 If you're afraid of public speaking, you're not alone. Today we'll help you make it less scary. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. It's almost Halloween and all this month we're talking about things that scare us. One thing that absolutely terrifies most people is getting up in front of a group and speaking. I don't know if it's true but I've heard many people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of death. If that's the case for you, we have some tips today to In our challenge this month, we ask you to think of something that scares you and write down all the things that scare you about it. If public speaking is the thing that you chose, you may have written down several reasons for why that scares you, and as we've talked about already, you're not alone. There are a lot of reasons we get nervous about speaking in public. The first is that it's just hard for us as human beings to single ourselves out and face the rest of the group alone. It can feel really lonely when you're up on that stage without anyone else next to you. We can often feel like we don't belong up there and that we're not an expert and shouldn't be talking about whatever it is we're talking about. We think maybe no one wants to listen to what we have to say or that they'll make fun of us afterwards. We might have had some bad experiences in the past and are afraid we might forget everything or that we might say the wrong thing or just mess up really bad. All of these feelings are perfectly natural and even people who have a lot of experience with public speaking and are very good at it feel this way sometimes. Even if you feel this way and are terrified of getting up on stage to talk, we can work with these feelings and use them to help us prepare ourselves to make a great speech that will get our message across to the audience. And that's the thing I'd like you to keep in mind throughout this video is that it's public speaking is all about communicating and that you have an important message to share with other people. Let's start with the idea that we don't belong up on that stage speaking or telling other people what to do. When we feel this way we need to ask ourselves why am I giving this speech in the first place? Did someone ask me to do it? If that's the case why did they ask me to do it? Chances are if your boss or someone at work asks you to give up and speak on a topic it's because they believe you have something to say about the topic or some knowledge or insight to share with the audience. So if someone asks you to speak to a group you already have someone in your corner who believes in you so you don't have to feel like you're up on that stage all alone with no support. If this is a speech you decided to give or asked to give yourself go back to the motivations you had about why you wanted to do it in the first place. Is there information you feel like you need to share that others really need to know? Is there a problem that needs to be fixed and you have unique expertise that can help the group solve the problem? Whatever the reason keep that in mind through all of your preparation right up at the time you stand in front of the group and start talking. It's easy to feel like we're not enough of an expert to get up in front of a group and talk on a subject but the good news is we don't have to be an expert. When we're getting ready to speak it's helpful to remember that we're sharing not just what we know but also our perspective and maybe even our opinion and a recommendation on a topic. It's very similar to sharing what we think with our friends or coworkers on the subject. If we're worried that we'll get asked a tough question or we may not know enough about the topic we can always do more research as we write our speech. In fact we should be doing a research on whatever we're speaking about even if we have extensive knowledge on the topic. Understanding the views of others, confirming our facts and being really clear on how the facts support our position is great preparation to get up on that stage. There's no question that bad experience in the past can make us more reluctant to speak in public. The time we forgot we were going to say or we dropped our notes all over the floor and people laughed or that time we got completely off track these things happened to all of us even the most experienced speakers. The good news is that we can learn from what's happened to us in the past and use it to improve our speaking skills. Practicing our speech thoroughly before we get on stage can help keep us from getting off track or forgetting what we wanted to say and if we practice enough we probably won't even need notes so there's no need to worry about dropping them. Using your phone to video yourself while you practice can give you a good idea of how you look while you're speaking too. It'll probably be uncomfortable to watch it first. I know I hated watching myself when I first started doing these videos but you'll get more comfortable with it over time and you can use it to evaluate your performance and don't forget you can list your friends or co-workers to watch your practice and they can give you helpful feedback that will improve your speech when you give it. I know we really just scratched the surface on this today and you may be saying I'm still not ready to speak in front of a group and that's okay as we talked about these are very natural feelings and it's important that we don't ignore them or try to push through them but that we understand them and embrace them to help us improve our skills. Keeping in mind that we have an important message to share with others and that we do have the expertise to convey that message will help us feel like we belong on that stage. Doing research on the topic and preparing ourselves for tough questions from others will give us the confidence in that message and there's no substitute for practice to help us build good habits that will help our audience stay focused on our message. Try these tips before you give your next speech in front of a group and let us know how it goes for you. If you found this helpful please share it with a friend or co-worker. 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