How to Conquer Public Speaking Fear I. Introduction A. Public speaking —a common source of stress for everyone B. T

How to Conquer Public Speaking Fear
Good morning. Today I’d like to give you some useful suggestions on how to conquer public speaking fear. Public speaking is a common source of stress for everyone. Many of us would like to avoid this problem entirely, but this is hard to do. The truth about public speaking, however, is it does not have to be stressful!
If you correctly understand the hidden causes of public speaking stress, and if you keep just a few key principles in mind, speaking in public will soon become an invigorating and satisfying experience for you.
First of all, you must remember that speaking in public is not inherently stressful. Most of us believe parts of life are inherently stressful. In fact, most of us have been taught to believe that life as a whole is very stressful! To deal with any type of stress effectively, you first must understand that life itself, including public speaking, is not inherently stressful. Thousands of human beings have learned to speak in front of groups with little or no stress at all. Many of these people were initially terrified to speak in public. Their knees would shake, their voices would tremble, their thoughts would become jumbled... you know the rest. Yet they learned to eliminate their fear of public speaking completely. You are no more or less human than they are. If they can conquer the fear of public speaking, so can you! It just takes the right guiding principles, the right understanding, and the right plan of action to make this goal a reality. Believe me, it’s not difficult. I’m a good example of someone who conquered the fear of public speaking. And while I didn’t do it overnight, it wasn’t difficult. All it took was approaching the problem in the right way.
Now let’s move on to the principles of eliminating stress. First of all, you should bear in mind that you don’t have to be brilliant or perfect to succeed in public speaking. Many of us have observed public speakers and thought to ourselves "Wow, I could never be that smart, calm, witty, entertaining, polished... or whatever." Well, I’ve got news for you—you don’t have to be brilliant, witty, or perfect to succeed. That is not what public speaking is all about. I know it may look that way, but it’s not. You can be average. You can be below average. You can make mistakes, get tongue-tied, or forget whole segments of your talk. You can even tell no jokes at all and still be successful. It all depends on how you, and your audience, define "success." Believe me, your audience doesn’t expect perfection. I used to think most audiences did, but I was wrong! Before I discovered this, I used to put incredible pressure on myself to deliver a perfect performance. I worked for days to prepare a talk. I stayed up nights worrying about making mistakes. I spent hours and hours rehearsing what I was going to say. And you know what? All this did was to make me even more anxious! The more perfect I tried to be, the worse I did! It was all very disheartening, not to mention unnecessary.
The essence of public speaking is this: give your audience something of value. That’s all there is to it. If people in your audience walk away with something of value, they will consider you a success. If they walk away feeling better about themselves, feeling better about some job they have to do, they will consider you a success. If they walk away feeling happy or entertained, they will consider their time with you worthwhile. Even if you pass out, get tongue-tied, or say something stupid during your talk... they won’t care!   As long as they get something of value, they will be thankful.
Then, remember all you need is two or three main points when preparing a speech. When I first began speaking in public during medical school, I wasn’t aware of this simple principle. I wrongly believed that my audience wanted encyclopedic knowledge from me, which of course I didn’t have. So I tried to research my topic thoroughly and deliver as much worldly wisdom as possible. Boy was that exhausting! It was also boring for my audience to suffer through. Later, when I began giving public seminars on how to cope with stress, I spent hours each week typing a twenty-page script to read from, so I wouldn’t forget any important tidbit. As time went on, I gradually learned that this degree of complexity wasn’t needed. As a result, the length of my discussion notes gradually declined. My twenty-page typed manuscript gave way to a five-page detailed outline. Then, I replaced my outline with ten or fifteen index cards. Eventually, I could conduct a full two-hour seminar with only one 3X5 index card, containing my two or three key points, to support me! Remember, all your audience wants from you is to walk away with one or two key points that will make a difference to them. If you structure your talks to deliver this result, you can avoid lots of complexity that isn’t really needed. This also should make your job as a speaker much easier, and more fun to do!
To sum up, we have given you two key principles to always keep in mind. If you get up in front of a group and find this stressful, it only means you forgot the truth about what public speaking is all about. Go back and review this lecture. Find out what you did wrong or what you didn’t remember. Then go back and speak again until you get it right. It may take time, but the long-term rewards will be impressive.