…does not bring the Intensity that you think it does

“Most of the time, they are happy that you are making any sense at all”

These words by Peggy Noonan, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, and author of “On Speaking”, bear a lot of weight.

When I do a survey at the beginning of my courses, the no. 1 reason that students cite for their fear of public speaking is “the fear of being judged”. For not making sense, for wasting the audience’s time, for coming off as unprepared, incoherent, insufficiently researched, having a bad accent, posture or tone. The list goes on.

But in reality, and empirically, the audience lens is a lot better than you expect. Public speaking is the no. 1 fear in the world. If so, the audience is likely to empathasize, with you, sympathize with you, imaging themselves in the same position, and going through the motions with you.

This realization can be extremely powerful. In class, a student once recounted an experience of going up to a nervous brother-in-law right before his sister’s marriage toast. He was incredibly stressed about the speech. And then this AOC alum asked him, “Why stress? The audience doesn’t bring an intensity,.” Just these words were enough to shake off quite a bit of the nervousness. The last sip at the bar perhaps helped too. But he did deliver a great toast, and then come by and thanked her just for sharing these words.

This realization is reinforced over and over in my class, a real-life and real-time communication laboratory. After students are cold called for their impromptu Q&A session, or to give a 30 second introduction, both early in the class, the overwhelming majority say that, looking back, the experience went better than expected. Good news.