Fear of Public Speaking & Stage Fright: Is This Good Advice ?-You Be The Judge!
Fear of Public Speaking & Stage Fright: Is This Good Advice ?-You Be The Judge!
I went to Google and typed in "Fear of Public Speaking", and here's what I found:
Now, of course, I'm skipping the paid listings on top and the paid listings on the side from Google's Adwords program, and just going with the "natural" organic listings.
In position #1, is a website by Morton C. Orman, M.D. (who better to learn public speaking skills from but a medical Dr., eh?) and his website is www.StressCure.com. I think the good Dr. makes a number of good points in his report "How to Conquer Public Speaking Fear".
Dr. Orman outlines 10 key principles. Now, I don't know Dr. Orman personally, but I think his 10 principles are good - in principle. Although much of what the good Dr. writes falls under what I'd classify as "traditional advice" you'll find in any library book, it is all good advice nonetheless.
But going beyond giving Dr. Orman a nice pat on the back and an "A for effort", I'd also offer the following critique, or more to the point, the following important distinction about his advice.
First, you should read his "11 Hidden Causes Of Public Speaking Stress" yourself which is part of the same article. Hint: look for repeated words.
Have you reviewed it yet?
Again, while everything Dr. Orman says is good advice, ultimately this advice does not work in the real world for most people - and by the way, when I say "most people" I'm referring to the fact that over the years I've done workshops on Fear of Public Speaking and How to Conquer Stage Fright and I've taught and tried out E-V-E-R-Y technique on myself and my hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of students.
So, what's the common denominator? What's the key repeated keyword?
Look closely, and you'll notice that it's "thinking". All the advice, while good advice, is about having some kind of mental shift. Having an intellectual understanding.
However, and here's the bad news, Understanding does not cause change!
Feel free to quote me on that.
Look: people go to therapy sessions and spend years talking about their problems. One of my family members has been in therapy for more than 25 years now, spent many thousands of dollars, and understands her problem very well... but still has her problem!
Understanding does not cause change. I will bet that our good Dr. is very well educated, very intelligent, and very cerebral. So naturally his advice on conquering stage fright and fear of public speaking is based on his most highly preferred method of operating in the world: thinking and understanding.
But, and this is a BIG but - change happens on a gut level, not a cerebral level. Right now I won't go into a lot of detail about the dynamics and details of that, but that is the bottom line: understanding does not cause change, change happens on a gut level.
Fear of public speaking, like all fear, is a gut level reaction to perceived danger. If you want to transform that fear, you need to do it on a gut level. The techniques my students learn in my workshops don't require any understandings or intellectualizing. The techniques I teach operate on a gut level to instantly (yes, instantly) cause a different reaction than fear.
It's my experience and the experience of my students that stuff like "knowing your audience wants you to succeed" and other intellectual understandings really just don't cut the mustard; your gut doesn't care about that stuff!
Frankly, this kind of cerebral intellectual advice makes up 99.99% of the "techniques" people teach to conquer stage fright and fear of public speaking. It's almost as if Adam & Eve wrote a book on this topic way back in the beginning, and everyone after that has been copying that book without bothering to find out if it really works or not!
I went to Google and typed in "Fear of Public Speaking", and here's what I found:
Now, of course, I'm skipping the paid listings on top and the paid listings on the side from Google's Adwords program, and just going with the "natural" organic listings.
In position #1, is a website by Morton C. Orman, M.D. (who better to learn public speaking skills from but a medical Dr., eh?) and his website is www.StressCure.com. I think the good Dr. makes a number of good points in his report "How to Conquer Public Speaking Fear".
Dr. Orman outlines 10 key principles. Now, I don't know Dr. Orman personally, but I think his 10 principles are good - in principle. Although much of what the good Dr. writes falls under what I'd classify as "traditional advice" you'll find in any library book, it is all good advice nonetheless.
But going beyond giving Dr. Orman a nice pat on the back and an "A for effort", I'd also offer the following critique, or more to the point, the following important distinction about his advice.
First, you should read his "11 Hidden Causes Of Public Speaking Stress" yourself which is part of the same article. Hint: look for repeated words.
Have you reviewed it yet?
Again, while everything Dr. Orman says is good advice, ultimately this advice does not work in the real world for most people - and by the way, when I say "most people" I'm referring to the fact that over the years I've done workshops on Fear of Public Speaking and How to Conquer Stage Fright and I've taught and tried out E-V-E-R-Y technique on myself and my hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of students.
So, what's the common denominator? What's the key repeated keyword?
Look closely, and you'll notice that it's "thinking". All the advice, while good advice, is about having some kind of mental shift. Having an intellectual understanding.
However, and here's the bad news, Understanding does not cause change!
Feel free to quote me on that.
Look: people go to therapy sessions and spend years talking about their problems. One of my family members has been in therapy for more than 25 years now, spent many thousands of dollars, and understands her problem very well... but still has her problem!
Understanding does not cause change. I will bet that our good Dr. is very well educated, very intelligent, and very cerebral. So naturally his advice on conquering stage fright and fear of public speaking is based on his most highly preferred method of operating in the world: thinking and understanding.
But, and this is a BIG but - change happens on a gut level, not a cerebral level. Right now I won't go into a lot of detail about the dynamics and details of that, but that is the bottom line: understanding does not cause change, change happens on a gut level.
Fear of public speaking, like all fear, is a gut level reaction to perceived danger. If you want to transform that fear, you need to do it on a gut level. The techniques my students learn in my workshops don't require any understandings or intellectualizing. The techniques I teach operate on a gut level to instantly (yes, instantly) cause a different reaction than fear.
It's my experience and the experience of my students that stuff like "knowing your audience wants you to succeed" and other intellectual understandings really just don't cut the mustard; your gut doesn't care about that stuff!
Frankly, this kind of cerebral intellectual advice makes up 99.99% of the "techniques" people teach to conquer stage fright and fear of public speaking. It's almost as if Adam & Eve wrote a book on this topic way back in the beginning, and everyone after that has been copying that book without bothering to find out if it really works or not!
Labels: fear of public speaking
posted by David Portney at
10:49 AM
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