It was the day before the class president election at Gonzalez Elementary School, and Jared, a fourth grader in Mrs. Ramirez class, was minutes before delivering his speech to his fellow classmates.

Jared’s stomach was feeling as if it had been riding a rollercoaster. He thought he was going to ruin the speech by doing something that would embarrass him like the time he slipped in the cafeteria and spilled his spaghetti all over his clothes.

Jared was a short and shy boy that did not have a lot of friends in his class. He was competing against the most popular fourth grader in school, Santiago. Santiago was the opposite of Jared; he was tall and outgoing and was loved by everybody in school.

Jared had never won anything in his short life and because of that he had signed up to be class president.

Both Jared and Santiago were isolated in a separate room to practice their speech before going on stage. Santiago was sitting down, playing with a rubber band he had found under his desk that morning. On the other hand, Jared was shaking and his hands were sweating just on the thought of talking in front of lots of people.

It was almost time to go deliver the speech. Mrs. Ramirez went to talk to both students one by one to make them feel better and to tell them that she was proud of them win or lose.

Everything will go well.

Mrs. Ramirez saw that Jared was anxious and decided to share with him a personal experience. She told him that when she was a little she was part of the school’s spelling bee. She told Jared that she was extremely nervous because she had to spell words standing in front of people.

Jared asked Mrs. Ramirez how was she able to get over her nervousness. Mrs. Ramirez answered Jared by telling him that she thought of the happiest memory she had. The memory of the time her and her family went to the beach for the first time. Mrs. Ramirez told Jared that if he starts to get nervous while talking in public to take five deep breaths and to think of something that made him extremely happy.

If you get nervous, think of something that makes you extremely happy.