Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking

Three of 10 people can walk in front of an audience, dazzle them with an opening "grabber" statement to capture their attention, and transition to three key points that provide information or elicit a decision. Three of 10 people can do that with accuracy, brevity, and clarity. Moreover, they can do it without fear. You are probably thinking, "What about the other seven?" Well, when the other seven walk in front of an audience they are trembling with fear. Speaking in front of people is the number one fear in the nation. People are more afraid of public speaking than they are of snakes, ghosts, and even death. What are they afraid of? There are two possibilities. The first is that at some point in their lives, they had a very bad experience in public. That experience is indelibly imprinted in their long-term memory. And now every time they walk in front of an audience that one bad experience bursts forth and the stomach butterflies and the shakes begin. The second reason is they project onto the audience, believing the audience is just sitting there waiting for them to forget their lines or make a mistake. So the self fulfilling prophecy steps in and they make a mistake or forget their lines thus confirming their belief about what the audience is thinking. But hold on! You can overcome this fear with what I call "self talk." Here's how it works. There is something positive and rewarding that you can do better than anybody else, something you have done so many times, you can do it in your sleep. Tell yourself over and over again how good you are at it. In fact, tell yourself so many times that you indelibly write it on your long-term memory, overwriting the one bad experience that you had. Furthermore, when you look out at the audience and see them staring at you, waiting for you to make a mistake (you briefly think), say to yourself, "I bet you can't sing a song, paint a picture, play the piano, or write a poem (insert whatever is your forte) like I can. This "self talk" will put you head and shoulders above anybody in the audience. After all, they need you! That's why you are standing in front of them making this presentation. So seize every opportunity to speak publicly and eventually the fear will be gone.

Email's Darkside

The technique used to move information from A to B dates back to 2400 BC in ancient Egypt. The Pharaohs printed their decrees on scrolls and sent them out to the people by courier. Certainly, that must have taken days, maybe even weeks. We have come a long way since then. Just in the last 60 years our electronic geniuses have led the evolution of information transfer to the point where we can create a decree, click the "send" button and have it appear virtually anywhere in the world in seconds. A round of applause for email, one of the greatest innovations of our time! But, hold on! This is the bright side. Just like yin and yang, email also has its dark side. Similar to a few alcoholic drinks, email can give us the courage to say what should have been left unsaid. To further exacerbate the situation, it's now in writing--etched in stone. Sometimes even for public view, depending on the distribution. And once it's in writing, it can come back to haunt us at a later date. In some instances, email supplants the vital face-to-face communication necessary for effective interpersonal relations. For example, a supervisor, afraid of confrontation, will use email to correct an employee's errant behavior when face-to-face communication would have been much more effective. These are just two examples among many of the dark side of email. In my opinion, before we click the "send" button, we should click the "delete" button and have a face-to-face conversation instead.