Brave Melania Faced Death

How do I know?

I taught Public Speaking on the University level, where I learned that, according to most studies, people are more afraid of public speaking than of dying. 

That proved especially true for students required to take my course.

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I spotted Melania Trump as one of those students. After all, she had plenty of practice at standing around and looking beautiful—but not at speaking. Not to a national audience.

And for her, that speech was "required."  

Almost all my students feared standing up in front of the class and speaking, but students who had to take the class quaked in their boots.

Take, for instance, my student, "Avanti," a sweet modest Indian girl. No matter how I coached her, when she stood before the class, she refused look at us. Instead, she looked down at her notes and rattled them off as fast as possible.

During the final exam, where I didn't allow notes (and memorization), Avanti stood in front of the class, gazed straight at the ceiling, and recited her speech.

Now Melania didn't have THAT problem.

Standing in front of the convention and looking beautiful was easy enough for her. But what to say?

Someone probably suggested, "Why don't you take a look at Michelle Obama's speech, see what she did eight years ago as the featured wife at the Democratic National Convention?"

So Melania took a look at Michelle's script.

Script. That's the key word. There's a written script for plays like Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." Scripts like those are spoken over and over again by actors.

So Melania did what any self-respecting actor would do: she memorized Michelle's script and spoke it with some variations of her own.

I know, I know, Melania had paid script writers and may not have known she had repeated Mrs. Obama until after the speech.

But if she feared public speaking as much as my student, Avanti, did, Melania faced death at the GOP podium last night.

But she got by with a little help from her friend, First Lady Michelle.