My love hate relationship with speaking in public

  

(Why I love/hate speaking in public.)

I realise that this particular blog topic was probably supposed to be about either loving OR hating speaking in public, but personally I associate this activity with a healthy dose of both. As a city tour guide, speaking in public is what I do for a living. I will regularly find myself standing in the bustling town square of Munich’s historic centre, regaling a crowd of 40 or more people with stories of Bavaria’s convoluted history. In these instances, with these people I’ve never met before hanging on my every word, I seize the spotlight and relish in their attention. Here I find public speaking exhilarating, it gives me a buzz which I latch on to and let it whisk me along for the ride. Sometimes it’s great, I’m a superstar and every joke I tell brings the house down. At other times, even after delivering my best material, my audience will remain staring stone-faced. On the odd occasion I’m sure I’ve even heard crickets chirping in the background. This all comes part and parcel with the job though, you win some you lose some. At the end of the day it’s a fantastic job and I love it.

On the other hand, when I’m not working, for example when I’m catching the train home or standing in the queue at the supermarket, I normally put a lot of effort into drawing as little attention to myself as possible. In fact I try so hard to avoid attention at times I have been known to walk out of stores knowing full well I’ve been short changed, yet saying nothing because I don’t want to make a scene. This version of myself, this ‘real’ me is self-conscious, he hates being the centre of attention, gets sweaty palms in fact just thinking about clearing his throat and yelling “May I have your attention please?!” in a public situation. But this is the same person (me) as the guide who will effortlessly weave a tale of royal intrigue in front of a group of spell bound tourists.

I think this is relevant to this week’s lectures where it was noted that one may find it helpful to pretend they are an actor when they are speaking in public. Public speaking can be excruciating, for the speaker and the audience. I’ve come to realise that it’s all about how you, as the speaker, approach the challenge. Now before I speak in front of a group of strangers I take some time to put on my (imaginary) cape and strap my metaphorical underwear proudly on the outside of my pants. I look at public speaking as playing a role, this helps me to reduce anxiety by distancing myself from the threat of things not going well. This in turn gives me more freedom to enjoy the experience, something which I think is extremely important.