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Seven stories of people who once had a

crippling fear of public speaking and did
something about it!
20/4/2020 0 Comments

I am doing something new for this month’s blog

article. I want to tell the stories of seven people
who decided that they were no longer going to let
their fear of public speaking deMne them.

Why am I doing this? Most people with a fear of

public speaking take years to do anything about
it. They wait until the impact on their career or
personal lives is so damaging that they have to
act. I hope that these stories will encourage
people to take action sooner. I hope that people
will read these stories, recognise something of
themselves, realise that it is possible to move
past a crippling fear of public speaking, and Mnd
the courage to take action.

These are all true stories (although some names

and details have been changed to protect the
privacy of the people behind these stories). I
know all these people personally – most but not
all are past clients. There is a common theme
that you might recognise. Most of these people
say they still get nervous and that they are still
working on improving their speaking skills. But
in all cases they are no longer overwhelmed by
fear to the point that it is impacting their lives.
They are now able to feel the fear and do it
anyway!

Karen’s story
Karen can trace her fear back to a particular
incident when she had a panic attack as a 12-
year-old auditioning for an orchestra. She failed
the audition, felt shame for years after that
incident, and was never able to talk about it.
Karen is a very warm ‘people person’ who loves to
be challenged and appears outwardly conMdent.
But her fear made her follow career paths that
were more hidden away. She has worked in IT
most of her life and describes her roles as
‘deskbound’ and ‘unchallenging’. She was never
happy in these jobs and realised that if she
wanted to do something more fulMlling she was
going to have to throw herself into the situation
she was terriMed of!

Karen signed up for a Fear-less course and was

very heartened to meet a group of people who
were all clearly successful in life but had one
debilitating fear in common. “I was not alone and
my secret was no longer a secret!” she says. She
realised, through the course, that she was
intensely self-critical and was Mxating on things
about herself that other people did not see or
barely noticed. For example, she realised that her
nervousness was far more obvious to her than to
others. By concentrating on delivering her
message rather than judging herself she was
ultimately able to relax more. (See a previous
blog post “Think purpose, not performance” for
an explanation of why this works).

Karen says that she has achieved what she

thought was impossible and can now speak to
audiences without falling apart. This has
removed a cloud that has followed her for her
whole life and has given her a huge conMdence
boost in all areas of her life. She has Mnally been
able to choose a new career path with nothing to
hold her back. She has followed her heart and
become a primary school teacher and ‘couldn’t
be happier’. Her only regret – that she did not act
sooner!

Hamish’s story
Hamish is a little different to many of my clients
in that his fear of public speaking has impacted
his personal life more than his career. Hamish is
a tradesman and has never been interested in
climbing the corporate ladder. He has always
considered himself an introvert but the
realisation that he hated public speaking came
at a wedding. As the groomsman he had to read
messages from people who couldn’t be there.
The formality and size of the event made him
freeze and he decided that he would steer clear of
public speaking after that.

Avoiding public speaking has deMnitely taken its

toll on Hamish. He managed to avoid it for years
as friends and family always stepped up to help
him out. However, he reached the point where it
became harder to avoid and he ‘no longer wanted
to be that person’. He was also envious of his
brothers who were good public speakers and he
wanted to be able to have his say at family
functions and events.

Hamish enrolled in a Fear-less course and

realised that his fear was a common problem. He
found that with the right tools, adequate
preparation, and taking ‘baby steps’ he could
improve his skills and increase his conMdence.
Although it hasn’t always been easy and he is
still working on it, he also feels that something
he saw as a huge problem is actually quite
simple if you just stick with these things.

Hamish now actively looks for opportunities to

have is say rather than avoiding it. He feels that
the ability to have your say is a real gift.

Melissa and Charlotte’s stories

Melissa and Charlotte do not know each other
but they have a lot in common. I have decided to
tell their stories together as they are typical of
many of my clients. They have both feared public
speaking from a young age, work in marketing,
achieved career success at a young age, have
experienced the ‘imposter syndrome’, and are
outwardly conMdent and competent people
whose fear of public speaking would probably
surprise their colleagues.

Melissa says that her fear began at age 10 when

she had to give a speech to her class that she felt
went badly. She felt very embarrassed at the time
and afterwards and began to dread speaking up
in front of others. She avoided activities like
debating that interested her. She believed that
public speaking was a talent that others had and
she lacked so made no effort to improve. (See a
previous blog article “How to apply a ‘growth
mindset’ to public speaking”.)

Professionally, Melissa had early career success

and was still in her twenties when she led a
team. However, she describes herself as suffering
from the ‘imposter syndrome’ where she doubted
her own abilities as an employee and team leader
and was worried about being exposed as a fraud
(see a previous blog article “The ‘imposter
syndrome’ may explain your fear of public
speaking”).
Her profession meant that she couldn’t avoid
public speaking but she felt very anxious
beforehand and afterwards she would beat
herself up about things she didn’t feel went well.

Melissa enrolled for the Fear-less public

speaking course and has also gone on to do a
Toastmaster sponsored course. She says that
persistence, patience and kindness have helped
her make a lot of progress as well as the
realisation that the majority of people, including
some very famous people like Richard Branson
and Julia Roberts, have had a fear of public
speaking at some point in their lives.
She now volunteers for speaking opportunities
and is careful to acknowledge what she has done
well and avoid focussing excessively on what did
not go as well. She also makes a point of asking
others for feedback and been very encouraged to
have colleagues comment on how much she has
improved – including people who have no idea
she has taken public speaking courses.

Charlotte doesn’t remember exactly how her fear

of public speaking came about but remembers
shaking in front of her classmates as she did a
presentation as an 8-year-old. She always felt
awkward about having attention directed
towards her.

Charlotte has also felt like an imposter and had a

period, following a promotion, where she was
convinced that her boss was about to tell her
she was not up to the job every time he asked to
see her. She feels that her fear of public speaking
has held her back professionally as she has
avoided putting herself forward for tasks where
she would have to lead and present.

For Charlotte, the breakthrough was the

realisation, after watching herself on video, that
she was better at public speaking than she
thought. This has led to more positive
experiences that have helped give her conMdence
that she can do it. She sees this as a gradual
process and is still working on improving. She
feels that taking steps to address her fear of
public speaking has really helped her to lead
workshops for work colleagues on subjects that
she feels strongly about such as wellbeing,
mindfulness and nutrition.

Reza’s story
Reza is a GP and entrepreneur who had an
intense fear of public speaking despite being
highly articulate! Although most people who fear
public speaking, are better than they believe, the
gap between Reza’s ability and his conMdence
was extreme.

Reza believes his fear of public speaking

developed as a student when he was
underprepared for the intense oral testing. Reza
says that he assessment methods “involved
public humiliation in front of peers and seniors,
in the form of probing interrogations designed to
put students on the spot.” His self-conMdence
plummeted and he once fainted in front of a
teaching group which was a deeply
embarrassing and pivotal moment. The Mnal
turning point for Reza came at his own wedding
where he nearly fainted again – his vision started
to darken peripherally, his ears were ringing, and
he was drenched in sweat. Interestingly his
audience did not seem to notice his nervousness
and he had great feedback on his speech, but
this experience was the catalyst for seeking help.
Like Hamish, he wanted to enjoy delivering
speeches to loved ones.

Reza joined a Toastmasters club where he has

made tremendous progress with the help of his
peers and mentors. Like Karen, Reza has found it
useful to focus on his audience and what they
could gain from his words, rather than his own
internal state of unease. He also spent many
months cultivating mindfulness and these
techniques have helped him to quieten his
intense self-doubt.

Since joining Toastmasters Reza has delivered

key notes speeches at international conferences,
lead meetings and teams, pitched to investors,
and even won a public speaking competition.
Reza points out that the fear is still there but it is
now on his terms and at a level appropriate to
the occasion. This is an important point that
many people don’t realise. Public speaking is a
form of performing and it is natural (and even
helpful) to feel some nervousness before a
performance.

Sharon’s story
While many of my clients have had a life-long
fear of public speaking, there is another large
group who have lost their conMdence in public
speaking at some point in their lives, usually as a
result of a change in career or taking time out of
their career to care for children. Often they have
also experienced a stressful event in their lives
that has contributed to general anxiety. Sharon is
typical of this group of clients.

Sharon is an architect who was always very

conMdent about public speaking and performed
very well in pressured situations such as
interviews and client presentations. She also
taught for a few months and was used to
presenting to other teachers and speaking up in
staff meetings.

Then she had an incident that completely

blindsided her and knocked her conMdence. She
was asked to present for the launch of a course
she was involved in teaching and was excited by
the opportunity. She prepared some great visuals
that she knew would stun the large audience of
media, students, photographers, parents,
teachers, and industry peers. On the day of the
launch she was surprised by the size of the
audience but it did not bother her until Mve
minutes into the presentation when her voice
started shaking, she felt panicky, her legs felt
wobbly and she had to clutch the podium to
struggle through. She managed to pull it together
and Mnish but afterwards she felt mortiMed by
the experience. Any time she was asked to speak
from this point onwards the panic would set in
and she was terriMed by this, knowing that it
could appear from nowhere. Sharon says she lost
her professional spark after this incident. She
stopped teaching, avoided applying for exciting
new roles as they speciMed you had to be a
‘conMdent communicator’ and felt that she was
not performing to her full potential in her current
role.

I recall Sharon calling me about the Fear-less

course and her biggest concern was that she
would be the worst person there! The Mrst night
of the course Sharon said that she was so scared
that she texted her husband saying “OMG! I don’t
want to do this. Why did I do this?” She told
herself that she didn’t have to come back but
even after the Mrst class she started to feel that
maybe it would be OK.

Through the course Sharon started to realise that

she was better than she gave herself credit for.
Her shaky voice had really worried her as she
thought it was a complete give-away about the
state of nervousness, but when I explained that
we hear the shake in our own voice before anyone
else does, she understood that it was probably
not obvious to others. She realised that
preparation and practice are essential. She also
gained a bit of perspective - that others are not
‘hanging on your every word’ and that it is often
hard to know what our audience is thinking.

Sharon’s career is on hold currently for personal

reasons but she now feels much more conMdent
about applying for new roles and taking on new
exciting opportunities. Like so many others, she
regrets that she did not act sooner.

My story
As I was Mnalising this article I decided that I
should add my own story. I tell this story to my
clients on the Mrst night of the course and I do so
to gain credibility, show empathy, and to
practice what I preach about ‘being vulnerable’.
This is the Mrst time I have told this story outside
of my small group sessions. I sometimes tell
others that I used to be nervous about public
speaking but I tend to downplay it. This is
because the recollection of freezing in front of an
audience still feels shameful 15 years later!

I had mixed experiences of public speaking when

I was young. Most were good but occasionally I
became intensely self-conscious. I remember
reading a poem at school that I had written and
my throat closed up so that I could barely
produce a sound. Despite having these
‘moments’ I developed into quite a conMdent
speaker in my twenties and thirties. I was a
policy advisor to local government and I led
elected members (who are not always a forgiving
audience) through some difMcult decision-
making processes.

But then I had a decade working part time and

very rarely presenting to audiences. And I lost my
conMdence. When I returned to full time work I
was at a senior level and expected to present
frequently. I started having waves of panic and
often felt ‘disconnected’ from my own words. One
day my mouth went completely dry and I could
not produce a drop of saliva. Another time I froze
in front of the senior management team. I
started blushing and sweating profusely and
then the opposite happened - all the blood
drained from my face and I felt cold. I somehow
recovered and carried on but after that incident I
realised I had two choices – change careers and
hide myself away or take action.

I Mnally joined a Toastmaster club and like many

of my clients realised that I was being unduly
harsh on myself. I discovered that I spoke best
when I was well prepared and conMdent in my
topic. By learning techniques such as pausing
and eye contact, I was able to look more
conMdent than I felt – until gradually my
conMdence caught up. For years after joining
Toastmasters I sometimes still had moments of
panic that would often appear from nowhere. But
I also found that I could let a wave of panic wash
over me and carry on without anyone noticing.
The knowledge that I could do this meant that
these moments became fewer and fewer.

I started Fear-less Public Speaking because of

my knowledge that the fear of public speaking is
incredibly common, can be signiMcantly reduced
with the right support, and the gains can be life-
changing. Taking action has allowed me to
transition into a new career doing something
that makes a difference to people’s lives. I thank
everyone who has shared their stories so
candidly as it reinforces for me, why I do what I
do.

Article written by Catherine Syme

Can't attend a course? Find out how

private one-on-one coaching could help with
your public speaking anxiety.

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Catherine Syme
I get huge satisfaction from seeing the relief,
pride, and even joy that people experience when
they complete a course and re:ect on the
progress they have made. See what others say for
some inspiring stories.

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