Hi, I'm Mike, and I am shy. I'm a shy guy. I was a shy kid.

I was so shy as a kid that I didn't say a word in kindergarten. Not one word. My teacher would say to me, "You can have some candy if you can say 'please'." I would look back and shake my head, saying nothing.

"You will make me very happy if you just say your name." [shake head]

Then one day, my teacher handed out permission slips for a school trip. She gave me two by mistake. When I took them home, my mom said I had to return one of them. So she drove me back to school.

I went up to my teacher and handed her one of the permission slips. My mom back then couldn't speak much English. She can now, but back then, I had to speak for her.

So I told my teacher, "You gave me two of these."

My teacher's face lit up. "Oh my gosh, you spoke to me!" She proceeded to tell my mom how I would never speak in class. My mom, not understanding a word, just stood there and nodded.

"Every day, I ask Michael to say Good Morning to me, but he never does. I offer him candy, and still he doesn't say a word. I can't believe he spoke to me today! I'm so happy!"

[nod head]

The next day, my teacher announced to the class that I spoke to her. In disbelief, they gathered around me. I don't remember what it was I said that day, but I know I said something. I think it was, "Hi."

Whatever it was, the class erupted in cheers. They all started shouting and cheering. Suddenly, they picked me up on their shoulders and carried me around the classroom.

I remember being so terrified up there. All I could think of was, "Oh no, they're going to drop me, they're going to drop me!"

After that, I began to speak. I didn't say much, but at least I spoke.

That was my first step out of Shyness Shell. Since then, I've taken four more major steps.

The second was my first job.

At the age of fourteen, I was the youngest new cashier of Roy Rogers.

Does anyone here not know what Roy Rogers is? [look for show of hands] It's a fast food chain that specializes in roast beef sandwiches and fried chicken.

Ooo, let me take an aside and tell you a quick story. I once saw a cockroach crawling along the wall in the kitchen. When it reached the ceiling, it fell. Right into the oil used to fry the chicken. The cooks laughed and stirred it up, then served up the chicken. (Hey, extra protein.)

But I digress. Being a cashier there forced me to speak to strangers, sometimes even to make small talk. I developed some regulars who always came to my line. I always knew what they wanted and made chit chat with them while they waited.

This whole experience was a great stepping stone. It helped to further break down my Shyness Shell.

The next step was at college.

I joined a community service club and became close to the officers during my sophomore year. By junior year, I became the public relations officer, where it was my job to promote the club and attract new members.

I was studying marketing and graphic communications at the time, so I used all of those skills to create a mini marketing campaign. As part of that, I tried to reinforce a friendly image by reaching out to each member and making him or her feel comfortable.

Because I was so shy, I could identify with our more quiet members. I knew how it felt to stand in the corner and be afraid to say anything. So during meetings, I would always go up to them and say "Hi."

After a while, I began to introduce them to each other. I watched friendships form and saw a huge leap in dedicated and happy members.

In my senior year, I became the president. Part of my job now was forming relationships with other club presidents, especially in putting together a huge effort called Hunger Clean-Up.

Hunger Clean-Up is a week-long event that took the coordination of all the community service clubs at our college. Its purpose was to help the homeless of New York City, and it took the form of soup kitchens, fund raisers, and other awareness campaigns, culminating in a large street carnival.

Let me tell you about one of our activities. One day, a few of us bought a bunch of bread, peanut butter, and jelly. From that, we made about fifty sandwiches. Then we walked around the neighborhood and gave them to the homeless.

Most took them eagerly, some thanked us profusely, but a few, interestingly enough, were rather aggressive. They violently refused our food, telling us that they don't take hand outs.

Then there were a few who said, "I'm not that hungry today, but my pal on 15th Street is really hungry. He hasn't eaten in days. Could you please bring him a sandwich? And give him mine too?" That became one of my most memorable experiences.

Hunger Clean-Up, leading a club; this was a lot to do for a shy guy. But I did it. This experience gave me a large boost in the self-confidence needed to break even further out of my Shyness Shell.

The fourth step was being a consultant.

It is said that to be a successful consultant, you don't have to know more than the next guy; you just have to speak like you know more than the next guy.

Now, I'm not saying I did that, goodness no. I'm saying that if you cannot speak properly and with confidence in front of a client, you won't be a good consultant.

In all honesty, I had some stumbles here. Being a consultant was nothing like leading a club in college.

So to be a better consultant, I read a book on etiquette as well as just about every business publication and magazine I could get my hands on. I developed a set of "small talk topics" ranging from daily news to interesting facts to amusing stories.

I also picked up better communication skills. I learned to read my clients, to understand their needs and feelings just from their body language. I'm not saying I'm an expert at this; far from it. But I was beginning to develop these skills.

We had this one client who I could tell didn't like all of the meetings for which we asked. Before and after every meeting, I'd joke around with him. Soon, some of our private jokes made it into the meetings, unbeknownst to our project manager.

So one day, after a really long night, I accidentally fell asleep in a meeting. Conked right out.

Now normally, doing this typically isn't a good thing in front of a client. But because of the relationship I had with him, he laughed his ass off. That incident was even added to our series of jokes. I couldn't have gotten away with that had I not established a connection with him.

All of this led to a further breakdown of my Shyness Shell.

And now, I'm on my fifth step. Toastmasters.

I'm a shy guy. I realize that. But I'm taking steps, with alacrity, to change that. Thank you.

. . .

This was a speech I gave for Toastmasters on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004. It was my first speech and the theme was "An ice breaking introduction of yourself." I created it on my commute to and from work and practiced it out loud in my car.

My speech didn't follow these words exactly; I had a small notepad with scribbled notes to help me with the main points while I ad libbed the rest.

I had five "um's" and a few assorted filler words ("so's", "and's", etc). The Grammarian didn't catch any mistakes. My speech went for 7 minutes and 40 seconds, which was way over the 5 minute time limit. I was so nervous and focused on my speech that I never noticed the Time Counter holding up the red flag. Oops.

. . .

Are you, or have you ever been, shy?