Death and Public Speaking

 

 

It is often acknowledged that the two things people are most afraid of are death and public speaking. 

Most people can acknowledge that these are variations on Fear – of the unknown and being vulnerable.  Preston Ni has an interesting perspective, suggesting that these two fears are related by the fact that the fear of public speaking is the fear of emotional death!

 

 

Although it might not be so extreme, at House of Colour we’ve experienced people feeling intimidated by the thought of meeting an Image Consultant; they suddenly become self-conscious about their appearance, invest additional energy (compared to their normal levels) in thinking about what they’re wearing and apologise for various elements of their attire which they don’t have complete confidence in.  Otherwise confident people are reduced to varying degrees of nervousness. 

At the very least, this is something that needs to be acknowledged at the meeting introductions, and then put to one side, so that we can get on with the business of the meeting.  But what would it be like if you could remove most of the fear, releasing the energy for more productive use?

At our annual conference last year, we heard Mo Harford speaking about how our brains and thinking get in the way of our performance and producing great results.  In effect it is often only our beliefs which support (positive) or hinder (negative) us in our performance.

 

 

By focusing on getting your look ‘right’, i.e. one that you are comfortable in, comfortable with and that makes you look your best, you’re able to confidently step out and take care of the primary business at hand.  In the case of a ‘business’ person, this is getting on with their ‘business’!  

 

Special events can typically take a lot of our energy and attention when looking for the right outfit - often costing a lot of money - but it doesn’t have to.  For women, the problem often stems from a lack of confidence in coordinating items, so the safe option is to invest in a complete outfit which is clearly designed to coordinate and look good.  The problem with this approach is that you may have invested over £500 (clothing, accessories, shoes and in some cases underwear) and ended up with 1 outfit, rather than spending £500 on several items that can be used and adapted to create many more outfits in combination with clothing in your existing wardrobe.   Return on investment is about your cost-per-wear, shifting the focus to cost-per-outfit, an item of clothing or an accessory reveals itself as a good investment or not.

We need to know we look right, we have phrases such as ‘I need to put my face on’, ‘I’m having a bad hair day’, ‘I can’t go out without my lipstick/perfume/necklace (delete as appropriate)’.  All these statements point towards our need to ensure we ‘look the part’.  I particularly enjoyed reading this article on clothing related expressions!

 

Why are they fears? Because we all have a fundamental concern about what people think of us. This blog by Michael Hyatt gets succinctly to the point – take the focus off yourself!  Ironically, by focusing on yourself and your image, this is exactly what we are aiming for - get your physical presentation to such a level that you are able to take the attention off yourself and focus on the job in hand.

Maybe a business friend of mine who is considering a career transition from Business Consultant and Professional Speaker to Undertaker has the ideal solution to help you through your fears!