It has been said many times that people are more afraid of
speaking in public then of dying.
Looking back on the speaker training I received I would whole-heartedly
agree. As a new speaker I remember
waiting for my turn on stage. The longer
it took the closer I came to physical illness.
It was a horrible experience.
But, oddly enough, after just a few minutes on stage, the fear was
gone. For a long time I did not
speculate about that, I was just glad the experience was over. Now, decades later as a professional speaker
and coach to those making speeches, I returned to that interesting phenomenon,
the vanishing fear. This is what I have
learned about managing that fear.