People who aren't comfortable speaking in public have dozens of reasons why they can't or won't do it. For some it's a really debilitating fear; for others it's just laziness or a reluctance to work that little bit harder to achieve something that doesn't come easily. The fact is that no matter what your fear, it's possible to overcome it. The question to ask is, "How would my life be improved, if I weren't afraid?"

      Let's imagine a few typical scenarios.

READ MORE

      Recently I needed to ask for telephone help to access an account I hadn't used in awhile. I'd forgotten the entry sequence and just wanted a quick, two sentence reminder: "First you do this, then you do that. That's all there is to it." Unfortunately, that's not what I got.

      For close to 15 agonizing minutes I sat there biting my nails and listening to the person on the other end of the phone repeat the same information at least twice even though I got it the first time. That was only the beginning.

READ MORE

      You're an expert on classical literature who's been asked to join a panel on why 19th century women authors are relevant and influential to 21st century  readers.  Your premise is that these women of another age wrote about heroines who would fit quite naturally into our modern era with perhaps just a change of clothes and a chance to go to law school. You've prepared carefully, your bullet points are all in a row, and you've even planned ahead for any objections to your conclusions. All systems are go.

      You're the next to last speaker, so you listen carefully to what the other panellists have to say.  To your horror, one of the speakers ahead of you has chosen a similar point of view, even used the same examples, and said almost exactly what you were going to say!  What are you going to do?  You have just a few minutes to completely revamp your remarks so that you don't sound like a mimic, a trained parrot, or an unprepared copycat riding the coattails of the speaker who came before.

READ MORE

It doesn't seem to matter how well some folks know their subject, they still feel that writing down their thoughts ahead of time into a coherent message that an audience will appreciate is just too hard.  Or maybe they just don't want to put in the time or effort.   

      What's the big deal about writing a speech? The truth is it's a skill you've been learning since you first went to school, even if you never took a speech class. 

READ MORE