She starts to sing. Her performance represents/shows how confident she is when she sings because she does not stutter when she is singing. Using music as a technique helps to keep the audience engaged. To conclude, Megan uses humor, nonverbal cues, verbal cues, and proficiency in the subject. She uses proficiency in the subject because she is well prepared on the topic that she is presenting by showing dedication and commitment. The audience can see she is prepared because she has her phone, and she is following and checking her guidelines.

 

In “Why I Live in Mortal Dead of Public Speaking,” Megan Washington conveys her message to the audience by using eye contact and nonverbal cues. In the beginning, Washington avoided eye contact with the audience due to her nervousness. However, as the presentation progresses, she begins to maintain eye contact with the audience as it shows that she begins to feel more confident and comfortable with speaking on stage to a large crowd. She also uses nonverbal cues such as her facial expressions and body movements to keep her audience engaged. Through the use of these techniques, Washington was able to convey her message to the crowd effectively.

In the “How I beat stage fright” video, Joe started giving a narrative on how his passion overcome his fear as the more he writes music, the more of his needs to share it in front of everyone, instead of singing at for himself only. Joe brought up the courage to sign up at a local open mic, and of course, the first time was a failure. But he did not give up by promising to be on stage every week until he could beat the fear being on stage. He came up with a brilliant idea, writing a song about his nervousness. Joe considered what his audiences would like to hear from him and he has successfully connected with them by choosing to be genuine and authentic, by signing about his own fear, embracing instead of hiding it.

In “Why I live in mortal dread of public speaking”, Megan began by inciting curiosity by spending the first minute talking and led everyone to wonder what kind of problem she has. Megan has a stutter and after years of treatment, she came to the conclusion that when she sings, her stutter stopped. And it becomes her passion to sing and to write songs, and she wanted to share her experience being a stutterer with other people by practicing speaking on stage. She was joking about the fear of meeting another stutterer who would think she is mocking them when they say hi. She sang beautifully at the end as a way to convey the audience that it is okay to have flaws, but it is the way we accept it makes us a successful person.

Joe Kowan mixes in a bit of humor to his narrative and shares his experience with stage fright. Joe also explains the steps he has taken to overcome it and the reasons why he was able to overcome stage fright. He later then presents a song in which he wrote to get over his stage fright and he actually performs it which really engages the audience. Joe Kowan also uses eye contact throughout his whole speech which shows the audience that he was well prepared for his presentation and erases any possibility of awkwardness or disengagement. 

Just like Joe, Megan started her speech with a little bit of humor in her personal narrative and explained that she has a speech impediment which is a stutter. The biggest difference between her and Joe is the eye contact. Megan would constantly look down at her phone and although she did keep some eye contact we could tell that she relied on her phone perhaps to either make sure she knew what she was saying or to better explain something.  Megan used nonverbal cues that involved moment and and facial expressions which kept the audience engaged. Megan also begins singing and it shows her confidence and how she tries her best to overcome her speech disorder. 

In the video “How I beat stage fright” Joe Kowan addresses his issue with stage fright and his thought process of wanting to manifest his plan but couldn’t out of fear. Eye contact and relatability is what allowed him to engage with his audience throughout his presentation. He also used nonverbal cues of hand gestures, body movements, and posture. As he goes on to explain how the body reacts to fear like his experience of being on stage for the first time he utilizes pace as he is speeding up what he is saying because that’s exactly how his body is reacting. His heart is racing, blood pumping because of this adrenaline rush he is feeling. He then explains again how manifesting was tough but he managed to make it happen as he created a song explaining his stage fright and goes on to performing for them as well. Overall, both presenters did a great job by taking their fear and demonstrating how it wasn’t easy to overcome but you must learn to see what works and what doesn’t. They learned to move forward and now are able to openly speak in their own way.

In the video “How I Beat Stage Fright,” Joe Kowan opens the stage with a small anecdote about his nervousness in regards to stage fright. He allows his audience to get a brief feel of who he is as an individual. Joe dives in depth of a night where he first participated in an open mic. After performing that night, Joe was able to come to the realization that persistantance was the key to his success. During Joe's presentation he masters the techniques of eye contact, audience engagement, and music. To end his presentation Joe sings a song that directly explores his nervousness and stage fright. 

In the video “Why I Live in Mortal Dread of Public Speaking,” Megan Washington opens up to her audience immediately with a short story of her difficulties and fears with having a stutter.  Megan also describes the stereotypes and assumptions that accompany her stutter. While some people assume she is drunk, others assume her mere stutter is her forgetting their name. Her humor allows her audience to be drawn to her as well as her constant eye contact. She also finishes her presentation with a song that displays her overall triumph of her stutter.