如何克服公众演讲恐惧(4/6)

Before I discovered this,

I used to put incredible pressure on myself to deliver a perfect performance.

I worked for days to prepare a talk.

I stayed up nights worrying about making mistakes.

I spent hours and hours rehearsing what I was going to say.

And you know what?

All this did was to make me even more anxious.

The more perfect I tried to be, the worse I did.

It was all very disheartening, not to mention unnecessary.

The essence of public speaking is this:

give your audience something of value.

That's all there is to it.

If people in your audience walk away with something of value,

they will consider you a success.

If they walk away feeling better about themselves,

feeling better about some job they have to do,

they will consider you a success.

If they walk away feeling happy or entertained,

they will consider their time with you worthwhile.