"Sue, let me see if I understand this. You manage 25 company branches. Every week you give a talk at each branch. Yet you're scared to death of the mere idea of speaking to a group. How on earth do you do it?"

"I take a Valium," she admitted, just as casually as any of her friends might say, "I drink two cups of coffee every morning."

I slapped the side of my head, shook it incredulously and confirmed what I'd heard. "You mean you take a Valium before EVERY TIME you stand up to speak? That's 25 a week! How on earth does your system tolerate it?"

"It's the only way I can keep my job. My whole lifestyle depends on me communicating effectively with my employees. I didn't take one today, before coming to your public speaking class." She glanced aside as though she'd been a fool. "I'd heard such great things about how you're able to transform 'basket cases' like me into people whose favorite activity is public speaking. I figured I'd risk it."

Sue was the first speaker of the day at our public speaking class. Routinely, we ask each public speaking class member to get up before the group and, in no more than 60 seconds, introduce themselves. The task should be easy. The subject is one about which no one knows more than the speakers: themselves.

Wrong. Practically no one, by their own admission, succeeds at this introductory speech. But Sue was worse than most. Halfway through, she had gone stone silent. Began biting her index finger, dug her upper teeth into her lower lip, turned ashen white, sailed down the aisle, out the door and, tears streaming down her face, this 35-year-old executive threw herself into the couch against the far wall of the hallway. That's where I caught up with her.

I've taught public speaking classes to more than 3,000 adults all over North America. So I've seen my share of fearful students and the effects of abject terror upon them. But never had I witnessed such a complete breakdown and actual flight.

I imagine you have heard of the Times of London report of the survey of 3,000 Americans to learn what we are most afraid of. (I can't figure out why they wanted to know: do the Brits intend to invade us again?)

Startling results: 41 percent of Americans surveyed fear "speaking to a group" most, compared with 19 most afraid of dying, and the number one fear of 18 percent is flying in a plane. A pity. Because not only do I adore teaching publics speaking classes, helping others learn and practice the art and science of effective presenting, but also, speaking to audiences is my very favorite activity outside of the bedroom.

Moreover, the public speaking class is useful for a public speaking trainer - getting a group of prospects all to themselves in a private room, is the entrepreneur's most effective, most revealing, sales tool.

I applauded Sue's courage and foresight, considering the tension wracking her body. I assured her that time would prove she had made the right choice in skipping the Valium and taking the public speaking class.

"If you will pay close attention to, and follow to the letter, what we ask of you in the next exercise, then stick it in your quiver for permanent application, I promise you that your debilitating fear and paralysis will disappear forever."

I sympathized with Sue. There'd been times in my earlier life when I suffered each time I got up to speak. God knows how my audiences reacted to what turned out to be a very artificial speaker. It reminded me of other public speaking classes and engagements.

Once I flew to Chicago to give a talk to 100 visiting Japanese businessmen. No sooner had I begun speaking than a translator simultaneously began interpreting, aloud, in Japanese. Disconcerting? To say the least. If only I had known in advance: "forewarned is forearmed."

I once taught a public speaking class for students, administrators, teachers and professors at New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY. One female professor confessed, "All I need to get 'agida' is to be invited to speak to a group."

I remembered that over a drink with my client company's administrator after a public speaking class, I described a particularly distressing example of utter fear I'd seen earlier that afternoon. "The poor guy stuttered, then went silent, and grabbed and almost shredded the outsides of both sides of his pants. He was paralyzed."

"Oh, that must have been so-and-so," said my client. "He'd once been institutionalized."

I pleaded that he never assign such a risky case to me... or anyone else teaching a public speaking class... ever again. "I'm not a psychiatrist," I insisted, "but I imagine another such experience might send him back for good!"

I suppose there are as many manifestations of speaker stress as there are scared speakers. Other than the horrible feelings one gets, physical evidence abounds. And it's anything but comforting to the victim, or reassuring to the audience that the speaker knows his subject.

Nonetheless, these indications are but the tip of an iceberg so far as the potential negative impact upon a speaker's audience. And, THAT MOST CRITICAL element, only the rare speaker ever considers in his panic.

Next time you speak, might it behoove you to have a friend or two watch, listen and take notes of your behavior up front? Or video? Suggest they check for the following:

Four Public Speaking Class Key Concepts You Can Use NOW:

(1) Never, NEVER read your speech, use notes, memorize, nor use a Teleprompter.

Instead, when preparing your talk, identify specifically what you want to achieve by giving the speech. Pick 3 , 4, 7 or 8 ideas or concepts which form a coherent, persuasive pitch and draw a picture of each that, when you again see that picture, it brings to mind the idea you had. Blow each up to fit a 36" wide by 24" deep sheet of clean newsprint. Use pencil to sketch your ideas, then finish off with colorful, water-based magic markers.

These will SHOW, and your audience will understand, your ideas, you having told them WHAT each element IS and what it REPRESENTS. And how each ties in to your main theme.

(2) Talk to ONE PERSON at a time. What this means is: pick out one person's EYEBALL - left or right. Give that eyeball (the person) ONE THOUGHT. Then, in TOTAL SILENCE, move to another person's EYEBALL. Give THAT eyeball ONE THOUGHT. Keep giving a different person's EYEBALL one thought until the idea illustrated upon that piece of paper is complete. IN SILENCE, flip the chart. And start speaking, ONE THOUGHT, to each of several audience members' eyeballs. Repeat the process until you've exhausted all presentation sheets.

(3) Fear, stress, tension, nervousness has a PSYCHOLOGICAL origin, yet, amazingly, the remedy is completely PHYSICAL - that is, what you DO to get rid of it. Make sure you speak to ONE EYEBALL at a time. Never say a word unless you are locked in on that EYEBALL. NEVER.

Be MORE physically- and VOCALLY-expressive than you believe appropriate. You'll be JUST ABOUT right. Your audience will LOVE YOU

(4) Position yourself center stage. Plant your feet square to the audience about as wide as your shoulders. Put your easel on which your illustrations are mounted to YOUR left, slightly angled toward the middle of the audience.