Public Speaking is easier than you think

Public Speaking is easier than you think

By Michael A. Crom, Executive Vice President, Dale Carnegie Training

Your heart starts racing. Your hands get clammy. You can't remember your name. Your knees are weak. And everyone is staring at you. Yes, you're about to give a presentation. And, if you're like many people, you can't think of anything worse. In fact, all you can envision is totally humiliating yourself in front of an audience that matters to you.

It doesn't matter who that audience is. In fact, I know a salesperson who is perfectly comfortable giving a presentation to a large company's senior management team but quakes in his shoes at the idea of making a thoughtful toast at his parent's anniversary party. One of my daughter's teachers once told me her greatest fear was public speaking. Yet she gets up in front of a class of 20 often harsh critics five days a week! At the same time, I have a friend who can make a complete fool of herself if she's acting a part on stage. But ask her to say something serious in a business meeting and she runs away.

Over the many decades Dale Carnegie Training has been working to help people communicate, we've become very well-known for teaching people how to speak in public. Yet, I must admit, there's very little teaching involved. It really is just a matter of gaining the self-confidence to do what comes naturally.

To gain the confidence to overcome the fear of speaking to any group, consider these three things:

1. You have earned the right to speak on this subject. Chances are, you wouldn't have been asked to talk about the subject is somebody didn't think you were an expert. If you really aren't the best person to talk about the subject, give someone else the opportunity. You'll be helping the audience as well as yourself. I mentioned this to the salesperson before his parents' party and he thanked me profusely. He agreed that no one else knew his parents as well as he did. In fact, after our conversation, he was adamant that no one else could have this important role at the party.

2. Get excited about the subject. If you've earned the right to talk about something, chances are you have something pretty exciting to say to people. Is it a new work process that you helped develop? Is it the fact that your parents' marriage survived 50 years of hardship? Is it your devotion to a political cause?
 It doesn't matter how mundane the subject, you CAN get excited about it. A few years ago, one of our training sessions had a nurse who was asked to speak about washing hands at an upcoming convention. "Everybody learns this in nursing school," she lamented. "What could I possibly tell them that's new?" By the session before the convention, she was truly excited. She realized that with all the attention being given to contagious diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis, it didn't matter if she had anything new to say. She could save lives just by giving the audience a refresher course.

3. Be eager to project the value to your listener. The nurse had found the value in her message. You can do the same. Simply decide what the one thing is you'd like to say about this subject and how it could change someone's life or their view of a situation. For example, after the anniversary party, my friend said a cousin came up to him and told him his toast to his parents was so moving that he realized his own marriage was worth working on. 
 With these three thoughts, you can conquer any fear of talking in public. Your excitement and eagerness will overcome any lapses in speaking style. And your audience will know that you were the right person for that job.

(c) Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc. 2000.  All Rights Reserved.