Public Speaking Courses

The Art of Public Speaking
Our Public Speaking training courses are designed for both the inexperienced presenter or as a refresher for more experienced members of your company or organization. Our Public Speaking Courses are offered in all major US cities and across Canada. All public speaking courses are limited to 10 participants which will give you all the face to face time and practice exercises you need with our senior executive training team. Our one day Public Speaking Course delivers over 5 videoed class room exercises per participant.
 

Our public speaking training courses promises to eliminate your fear or inexperience in public speaking and will dramatically improve your speaking skills whether you are persuading, educating, or informing your audience. Our highly interactive public speaking courses focus on professional business communication including preparation, structure, delivery, and strategy, use of visual aids, and handling questions & answers. Contact us today by phone at 713-627-7700 or via email: service@publicspeakingtraining.net

Public Speaking Training Courses: Eliminate Public Speaking Fear Once and For All

"If people find out how anxious and fearful I really am, I'll lose all credibility and respect from my peers."

"I'm terrified of the loss of control over myself when I'm this afraid."

Those are pretty strong statements I read today while I was hunting through public speaking forums for research and inspiration for article topics. One "so-called" expert advised taking some sort of pill for temporary relief... but I just don't think that will take care of the problem.

What a box to corner yourself into!

Not only experiencing intense fear around public speaking, but on top of that fearing that if people find out you're afraid, you'll be utterly discredited professionally. Holy smokes! How does a person who has worked themselves into this mentality find a way out of it?

In social situations, people can hide who they are and how they feel by acting. But what I've found during martial arts training is that once you get on that training mat and interact with someone physically, you learn all about who they are at that first interaction. You can tell by the way they move if they're afraid, if they're tense, if they're controlling, generous, kind, gentle, selfish, insecure, and so on. And they can tell the same things about you - whether you're confident, brave, competitive - or not.

The one thing that I've discovered over the years is that we're all of those things at one time or another. We all have bad days, we all have good days. We're all insecure, afraid, confident and strong at different times. There's no point in trying to hide any of these things about ourselves, because we're all human beings. We all have strengths and weaknesses.

Here's a little secret for you to consider:

The people that are more open about their frailties are the more confident ones. The people that take greater pains to hide their weaknesses are the more insecure ones.

But freeing yourself from that box of intense fear and fearing of having your fear found out is huge - perhaps too huge of a hurdle to overcome in one single step. Instead, if you're a successful professional who feels intense, irrational pressure to hide the fact that public speaking scares the bejeezus out of you, try taking a few steps to work your way out of it.

First, you have to tell someone that public speaking scares you.

Find a public speaking coach, a trusted friend, a counselor, a Toastmasters club: someone or some intimate group that you can share your public speaking secret without fear of judgment.

Second, seek help in taking small steps to build your public speaking confidence and overcome that public speaking fear.

Try building your confidence with affirmations. Revisit your past. Look over your entire life up to now. What obstacles have you overcome? Too often people discount and completely disregard their past accomplishments as quickly as many women I know forget the pain of childbirth as they gaze into the face of their beautiful newborn baby. Write down positive affirmations describing who you are and all that you've accomplished in your life.

List your shortcomings. Be honest with yourself. This may be an uncomfortable exercise, and it may cause you to wince at times. Always remember that you're not alone in possessing them. The process of writing down your negative traits and openly acknowledging them helps to make them an accepted part of your whole self, not something that must remain hidden from the world.

The truth is, you can't hide your shortcomings. They all come out sooner or later in some way. If you're open about them while showing that you still value yourself and your public speaking skills, or while maintaining your self-respect, your audience, colleagues, or friends will follow suit.

Here's another little secret to consider:

The ones who condescend and judge you are those who are struggling with their own hidden fears.

Try neural linking to make your affirmations all the more powerful. This is an interesting way of attaching your positive affirmations to your past accomplishments in order to change your beliefs toward the current obstacle, in this case, intense, irrational fear around public speaking. I was recently reminded of this process in John Assaf's blog:

Search your memory banks for a positive event in your life that was especially empowering, a moment where you felt a thrill of accomplishment, excitement or triumph.

Make a list of positive events so you can easily identify them later on.

Close your eyes and let yourself re-experience that event and examine what you're seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling.

Jot down a few of the impressions you had. What feelings did this experience provoke?

Choose one of your affirmations.

Close your eyes again and let yourself re-experience that powerful memory, evoking all the sensory impressions, feelings and emotions involved.

While you are at the height of that feeling, repeat your new affirmation, either out loud or in your mind.

Don't disregard the value of each small step. They lead to huge results.

Lily Iatridis: link

Subject: Public Speaking Training Courses