What Were Some Practical Things You Did to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking?
- Interview with
- Topic: Speech
What were some practical things you did to overcome your fear of public speaking?
Well, I suppose not everybody knows the story, but this question comes out of a paralysis, a pretty serious physiological and psychological inability I had from about grade 6 (I don’t remember much before six) until between my sophomore and junior year of college.
And it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t like when you get butterflies in front of a group or your knees shake or whatever. It was never funny. It was blood earnest because I simply couldn’t do it.
And it was absolutely humiliating when I was forced to try. Like when we had this training union thing in church where you had to give parts that lasted one minute. And I would hold a card, and it would shake so bad. And everybody would start to look at their laps. They would feel so tense. And I would go home and cry, and my mother would try and...
Well anyway, that’s the background to this question.
The answer is that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t do anything that I know of to overcome it. God stepped in in the summer of 1966 and gave me, for whatever reason I cannot remember, the wherewithal to say “Yes” to Chaplain Evan Welch at Wheaton College who asked me to pray in summer chapel with about 500 people.
I asked him how long you had to pray, and he said, “Thirty seconds.” And I said “Yes,” but I have no idea why I was willing. And I walked back and forth on front campus pleading with the Lord, “If you will get me through thirty seconds without bombing, without my voice choking up and/or trembling so bad that everybody is totally embarrassed for me, I will never again out of fear say ‘No” to a speaking engagement.”
I made a vow, and he did it. And I just feel like something broke. I don’t know what!
If I look back now and try to think of one practical thing to try, I would see if somebody could’ve just coached me, maybe, on how to breathe or how to do your shoulders. I was so physiologically incapacitated there may have been some clues somebody could’ve given me. But I don’t know what it was. I think it probably was rooted in some deep embarrassments that I had as a little kid. But I don’t know.
Anyway, I don’t want to mainly say that practical things were done by me to help me overcome. I looked away from myself to God, and I did my best to trust and take a risk. And something spiritually broke, and I give him thanks to this day.
