Fear of Public Speaking

Public Speaking is ranked one of the top fears in the country and unbelievably, is ranked higher than the fear of death. This SkillBite contains the key ingredients to help those people who are terrified of public speaking overcome their fear.

My first experience with public speaking was a nightmare. I worked in the travel industry for a few years and I was attending a travel trade show dinner as a representative of the charter company I worked for. At that point in my life I had been in the industry for a few years so I thought of myself as a subject matter expert when it came to chartered vacations. Picture this…

I was sitting at a table with approximately nine other travel professionals eating dinner when one of my fellow travel agents asked about the prize my company was going to be presenting as our give away during the dinner. I stopped mid bite (fork in mouth) and thought to myself prize, what prize? We were practically out of business. So I remained calm and blurted out a “faux” prize and I kept on eating while my mind was racing.

Did I really have to speak in front of all of these people? Why didn‟t anyone tell me that I was going to have to do this? I wasn‟t prepared! I anxiously waited for my turn to speak to approximately 500 travel professionals about our company, our product, and our faux prize. When I walked up to the stage and stood there with the microphone and I looked out towards the crowd I experienced many of the symptoms people get when they have a fear of public speaking.