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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 21 Oct 2010
Time: 22:15:11 -0500
Remote Name: 72.64.101.29
Hi Allesha, ...... Join Toastmasters! You'd love it, believe me! .... In answer to your question, it took me about six months to be reasonably comfortable with public speaking. Once I had discovered that it actually was not fatal (really!) and that people actually enjoyed hearing me speak (which took me seemingly forever to honestly believe), I began to have FUN up in front of a crowd. Then I finally began to get comfortable doing public speaking. Of course I stutter when I speak. No way will I ever become totally fluent. But people honestly don't CARE if I stutter as long as I am a good COMMUNICATOR. And you can be a good communicator and stutter at the same time. The trick is to finally realize it's NOT about ME. It's about the audience and whether they take away any value from your talks. Use humor and have FUN up there in front of the audience. People learn when they have FUN. It took me another couple of years to realize that. .... And today I absolutely LOVE to get up in front of an audience and speak! It's more than just being comfortable. It's one of the most enjoyable things I do. Just today I spoke to two classes at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Ft. Worth, and had a ball doing it! A bunch of us went out to lunch afterwards, and that was even MORE fun! ... You asked "How did I feel after my first speech?" It was a sense of overwhelming relief that I didn't die! But I had to admit that there's a real sense of accomplishment when you actually DO something that you are scared to death of. It must be like your first parachute skydive. It scares to death to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but when you finally get on the ground, you gotta admit that it's was a MAJOR rush! Then after you do it a dozen times, you know what to expect and you really start to ENJOY the thrill of it. (At least that's what my skydiving friends tell me. I'm still working on that!) .... I hope you're enjoying this wonderful ISAD conference! .... Russ