What Causes Debilitating Fear in Public Speaking?
Through my many years teaching voice and presentation skills, I have found that those who experience truly debilitating, gut-wrenching fear of public speaking have had a bad experience sometime during their elementary or even middle school years when they’ve been required to stand and speak. And while that one event may not affect every child the same way, for some the damage can be traumatic. Please understand that I am not talking about the usual nervousness experienced by most of us making a presentation or giving a speech. That nervousness is good. It is beneficial: that extra spurt of adrenaline can help make your delivery exhilarating. In my business, I don’t advocate the elimination of nervousness; instead, I teach people how to control it, allowing it to work for them, not against them. Here, however, I am talking about a fear of public speaking that is extreme and is a result of an embarrassing or humiliating experience during childhood that the individual cannot forget. By th
