I went looking for the label for "fear of public speaking," because I thought I might incorporate it into the title of this post. Google is telling me that it's "glossophobia," which doesn't work for me. "Tongue-fear" ≠ fear of public speaking. Should we coin a better one? And push it into the wider world? Like Frindle, only etymologically sensible and without the creepily manipulative teacher?
These days I have almost no fear of public speaking. Today I was sitting in my office, prepping some difficult material for my class, when I thought, "Pssshhh, it's only 50 minutes. That's nothing." I do a lot of public speaking.
When I was asked to give a talk on a retreat this team, it felt a little different. If 50 minutes is nothing, 25 minutes is only half of nothing. I include only a tiny sprinkle of personal stories in my lectures, but my talk was supposed to be mostly about me. I wasn't really supposed to lecture, and I spend most of my public speaking time in lecture mode.
The biggest question mark for me was style. On the retreat last spring, led by a team of women from a few hours away, the talks were all pretty somber and pretty scripted. I didn't really want to be either somber or closely scripted. This year our team is mostly local, with a handful of women from last year's team Skyping in. I was worried the Skype ladies were going to hate my talk.
The Skype connection was terrible, so they planned to listen via phone. The phone connection was also terrible, so they disconnected not far into the talk. The local ladies, who were all there in the room with me, laughed in all the right places and gave me encouraging feedback. ("Slow down," they said. This is a little like telling me, "Have straight hair" -- it requires considerably more effort than you might think and it never lasts.)
So I guess I'll keep the funny parts and not worry about the Skype ladies. I'm glad the preview is over.
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