What do you need to be a better speaker? The results are in!

 thieWay back in the summer, I asked the people on my mailing list to tell me what they needed to become a better speaker. I wanted to learn what their needs were so that I could create an online course that met those needs. 
Here's a sample of the questions respondents shared:

• How do I reduce anxiety about speaking to a group? 
• How can I remember my key points so I won’t ramble?
• How do I speak without reading from a script or relying too heavily on notes? 
• How can I feel like I'm being myself and not some robot or phony?
• How can I sound like [and feel like] I know what I'm talking about?  

But the one question that came up again and again was:
How can I be more confident as a speaker? 

I understand that completely. People (like you maybe?) want to be able to share their ideas and opinions with the world. They (and you?) want to have an impact as a communicator, whether it's at work, in the community, in political life. 

I want you to do that.  I found my own way to confidence many years ago, and in the past twenty years, I've helped hundreds of people find theirs. 

Here's what I want to tell you: confidence is not magic.
  There is nothing mystical about it. And it's not one of those “you either have it or you don't things” like being double-jointed or having a photographic memory. 
Confidence is a muscle. * (At the end of the email I'll explain where I stole that phrase from.) 

That means you can BUILD IT.  

And over the next two weeks, I'm going to be sharing some of the ways you can do that.  
 
But in the meantime, I want to suggest you take one tiny two-minute step towards confidence.

That step is learning more about the perceived obstacle that stands between you and confidence. All you have to do is take a couple of minutes and complete on one or more of the questions below.  ([Don't take too long or think too much: this is an “off-the-top-of-your-head” exercise, not a “Need to call my therapist” situation.)

You can jot down the answers for your own reflection or click here to use this google form and share them with me, so I can share the answers (anonymously of course).

Answer as many as apply to you.
“The reason I lack confidence is because______________.”
I'm not confident because I'm not  __________  enough. 
I'm not confident because I don't have enough  _______ .    
I'm not confident because I'm always  __________ . 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I’ll be back with another blog very soon to talk about building confidence. 
Cathy 
P.S. If you missed the survey about public speaking needs and want to add your voice, click here.
​P.P.S. I live in Western Massachusetts, close to the town of Amherst, where in 1992-93 the Amherst High School Lady Hurricanes basketball team won the state championships. Pulitzer Prize winning writer Madeline Blais, wrote a wonderful book about the team called, “In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle.”