public speaking advice

Years ago I hired a public speaking coach to help me improve my on-stage presence. Yikes that sentence is lifeless. Let’s try it again, mmkay? Years ago I hired a public speaking coach to help me keep my heart rate in a normal range instead of flitting close to a cardiac episode every time I stepped on stage. Nerves are part of public speaking. The trick, I learned, is to use them to your advantage. Your heart rate increases and your breathing comes more quickly because you care so very, very much. So that near-cardio episode isn’t because you’re terrified; it’s because you’re fired up and raring to go. Viewing your perceived weaknesses as strengths. The reframing helped me enormously. That alone was worth the big fat check I wrote the coach. * * * There were other lessons, too. I found my scribbled notes of them in my office […]