> I waited there for about twenty-five minutes, absent-mindedly scanning old newspapers while watching the goings-on about the office and repeating what I wanted to say about the North Korean rocket launch over and over in my head.
As someone who is also an introvert struggling to pass as an extrovert at many times (though thankfully not on live TV, thank god), I can offer a little trick that helps to prevent these situations: practice out loud.
It's simple, but effective. When you encounter one of these "freezes" your natural instinctive response is to fall back on what you've practiced -- physically, not mentally. And what you actually practiced, Dr. Habib, is mutely thumbing through newspapers.
What I do when I have a big speech or talk is find some quiet room beforehand and actually practice my speech or talking points out laud, until I have them basically memorized. Then I throw out the notes and give an extemporaneous talk. It always goes different than planned, but when I get stuck my mouth automatically goes to start forming the phrases I had practiced and I get back on track. I get complements and people are super surprised to find out that I'm actually introverted and dread public speaking...