Overcoming Your Fear

• Author: Faith Dianne Pincus
• Profession: Attorney and former Federal Law Clerk
• Pages: 97-106

97

CHAPTER EIGHT

Overcoming Your Fear

We now arrive at the point in this book where we illustrate and address

the greatest obstacle public speakers generally face: fear.

Fear comes in many shapes and sizes. It can come in the form of

butterflies in the stomach, a quavering voice, a red face and chest, or

a burst of flop-sweat across your brow. Fear can cause you to lose the

power of speech, make you giggle inappropriately, or make your mind

go blank. It can embarrass you, beat you down, and keep you awake

at night. But anxiety about speaking doesn’t need to conquer you or

ruin your chances of delivering a great presentation. It’s a very natural

response shared by many people, including some of our greatest speak-

ers and performers, who have learned how to lessen its effects, even if

they can’t banish it forever.

In other words, there are things that you can do to help yourself.

Own Your Fear

Half of the battle in overcoming fear is realizing that it may never entirely

go away. This should, despite how it sounds, be a comforting thought.

After all, if you actually believed that fear could be completely defeated

and then, moments before you stepped in front of a judge or an audience,

a shiver of fear ran up your spine, you might well panic. But knowing that

your fear can be diminished, even if not driven away entirely, allows you

to recognize, confront, and—eventually—minimize your fear.

That, after all, is the ultimate goal. Not to banish fear, but to make it

so insignificant that it no longer impedes your ability to do your job. And

the first step in minimizing your fear is to own it. Once you have dealt with

that reality, you can begin the real work: getting to know where it comes

from and what you can do to minimize it. Let’s start with the first part ...

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