The #1 Public Speaking Myth

Think of a popular public speaker.

Are you picturing this person in your mind? What's the first thing you notice?

The first thing I notice is their confidence. They just look comfortable and at ease and smiling up on stage, in my mind's eye.

And this gives rise to the #1 Public Speaking Myth: that you have to be a confident person in order to be a good public speaker.

Let me tell you why this just isn't true. I think you'll be relieved, and maybe even a little bit surprised!

You see, the kind of confidence that allows you to grow into great  public speaking is actually a by-product of something else: knowing the elements of speaking that you can lean on. Once you have something that holds you up no matter what, you have the confidence to go onto that stage, or into that boardroom, even if you are nervous.

Confidence is borne of knowing, understanding, and getting familiar with yourself. It is learning that the net that holds you is consistently there: the story you are telling, how to be comfortable in your own speaking style - with a little bit of flair thrown in - and what your main point is so that no matter how off-kilter you get you can always find your way back.

A bit like Hansel and Gretel leaving crumbs along the path, isn't it! It's exactly like that!

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You become, at first, confident enough to do your speaker "thing". Confident enough to get out there and make it happen. And if you have been working with a coach, the change will show externally because you will feel it internally. It's kind of magical that way.

Now, if your goal is to in fact someday be a confident speaker, what this will mean ultimately is that you will be confident in your practiced skill of easily overcoming uncomfortable moments, confident in your practiced skill of paying attention first and foremost to attending to your feelings of comfort and then offering that to your audience.

What it will never mean is that you will be confident that you will never make a mistake. It means something far more precious and life-affirming: that you are up to the task of preparing, up to dealing comfortably with a momentary glitch, up to following (but not being held up under the arms by) whatever cues you have embedded in your PowerPoint presentation, and up to continuing the job of letting yourself off of that perfection hook.

Because you're not "only human", you're gorgeously human.