Page 13 - November 2017 Voices

Taming the Fear Monster

by Jue Shi

My topic today is about my long journey times, I was scared to
to conquering the fear monster and applying death when I went on
Newton’s first law to achieve personal growth. stage. Surprisingly, even
What’s Newton’s first law? It’s called the prin- though my legs shook
ciple of inertia, meaning a physical object will like crazy, I was able to
remain still or move in a straight line at a constant survive and perform well. That really encour-
speed if there is no external force applied to it.
It’s a universal law in the physical world. aged me.
However, from my personal experience, I would What I learned is that with enough practice,
say it applies equally well to human psychology your fear level will subside and not cause much
and behavior. damage.
If I were asked to summarize my experience My confidence level increased substantially.
of the first ten years living in the United States, I felt that I should get some help to improve my
I would say one word—fear! As an immigrant spoken English so I hired a private English tutor.
from China, I was afraid of speaking in front of After about 6 month of meeting weekly with my
the public. I felt embarrassed by being constantly tutor, my confidence level raised quite a lot. That
was my second push to apply the principle of
inertia to my personal growth.
The last boost came when I heard about
Toastmasters. I immediately joined. The setting
is so friendly for beginners and everyone encour-
ages each other to grow. I wish I had known about
it 10 years ago!
My achievement so far: not only have I
finished 10 prepared speeches and survived
several impromptus, I even did two speeches
without notes.
My point is that to conquer your fear monster,
asked to repeat the last sentence I spoke. I found (which many of us have deep inside) give your-
myself locked into a job because I was lacking
confidence in my spoken English. I was afraid self a little push to get out of your comfort zone.
I wouldn’t be able to find a new job if I lost my Let Newton’s principle of inertia work for you.
current one—especially when seeing the semi- Keep doing the right thing until you see the
conductor industry spiraling downward year improvement.
after year. I would like to report a recent surprise.
That was the inertial state I was trapped in Last week, I had a phone interview with two
during that ten years. However, deep in my people from a company in Washington state.
heart I struggled hard to break out of that trap. I was able to communicate with them well
I wanted to be able to speak confidently and and did so great on the phone that they offered
communicate well. me the job without even an on-site interview.
I decided to do something to address this
issue. I happened to learn about a singing class What a surprise!
and thought that might help me overcome my Jue Shi joined Toastmasters in November 2016.
lack of confidence. That was my first kick to get He s a member of Silicon Forest Toastmasters and
myself out of my comfort zone, or I’d rather call Storymasters. Outside of Toastmasters he works as a
it death of silence inertia state. I joined the class senior product engineer leading product and test system
and stayed for 5 years. Every once in a while, we development. He is Secretary General for CASPA and
were put on stage to perform. The first several lead volunteer for Technology for Kids Club.

VOLUME 4 ISSUE 5 NOVEMBER, 2017 13