|
|
 |
 |
![]()
Speaking in public shouldn't be
anyone's greatest fear
The Podium
By Tad Simons
It is of
course absurd that fear of public speaking is perennially
cited as the thing that scares people most in this world.
Personally, I can think of all sorts of things that are
infinitely more frightening, such as online shopping,
McDonald's (Chicken McNuggets, to be precise), clean freaks,
religious fanatics, Olestra, commercial radio, body piercing,
pleather, decaf coffee, unleashed dogs and budget meetings, to
name a few.
But then again, I'm
in the public-speaking business. If such reliable journalistic
sources as The Book of Lists and Reader's Digest
are to be believed, most folks who aren't in the
public-speaking business would rather stick their head in a
wheat thresher than get up in front of a group of people and
open their mouths. Which could go a long way toward explaining
why the people who do have the courage to open their mouths in
public (politicians, lawyers, news anchors, Tony Robbins,
"Survivor" contestants, etc.) are themselves so scary.
But I digress.
The fear that isn't
The real reason fear of public speaking is absurd
is that it doesn't actually exist. At its root, fear of public
speaking is nothing more than everyone's old, familiar
nemesis: fear of embarrassment. You remember it. In grade
school, it's what made you want the same lunchbox as everyone
else. In junior high, it's what made you stop having your
mother cut your hair. In high school, it's what made you
pretend you were taking notes whenever the teacher asked a
question.
Almost everyone has a
memory of a time when they said or did something that caused
an entire roomful of people to laugh at them, and -- for
reasons that psychologists charge $200 an hour to explain --
hardly anyone wants to repeat the experience. Dig down deep
enough and most people will admit that the reason they hate
public speaking is its potential to pick the scabs of those
old wounds and make them bleed again. No one wants to look
like an idiot, or be exposed as one. That is the risk public
speakers take, unfortunately, and bitter experience has taught
many people that it's not worth the trouble.
The shame of it all
Beyond issues of personal anguish, however, the
mere fact that great masses of people identify fear of public
speaking as their No. 1 demon is cause for larger concern, I
think. It suggests that our schools are not doing enough to
teach children and young adults how to stand up and say what's
on their minds; that the few public-speaking challenges
students are forced to endure, such as "show and tell" or
reading out loud, are largely experienced as shameful and
humiliating episodes; and that, even at the professional
level, the encouragement and support needed to develop solid
speaking skills is sporadic at best.
This is a shame, if not a disgrace, because if
everyone in this country had a little more confidence in their
speaking abilities and were a little less concerned about what
people thought of them, it's quite likely people would be more
involved in their communities, more active and vocal as
citizens, and that we would have a more engaging and effective
democracy. Which would be nice. But speaking and presentation
skills are also increasingly important keys to personal
success, and the lack of these skills is one of the main
reasons why people get stuck in their careers, frustrated in
their relationships with other people and trapped in dead-end
jobs.
Think of it this
way
To my way of thinking,
public-speaking anxiety is really a privilege. To feel it, you
first have to live in a society in which you are free to speak
in public. It implies that you are not being plagued by other,
more pressing fears, like how to avoid being eaten or where
your next meal is going to come from. It indicates that you
have the opportunity to say something important, and that you
care enough about your message to be concerned about how you
deliver it. Not everyone gets that chance.
Our March cover story, "Taming the Beast Within,"
explains how six of the country's top presentation coaches
teach their clients to cope with speaking anxiety. What helps
me is to think of the speaking jitters as my body telling me
that what I am about to do matters. Not everything in life
comes with such clear signposts. My advice is to see speaking
anxiety for what it is, then step up to the mic, say what's on
your mind and let the dice of judgment fall where they may.
Heck, it beats sticking your
head in a wheat thresher.
Tad Simons is editor-in-chief of
Presentations magazine. Write to him at mailto:tsimons@presentations.com?subject=CommentOnMarch2002Podium.
Originally
published in the March 2002 issue of Presentations
magazine. Copyright 2002, VNU Business Media.
| |
|
|
|
