FACE YOUR GREATEST FEAR!Have you attended meetings where you wanted and were expected to contribute and simply did not dare to get up and be heard? Have you toyed with
idea of giving workshops to increase your business, but shied away because you were too scared to get up in front of an audience?
Why is it that so many us, who have worthwhile contributions to make, avoid getting up in front of a group of people, to put our thoughts into words? Why is it that small vocal minorities often seem to get their way? Why is it that Toastmasters International attracts over 170,000 members every year? Because many people are afraid to address an audience.
A U.S. publication, "The Book of Lists" reports that
greatest fear of people in North America is to get up in front of a group of people to make a presentation. You are not alone!
And what do most of us do to overcome this fear? We simply decline invitations to speak. In other words, we throw away opportunities for career advancement or increased business. We choose to remain in our comfort zone.
If we do accept to speak to an audience, we have a tendency to hide behind electronic wizardry rather than making our speech a promotional platform for ourselves and we fervently hope that
audience does not notice our shaking knees, trembling hands and quivering voice.
Real communication takes place when one human being reaches out to others by using his or her own natural wizardry. All
email, faxes and multi-media equipment in
world will not be able to replace
human voice, body language or emotion in communication.
Presentation skills are within all of us but we have often developed a negative attitude towards speaking in public. Many psychologists and therapists tend to agree that this phobia about public speaking might have developed as a learned negative behavior during our school years.