Category Archives: Life & Death

GLOSSOPHOBIA – OVERCOME YOUR FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

If you’re like most people, you’re more afraid of public speaking than you are of death.

I’m fine with death, though I’m in no rush to try it out. But there was a time that I was absolutely shit-scared of opening my yap in front of a group larger than four… maybe five at the most. And I bet that you get at least butterflies, maybe trembles, or probably the runs before making a presentation. Maybe you’ll even go to extreme lengths to avoid public speaking like I did such as faking illness, manipulating others to cover for you, and flat-out running away.

I have no idea what the psychological cause of my glossophobia was (that’s the term for the fear of public speaking), because in high school I had no problem getting up in front of my friends. When I went to post-secondary education, things changed. It was triggered in my first class with strangers where I simply had to do an around-the-room read from a script.

Coming close to my turn, all the classic phobia signs of not being in my comfort zone materialized. Pulse pounding. Trembles. Shakes. Chills. Dry throat. Gut-cramp. Then a total breakdown in confidence and wide-eyed terror – visualizing that I was about to be publicly humiliated in front of all these strangers.

I froze. The instructor tried to prompt me, but all I could muster was some pathetic excuse that I didn’t have glasses and I couldn’t read the words. The class moved along but I regressed – spiraling down to a dismal lack of self-confidence. I left the room and didn’t come back.

Five years later, after hiding from every chance of public speaking, I landed in the police academy with the same secret baggage. ‘Effective Presentation’ was part of the curriculum and I watched it approach on the syllabus with sleepless fear. I would’ve sooner stood-in for a range target than speak before thirty-one other recruits – even though they were now my friends.

I was so tense when speech-time came. I finally confided in my troop-counsellor who told me that pretty much everyone goes through this.

I thought I was the only one.

He worked with me to make a ‘Fear of Public Speaking’ presentation to the troop and it was life-changing – not just for me – but for many other rookies who suffered from the same phobia and were thinking exactly as I was.

I wasn’t the only one.

Over the years I’ve had nervous setbacks but never a humiliating loss of control, though it’s come shakingly close.

In my career as a homicide detective I’ve been on the witness stand in front of a jury and a crowded courtroom many times – once for five days straight. That’s public speaking on steroids – like being stripped naked and tied to the fountain-clock in a shopping mall. As a coroner I’ve done inquests and, as a writer, I’ve done radio and TV interviews reaching over a hundred thousand.

This afternoon, I’m doing an hour-long internet podcast on causes of death and, this September, I’m presenting the biggest in-person speech of my lifetime at the International Conference on Forensic Research and Technology in Atlanta on the evidence in the JFK Assassination. There’ll be three to four hundred in that crowd with far, far more forensic accreditations than I’ll ever have.

Am I nervous?

You bet.

How will I handle it?

First of all, I’ll be myself.

That’s the number one ‘trick’ to public speaking. Just be yourself and say what you know. People inherently recognize genuineness. If you try to be someone you’re not, the audience will see right through you and you’ll bomb. Be yourself and you won’t fail.

Here’s more tips for building your public speaking confidence and effectiveness.

Prepare – Know your material and know your audience
Rehearse – Practice your presentation
Believe – Know that you’ll do fine
Re-live – Recall previous successes
Visualize – See yourself succeeding
Research – Again, know your material
Engage – Start your presentation by asking something
Humor – Don’t be too serious
Produce – Give them a take-away to remember
Collaborate – Bring a resource on-stage
Prompts – Use visual aids like PowerPoint, whiteboards, and flipcharts
Repeat – There’s nothing like experience to improve your skills

Here’s one little trick that I learned about settling the physical jitters. Pressing on your solar plexus triggers a relaxation in the central nervous system and it looks totally natural. Trust me… this works. Only don’t press too hard or you’ll knock yourself out.

What are your thoughts about public speaking? Anyone else have some tips? I’m dying to hear your words.

THE REAL AFGHANISTAN FROM A MARINE RECON’S VIEW

I was sent this piece from an author wishing to remain anonymous. From knowing soldiers who served in Afghanistan and hearing first-hand of their experiences with that country and its people, I think it’s a very realistic look at a destitute situation.

I’m a Reconnaissance Marine in Afghanistan writing from the Sand Pit. I’m freezing my balls off here – sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains, along the Dar’yoi Pamir River, and watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.

I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I’ve actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but the scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.

The one ugly truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that’s where a bounty hunter like me comes in handy.

I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, and shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, and then I track and record the new movement. It’s all about intelligence.

We haven’t even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they’re in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin. But you know – I’m a romantic. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This country blows, man. It’s not even a country.

There are no roads, there’s no infrastructure, there’s no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs. Afghanistan offers only two ways for a man to support his family; join the opium trade or join the army. That’s it. Those are your options.

Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that’s your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those ‘tent cities of the walking dead‘ is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.

I’ve been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pashtus for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, are Huns….actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. It’s what they do. It’s ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves.

They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other’s barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47’s. Then again, maybe I’m just a cranky bastard.

I’m freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can’t recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours.

Oh yeah! You like writing, Garry. Do me a favor. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban ‘smart’.

They are not smart.

I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is “cunning.” The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else.

Smart! Bullshit! Yeah, they’re real smart, they’ve spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil! They’re still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter.

Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen. Eventually, he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I’m good at it.

Please, I ask you to tell my fellow Americans, and the rest of the civilized world, to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you’re getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth, but rather to keep you glued to the screen so you will watch the commercials.

The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we’re doing over here, because you have no fucking idea what we’re doing and, really, you don’t want to know. We are your military, and we are only doing what you sent us here to do.

“Semper Fi” – Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share.

DYING WITH DIGNITY

Let’s face it. We’re all going to die one day. You. Me. Our parents. Our children. Friends. Neighbours. Co-workers. Even our pets. It makes me wonder why we have so much trouble accepting the inevitable, especially in artificially prolonging life when a person’s entire quality of life is gone, never to return, and they spend their final days in suffering – not just pain and discomfort, but in a total loss of their dignity as a human being.

During my time as a coroner I heard from a lot of family members about the agony that not only the deceased suffered in their final days, but what the ones left behind endured. Inevitably that led to discussions about the ethics of euthanasia.

Euthanasia was also a topic behind closed doors within my medical and legal colleagues. Without question, there are cases of assisted suicide that are overlooked by the authorities and I’m sure that some of the ‘natural’ deaths in seniors care homes are ‘helped along’ by a generous dose of pain killer.

Several years ago I watch as my ninety-five year old mother wasted away in the final months of her long and fulfilled life. It was absolute agony, not so much for Mum, because she was medicated to the point of being mostly unconscious, but for myself and other family members. To see such a vibrant person being ‘punished’ by dragging out her journey to everlasting peace and tranquility was heartbreaking.

I did a lot of soul searching during that time.

I’ll admit that it was tempting to intervene and put Mum out of her misery. I know that’s what she wanted, because we’d had that discussion, but the legal ramifications were far too serious to consider bringing that monster into the family. So, we just bided our time while she literally wasted away in a nursing home bed until her life and dignity exhausted.

I wouldn’t treat my dog that way. When his quality of life is gone, I’ll take him into the vet and have him put to sleep. After all, it’s the humane thing to do.

So why are we so cruel to our fellow humans?

I say the problem lies right in the hands of our legal system. Not our ‘justice’ system. Our ‘legal’ system.

There’s a fine line between the moral and practical approach to death. It’s the moral tail that wags the practical dog in the debate over euthanasia and it needs to be put to rest.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating involuntary euthanasia or playing God against a terminally ill person’s wishes. That’s a ‘slippery slope’ for society to slide down. I’m talking about the legalization of medically assisted suicide, or mercy killing, when the patient – in sound mind – has clearly expressed their desire to be euthanized when their quality of life has expired.

We’ve been using Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders for years and our system totally accepts the moral and legal reasoning behind them. We also ‘pull-the plug’ on people who are brain dead but their body still functions.

What I want for myself, and I’ve told my next-of-kin this, is a Put Me Out Of Misery (PMOOM) order. When my quality of life is gone, the last thing I want to do is unnecessarily delay the inevitable. Out of sheer respect for my dignity, somebody please give me a push over the edge.

Dying Words

Provoking Thoughts on Life, Death, and Writing