Fear of public speaking

                                                                June 8, 2018 by Banchiwosen Woldeyesus

It will consume you,

If you let it.

Fear gets what it needs,

From you.

Do not let it feed itself,

It will increase in power,

And be stronger than you.

Know it, to manage it.

The only way to win this war,

Is to be bigger than it.

_ Reclaiming of the fear

Personal Story

Something unwanted happened —

Years ago, I was invited to Dubai for a very large training conference as a speaker. I was there to give training on a certain product the company that I worked for produced. On the day that I was going to deliver my training, something unwelcome happened.

All of a sudden I was very much petrified. After a couple of hours I was going to speak to a large audience. I was holding it together, but barely. I didn’t know why I was shaking with fear that day. I have stood in front of people and gave a lecture before. But I didn’t remember being this scared.

I remembered when I got my first job as a teacher and entered into a classroom for the first time, I was afraid on that day as well. In those days, I used to train Microsoft applications to different company employees.

Even though I knew what I was going to teach, speaking in front of people was a very new and challenging thing. Still in spite of the fear, I had started lecturing. At the end of the class, I had totally forgotten that I was afraid in the beginning.

Through practice, this fear became insignificant. It was there but it didn’t have any hold on me. That was why, I was surprised it was holding me back on that important day. At that time I had experience in training. So I should have been very much ok. But life surprises you in unexpected ways. You don’t want something but it is there nonetheless.

I didn’t want fear to affect my speech that day. So I started doing an internal dialogue with myself. I have read this concept from Dale Carnegie’s famous book “How to develop Self-Confidence and Influence people by Public Speaking”.

Fear is memorable, so to this day I remember clearly the dialogue I had with myself like it had happened yesterday.

Me: “Do I want to speak today?”

My own answer: “Yes”

Me: “Are you sure?”

My own answer: “I am very sure.”                                                               

Me: “Why do I want to speak today?”

My own answer: “Because I am doing something I love. I am very good at it. In addition, the training that I have prepared is useful to me and my company as well.”

Me: “Then why are you thinking of backing out?”

My own answer: “It is fear that is making me think so. I have never trained such a large audience before.”

Me: “May be you are not prepared enough.”

My own answer: “I have been preparing for this day for weeks and weeks.”

Me: “Then go ahead and do your thing.”

My own answer: “But what about the large audience? There will be at least 500 people over there.”

Me: “Forget the number.”

My own answer: “How can I? I think that is the real reason why I am afraid today.”

Me: “The number is not important. What is important is ‘you know thoroughly what you are going to talk about, you have a strong desire to deliver what you have and lastly you have practiced again and again’ which should give you the self-confidence that you need.”

                  “Your fear is 100% dependent on you for its survival.” Steve Maraboli

It had fled like a bat out of hell —

After my internal dialogue, I had made up my mind not to spend any of my time to fight fear. I had realized that nothing is going to stop me from delivering my speech. In fact, the notion that I was afraid showed me how very much I wanted my speech to be a success.

Of course, fear was against the idea. Even though it was fearsome to behold, fear did not grab me. The only choice that I had was to go ahead and speak in spite of my fear. So I did. Once I started, the fear had disappeared. It had fled like a bat out of hell.

Who knows where it has gone to?

Because of the experience I am a lot stronger for it. Actually I am thankful for it, because now I know I can speak to any audience. Since that time I’ve grown by leaps. Every day I learn more and more about fear’s tricks and weak points.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself ‘I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along’.” Eleanor Roosevelt