By Todd Hutchison
It is hard to believe that public speaking ranks as one of people's greatest fears, especially when you consider you were naturally born with all the functionality to speak well, and you do it every day.
The problem is that for those aspiring to become a Chief Executive Officer or consultant, an inability to speak with confidence and clarity can limit your job prospects, slow your leadership opportunities and inhibit your ability to build a public profile.
Speaking is a talent needed of great leaders, and speaking with authority that results in people taking action is what leadership is about. Great compelling speeches have led soldiers to war, activists to passionately fight for a cause, and employees toward fulfilling a business's vision.
As we are not born with this fear, the question is where does it come from and what can we do about it? Consider back to your childhood, the place where many of our fears and doubts begin, based on experiences we have and the meanings we give to those experiences or those we witness. Do you recall the naughty child that was forced by the teacher to stand up in front of the class that became an act of humiliation?
It would not be surprising from being directly involved or seeing that happen to a classmate that you fear standing up in front of your colleagues, as this anxiety is a subconscious conditioned response to protect you from being humiliated in this same way in the future. Your subconscious has a positive intent in protecting you, but it became a limiting belief in your adulthood and is hampering your true potential as a confident speaker. You had at that time placed the meaning of humiliation to the act of public speaking.
Now that you are consciously aware of it, you can give it a new meaning and suddenly you may find the level of anxiety starts to drop. This new meaning has changed a belief you have carried since childhood, and one that has impacted your performance. To support this new understanding, you also need to realise that speaking is not about you, or even the audience, it is about the content you are presenting and the stories that you bring from your life experiences that help convey the messages.
This is why many people become more confident during their speech once they get going and over that initial fear. What is happening is that they start to turn their focus away from thinking about themselves and what people are thinking of them, to the content they are presenting.
Once you have changed your beliefs and understand what had been impacting your ability to speak, the only two other factors relate to knowing your topic and having lots of practice.
Todd Hutchison is the National Chairman of the Australian Project Management Institute Council, and Managing Director of People Rich Pty Ltd www.peoplerich.com
