As I sat in the Dentist chair chatting with my Dentist before he proceeded with my treatment, he mentioned that the number 1 fear for most people is the dreaded Dentist visit. I said well that may be true to some extent but it is well known that the number one fear in the world is getting up and speaking to an audience, unless of course other countries have fostered some very brave people when it comes to public speaking. So why would you think that presenting in front of an audience trumps getting a root canal? Well there are many more nerve endings in the whole body versus your mouth and when you are called to perform on stage your nerves affect the whole body in the form of trembling  and stumbling over your words not to mention  many other physical manifestations that affect the psyche which creates a fear in the mind that can be unprecedented. This can outweigh any type of perceived physical discomfort that you may anticipate at the dentist.

The question is how to we prepare and try to eliminate our #1 fear before speaking? Well most people will do some research and try to find articles to help them to overcome their public speaking fear. There are many tricks and methods that you can do to help yourself but the best way is to take a public speaking class when they are available to you. The reason that you will need to seek out a public speaking class is that you will be able to learn from pro’s that have been helping people for a long time so they have all the bells and whistles and have experience speaking to audiences themselves and know the ropes. You will need to find such a public speaking class that will teach,  then have you do many performances as to simulate real life speaking presentations to prepare you for your real life speaking performances. Some things to consider of look for as a class itinerary would be how to eliminate audience intimidation, how to organize your thoughts – this will cut down on nervousness being that you have a well thought out presentation , how to build rapport with your audience and how to break out of your emotional stalemate. All these are done with simple effective exercises and can be life lasting for a permanent solution.

So as you can see public speaking fear is a real concern for most people and can be addressed and an most cases eliminated .But like anything else you can’t just keep putting off a fear that cripples you from being a successful communicator when it your task to speak.