Speaking With Confidence

Have you had the privilege of seeing the old tape of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while giving his famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech? There you will hear him saying, ‘And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jew and gentiles, protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro Spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God we are free at last!’’

Here of course is an example of a good speech that is still being referred to till date. He stood before his audience and spoke with confidence.

You too can stand before your
audience and speak with the same kind of confidence. Whether your audience is a group of three, a classroom-full or a stadium-full, it takes the same training to stand before them all and speak with confidence.

Dale Carnegie, am sure the name rings familiar to you, the great speaker and writer, suggested 4 ways of developing confidence when it comes to speaking before an audience.
Get the Facts About Fear of Speaking in Public.
You must realise that you are not unique n your fear of speaking in public. All speakers have a bit of stage fright at the opening of their talks. You should expect a certain amount of fear as a natural adjunct of your desire to speak in public and you should learn to depend on a limited amount of stage fright to make you give a better talk.
I remember my boss once told me a story of himself delivering his first formal speech. At the time, he was working as a manger of one of the big cars dealer outlet. The company had a dinner party and he was expected to give brief talk. As the time approached for him to come up, his heart was beating very heavily and did not see himself doing it. The time came and he mounted the little podium placed before the audience. He started by saying, good evening ladies and gentlemen and his fears took over. He could not continue that faithful night because what followed was ehm ehm ehm. He did this for the next one minute. Since he could not put words together, he retired to his seat embarrassed. May I let you know that this same boss of mine is now travelling all around the world speaking to audiences to make a living. He now teaches communication in four continents.
If stage fright gets out of hand and seriously curtails your effectiveness by causing mental blocks, lack of fluency, uncontrollable tics and excessive muscular spasm, you should not despair. If you continue to make effort, you will find the degree of fright soon reduced to the point where it will prove to help and not constitute a hindrance.

Prepare the Proper Way
Never memorize a talk. You should rather do one of two things. First, use a cue card where only important points are jotted. Two, write out your speech and then go over it again and again to be sure you have mastered it. This does not mean you should memorize your speech because you will reap the repercussion if you do.
Even Winston Churchill had to learn that lesson the hard way. As a young man, Churchill wrote out and memorized his speeches. Then one day, while delivering a memorized talk before the British Parliament, he stopped dead in his mental tracks. His mind went blank. He was embarrassed and humiliated! He began his last sentence all over again. Again his mind went blank and his face scarlet. He sat down. From that day onward, Winston Churchill never attempts to deliver a memorized talk.

Predetermine Your Mind to Success
This you can do by telling yourself the importance of your talk. You should ask yourself the importance of your talk. You should ask yourself how your talk will help the audience to be better people for having listened to you.
Never see yourself failing. For example, thinking of yourself making errors of grammar. Even of you do, go ahead. Don’t let negativity tear down your self-confidence.

Act Confident
One of the ways you can do this is to look at your audience as you speak. Smiling at intervals will also put you in the confident class.

As close, let me reiterate my point by telling you a story of what happened to me during one of my swimming classes as an undergraduate. We were required to take swimming classes ever Wednesday throughout the second semester of our 3rd year in the university. On a particular day, after swimming for a while, I decided to stand at the edge of the deepest part of the pool in company of other classmates who were also resting. One of them, knowing that have fear for such areas of the pool, pushed me into pool. And since I have told myself I cannot swim that side of the pool, I did not attempt to swim. Just gave up and started swinging my hands to request for help. Help actually came.In public speaking, such help does not arise because no one can continue your talk for you, so you should be prepared and know that a bit of fright s necessary.