Art Of Great Speaking

Is anyone born with the fear of public speaking? How come many have a fear of public speaking?

Knowing that nearly everybody is tempted by fear may be consoling. Fear is learned, and many people, perhaps unconsciously, are busily teaching it.
Stage fright must be learned because people have only two natural fears at birth — the fear of falling and fear of loud noise. Then how is fear of speaking to an audience learned?   .
It could start when three-year-old Bobby comes into the house, saying, “Daddy, Daddy! Look! Come look at ,the fire trucks! They have ladders and everything! And they’re all painted red! Come on, Daddy, look at the fire trucks!”.
As the little fellow speaks he waves his arms, bugs his eyes, and -nods his head toward a front window. But in vain. Father’s long face is like a twisted prune as he looks up from the news and says dryly, “Yes, yes, son, I know. Go play with your blocks. Daddy wants to read.”
When Bobby started to school he was excited about nearly everything. He learned the rules and he learned to> lose much of his brave, lively spirit. He got a special lesson in this one day from a teacher who had argued with her boy friend the night before.
It happened at recess when Billy was raving about the picture of a ship on the wall. “What a pretty ship!” he cried. “I’d like to ride on a big boat like that. Miss Day, have you ever been on a ship?”
No answer.
“Well . . . have you?”
“Billy, little boys should be seen and not heard,” snapped the teacher.
At home Billy wants to chat with people who come to visit. But his mother knows “silence is golden,” so she sends Billy to his room to play with his silent golden blocks.
Other people say, “You talk too much, boy. Don’t ask so many silly questions.”
After feeling several wet blankets Bill’s lively spirit is curbed.
After all, he doesn’t want to be odd, so he won’t talk so much. Nobody’s going to call him “Windy.” So he actually becomes afraid to speak freely.

My next post will continue on how the fear of public speaking is learnt. I will in this series on the fear of public speaking provide some tips to overcoming it to be a confident speaker.

Here are a couple of quick tips on how to manage the fear of public speaking:
Another cause of fear is the feeling that a speech may be criticized either secretly or openly by a listener or a speech teacher. A helpful teacher offers no adverse criticism until a student speaker has gained enough self-confidence to control his fear.
The speaker’s attitude should be, “I’m giving them my best. I hope that’s good enough. At this point I couldn’t do better. And if someone is unhappy with my speech, so what? Without worrying a second about any speech I’ve already delivered I’m going to put all my energy into the next speech.”
Tenseness may come when a speaker starts thinking about re-sults, or when he mentally compares himself unfavorably with other speakers. But this condition can be avoided when the speak¬er mentally plays down the importance of his speech. Who is going to remember it a hundred years later anyway? Nobody remem¬bers the score long. Ask a dozen people to tell you the exact score of a last year’s basketball game. How many could do it?
Then too, a speaker may become afraid when he thinks he could twist his tongue or mispronounce a word — when all those brilliant people are out there listening, maybe hoping he’ll fum¬ble. If a speaker could learn to grin at an audience and go right
on speaking when he makes a mistake, people would forget the mistake and remember the grin. A mistake always looks much bigger in the mind of the person who made it than in anyone else’s thinking because he is so near it. Other people are so busy thinking about themselves (and their own mistakes) they won’t remember someone else’s error long.

So, do your best, be prepared and people are already pre-occupied to be to worried about any mistake you may make. Thinking this way will will help to reduce the stress and fear of public speaking.

The fear of public speaking is all too common but fortunately it can be overcome. Here is one cause and a way to beat it.

To persuade, a speaker must talk fluently with courage and confidence. When fear or timidity becomes evident, an audience loses confidence in a speaker’s ability to persuade. Obviously, if he cannot control himself how can he hope to persuade others?
Frequently the cause for stage fright is the fact that a speaker who feels it simply has not spoken to audiences often enough. New situations may be frightening. Remember the first time you asked for a date, or when you were asked for one? Were you nervous or unduly tense about the situation?
Notice the apprehension of a new driver. Although he wants to drive and likes it, he breathes easier when the traffic is not so heavy or when he gets out of the car. That first time, or maybe the first few times you rode in a plane, you would have liked to have dragged your big toe on the ground a bit longer before taking off. But after several flights getting into an airplane is as easy as walking into the kitchen.
Emerson’s statement, “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain,” is true. Appearing before an audience once or twice may not enable a speaker to control fear. But if he will con¬tinue speaking on various occasions he cannot fail to defeat stage fright. George Bernard Shaw, for instance, was afraid to face audiences but over a period of several years he forced himself to speak at every opportunity. He conquered fear. But his method was haphazard. One adequate speech course should enable a student not only to control his fear, but also to enjoy speaking. During the course each student should have numerous opportunities to deliver-short speeches and to participate in many speech drills. Making many short speeches is far more helpful in overcoming fear than delivering only a few long ones. Much oral work is needed. Notebooks and term papers can serve a purpose in speech training but they are of little or no> value in conquering stage fright. A person can no more learn to face audiences without actually appearing before them often than he can learn to swim without getting into water.  .
So speak often even though you may have to kick yourself a few times to keep at it.

You only need to start small to gain confidence in speaking. Look for every opportunity to speak and your fear of public  speaking will diminish.

Whether you’re standing before an audience of businesspeople or your classmates, the effect is the same. All of your preparation flies out the window, your knees knock together and you must force yourself to take the stage. Public speaking is a terrifying experience for most people, but it need not be. Most people would rather have a root canal performed than speak in front of a group of people. However, performing well in this environment is not as difficult as it sounds. In fact, it can be an enjoyable experience once you get past your fear of public speaking.

To suceed in the corporate world and to some extent your own personal world, overcoming your fear of public speaking is essential. Which poses the questions: How do you get past this seemingly insurmountable obstacle? How do you bury that fear deep in your heart and not let it overwhelm your defenses? How do you survive such a ghastly ordeal?

1. It’s Not as Bad as It Seems The very first thing you need to understand is that it is not as bad as it seems. You are focusing on the bad things, the things that might happen or could happen that would make you seem foolish or unprepared, that would make your audience laugh in derision, rather than in good humor. Such fears are natural, but baseless. The audience is not there to laugh at you; they have no desire to pick apart your performance looking for absurdities. They have come to hear you speak. They believe you have valuable information to impart and they want to know what you have to say. They obviously place a great deal of value on your opinion and expertise; else, they would have found somewhere else to go.

2. Everyone Experiences a Fear of Public Speaking Everyone experiences a fear of public speaking, no matter how experienced a speaker they might be. This is important to understand – everyone feels the same fear, the same trepidation. Everyone gets the same butterflies in their stomach and experiences the same sweat-slicked palms; even those with years of experience under their belts still succumb to the fear of public speaking. So what does this tell you? It tells you two things: first, the fear you feel is natural and nothing of which to be ashamed. Second, it tells you that you are not alone and if you work through it, you can reap tremendous rewards.

3. You are the Expert – You were Chosen to Speak for a Reason Perhaps you have the most in-depth understanding of a particular product’s features. Perhaps you are responsible for developing and implementing new techniques with wide-ranging ramifications. Maybe you are the only person who understands your company’s new product/service and must explain how it works to potential investors or even to company sales reps. Regardless of the reason, you are the expert – it was no mere accident you were chosen to speak at this event. You have important, vital, unique information to impart, which brings enormous value to your audience. This is your chance to share your information, so that alone should help you resolve your fear for public speaking.

4. Understand the Value You Bring to the Table Once you understand the value you bring to the table, the rest of the process is very simple. While overcoming that fear of public speaking might seem impossible, you can use numerous techniques to help you move past it. For instance, meditation-style breathing techniques, used before you take the stage, will help slow your racing heart and stem the flood of adrenaline surging through your body.

Remember that the audience is likely not going to notice your sweating palms or your nervousness; in many ways, fear of public speaking is simply all in your mind. Having a positive mindset and the right outlook on the event will help you move past this fear. Remember, you are the expert here, take that to heart, and all else will fall into place and you can confidently deliver your engaging speech.

David Wilkins has put together a complementary 20 page report full of simple and effective ways to reduce your fear of public speaking, which will help you quickly deal with and solve any anxiety issues. To download it instantly visit: http://www.publicspeakingmentor.com/banishfearreport.html

If your stomach churns just at the thought of speaking in front of a group of people, you’re not alone. In fact, Americans rate public speaking as their number one fear – even ahead of death (hence the old joke that you would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy)!

Think about what’s going through your head right at that moment when you are getting ready to open your mouth, whether it’s at a staff meeting at work or in front of the local YMCA parents’ group. Yes, I admit that I hear voices in my head – and I bet you do, too.

Take a moment, close your eyes and really listen for that voice – what is it saying to you?

When I ask clients to share what that voice in their head is telling them right before they speak, they invariably come out with a whiny, annoying voice spewing negatives like “you’re going to make a fool of yourself” or “who do you think you are?”

That voice goes by many names. Creativity expert Julia Cameron calls it “The Censor.” I call it the “Joy-Sucker” because it sucks the joy out of your work and your life. The Joy-Sucker undermines your confidence and makes you less able to convey your knowledge and experience to your audience. In its worst manifestations, it may even cause you to forget your own name!

The Joy-Sucker may come from old beliefs about ourselves or perhaps a comment made by an unhelpful friend, teacher or former spouse.

Instead of allowing the Joy-Sucker to sap your confidence, I recommend replacing it with a positive affirmation or Mantra. Mantra is a term borrowed from meditation and yoga and means a word or phrase that you repeat to yourself to focus your mind and energy. Your mantra should be personally meaningful to you and should be a phrase that you can believe. You can use a song title (Aretha Franklin’s “RESPECT” comes to mind), a line from a poem or anything that makes you feel powerful and confident. “You go, girl” is one of my personal favorites (accompanied by a mental fist in the air).

Once you have created a mantra, try it out in real-life situations. When you are getting ready to speak, listen for the Joy-Sucker and replace it with your mantra.

Remember that the Joy-Sucker has had years of practice, so it’s okay to try several mantras before you find one that is powerful enough to drown it out.

You’ll know the mantra is working when you feel your anxiety decreasing and your confidence increasing (a little bit at a time). As you build your confidence, you’ll be able to tap into your knowledge and experience related to the topic at hand – and you’ll be on your way to becoming a more polished public speaker!

(I’d love to hear your success stories. Once you’ve developed and tried out your mantra, email me and let me know how it works for you.) Gilda Bonanno is a speaker, trainer and coach who helps entrepreneurs, small business owners and corporate professionals improve their communication and presentation skills. Get a FREE Report “6 Mistakes to Avoid in Public Speaking” when you subscribe to Gilda’s e-newsletter. http://www.gildabonanno.com