The prospect of embarrassment is probably enough to make anyone reconsider their planned actions. Sometimes, however, you don’t have any control over that – before you know it, you’re in the middle of an embarrassing situation - as was the case with my experimentation with public speaking in primary school...

I rather liked public speaking in primary school. My experimentation started in Grade 6, if I remember correctly. During that year our school hosted a prepared public-speaking competition (not to be confused with debate). I took part as a novice and I won. That gave me a boost of confidence to continue.

At the end of Grade 6 our school hosted another public-speaking competition - this time unprepared. Still confident from the previous event, I entered, little knowing what I was in for. At the competition day I was given the topic, “Free time spending” and only 3 minutes to prepare something. This is where things started going wrong: I genuinely couldn’t think of one single thing to say. Finally, my turn came to face the crowd (the judges and – wait for it – the whole primary school). I walked up to the microphone and then it hit me like a thunderbolt: one of those dreaded blanks.

I started with one sentence and couldn’t think of anything else to say to the judges, so (without noticing it) I started breathing very loudly into the microphone – Darth Vader-style. When my turn ended after what seemed like 5 hours I was, to say the least, extremely relieved.

For the next few days I had a few passers-by making loud breathing noises when they passed me. I found it quite funny, so I laughed with them.

Now for a few tips on handling embarrassment: I think the trick is to see the humour in the embarrassing situation and to be able to laugh at yourself. You’ll also find that people quickly get bored of making fun of you when you actually laugh at their jokes.

So next time you’re in a really embarrassing situation and you’re the laughing stock of everyone around you, laugh with them at yourself and enjoy the fun. :-)