Cero Miedo, Cero Miedo

By Chew Yi Shen

Winning speech for BVTMC Chapter Meeting on Monday, 19 October 2020

Pathways Manual, L1P2(A)- Evaluation and Feedback- First Speech

General Purpose: Share with the Audience that you should dare to try something that you are fearful of.

Specific Purpose: Audience will learn to take actions despite Fear by learning strategies on how to manage Fears.

Impactful Opening:

• Gigantic stage lights beaming from the top of the stadium, constantly flickering and shining throughout the stadium.
• When the Mexican wrestler Pentagon Jr. entered the ring entrance, the spectators started chanting – “Cero Miedo, Cero Miedo”.
• The wrestler was demonstrating this hand-sign and chanted his catchphrase -“Cero Miedo, Cero Miedo”
• In case you are wondering what’s – “Cero Miedo”?
• It means “Zero-Fear, Zero-Fear” in Spanish.
• Well – It will be pretty safe to assume that most of us have our unique fears, don’t we?
• Some of us are afraid of watching horror movies, some of us are afraid of speaking in front of a crowd, some of us are afraid of cockroaches especially the ladies or some men.
• I am sure you’re one of them, may I propose that you should dare to try something that you’re fearful of so that you can have a taste of something different from your everyday life.
• Toastmaster of the Evening, Fellow Toastmasters & Friends.

Body:

     1. What’s Fear? –

• From an evolutionary psychology perspective – fear is an emotion that we ‘feel’ physically.
• Homosapiens which is our species has evolved throughout the years into who and what we are now known as – ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’ or modern human beings.
• Fear is nothing but a body sensation or a ‘feeling’ that we feel – it could be the butterfly in our stomach, heart racing, sweaty palms, shaky hands, or dry mouth.
• The same physical sensation occurred when you got excited about something you enjoy or something new that you would like to explore. Studies show that – Fear & Excitement is actually the same physical sensation that you feel within your body.
• Next, I would like to share the biggest fear that I used to have and how I overcame it.

2. My Biggest Fear –

• The biggest fear I had experienced in my life was –

“Approach Anxiety”

• Ten plus years ago, during one of my school holidays, the first part-time job that I took up was a door-to-door salesman selling Starhub cable tv services.
• Many of the Singaporeans will know that the Pre-Netflix time, Starhub is one of the telcos that offer a cable tv services that allow families to enjoy watching tons of channels that range from e.g. Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kong serial dramas that those mums and aunties love to watch in their free time.
• The manager in-charge informed me to attend a sales training tomorrow on how to sell the Starhub cable tv services to the folks during the door knocking session.
• The following day – around evening, my friends and I reported to this area within Bukit Batok, we are tasked to comb all the HDBs flats in this area. I was assigned one of the flats and got started. I took the lift to the top floor and begin knocking door-to-door.
• I knocked the first door, no one answered – second door, no one answered – third door – finally, someone opened.
• The woman gave me a weird look and said with an annoying tone – “What you want? Knocking my door during the dinner time and disturbing us.”
• I remembered that my opening line should be – “Hi there, my name is Yishen and I represent Starhub to share with you more about our latest cable TV services”
• Well – at least that was what I thought I would have said, but I did not. Instead, I froze in fear when she replied with an annoying tone and immediately, I felt a choke in my throat and I couldn’t utter a word – the only sound that came out from my mouth was –

“Errrr, Errrr, Errr”

• When she saw me behaving this way, she told me to get lost from here and slammed the door shut.
• I froze and stood there for more than twenty seconds, felt disgusted with myself, feeling angry on why I bring myself to do this job. Getting scolded for no reason and feeling useless at the same time.
• For the next two-plus hours, I continued to knock door after door, receiving rejection after rejection, no sales no results mean no money to bring home to buy the things that I want.
• Feeling disappointed that I went home empty-handed, I am determined to find out how can I overcome this approach anxiety so that I can make some good money from my part-time job.

 3. The Zero-Fear Approach – Next, I will share with you a method that I used to overcome my fear.

4. The method is known as -Weighing the Pros & Cons of Overcoming the Fear?

5. Guess where I begin my search?

Yeah, I went to yahoo.com and searched – “How to overcome approach anxiety?” I clicked on the first link and            it led me to an article that showed me a simple method to gauge whether it is worth to overcome this fear.

 The headline article stated –

          Weighing the Pros & Cons of Overcoming the Fear?

(i) First step – take a blank piece of paper

(ii) Second step – draw a straight line in the middle, so there will be two boxes on each side.

(iii) Third step – Write Pros on top left and Cons on the top right.

(iv) Fourth step – Ask yourself and write down

What are the advantages if you overcome your fear?

What are the disadvantages if you do not?

(v) Fifth step – Evaluate both pros and cons and make a decision.

(vi) My list was as follows –

Pros –

1.     Got money to buy the games I want.
2.     Buy the food that I want.
3.     Able to afford to hang out with friends to watch movies, play games etc.

 Cons –

1.    Unable to buy the games that I want.
2.    Unable to afford the food that I want.
3.    Unable to hang out with my friends.

As you can see this is the Pleasure V.S Pain method that I used to overcome my approach anxiety, does that mean my fear is totally eliminated? No, instead I learn to weigh whether is the fear worth taking the risk or not?

Of course, there is not one size fits all, I am sharing what works for me and you can find something that works for you as well.

Conclusion: (Red card)

• In conclusion – When you allow yourself to approach fear and recognize that it is always going to be a part of you, the more you will be able to progress towards your goals regardless.
• And Lastly – “Cero Miedo”
• Back to you Toastmasters of the Evening.