Confidence

Confidence:

One of the biggest issues that people have with public speaking is confidence.

I believe it was the comedian Seinfeld that had as part of one of his routines the statistic that in a list of things people feared the most, public speaking ranked higher than dying – which meant that at a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy!

The fear is real!

Some people will never overcome the fear sufficiently to be an effective speaker, but almost everyone can become at least competent, and only a few will ever be absolute superstars.

Think about that for a moment – in every field of life, you get a few who can’t, a majority who can, and a few who achieve excellence.

How many people become first class sportsmen?

Take football (of whatever brand you like).

Very few people cannot do it at all.

The overwhelming majority of men have at least the ability to play football at a social level, with many playing at a club level. Within that group, there is a range of abilities which cover from can do, but not well, to almost “pro-level”.

The Superstars are unlikely to be reading this, so this means that you, the reader, most likely fall into this middle group.

You then, must decide where in this group you need to be.

If public speaking is part of your job, then you need to get as high in this group as you can, but if it is incidental to your job, then maybe you can settle for just OK….. that is if you are the “settling” kind.

Once you sort out where you need to be in this group, you can start to figure out how important confidence is to you.

This is the basic building block of public speaking – your confidence when speaking in front of that group is evident regardless of the techniques that you practice and employ.

So, let’s begin with confidence.