Episode 55: The One About Public Speaking

Consultants Saying Things

According to various polls, public speaking ranks as peoples' top fear... ahead of snakes, heights, clowns and, in fact, death itself. Let that sink in. People would rather be DEAD than speak in front of a group of other humans.

So, first... why? And second, what can be done about it?

Naturally we can't solve EVERYONE'S fear of public speaking, so we decided to tackle this issue from the perspective of consulting.

Good consultants need to be able to do a variety of tasks well. Yes there's the need for technical or domain knowledge and skills, the ability to model and analyze, the skill of collecting information and processing it, the requirement of logical thinking, etc. But without the ability to communicate effectively to other people (i.e. the CLIENT), all of that good consultant stuff is less useful or perhaps even useless.

In this episode:

• Why is public speaking important?
• Why does it matter for consultants?
• Why are people afraid of speaking in front of others?
• What are some ways of getting better at public speaking?

There is a longish cold open and some extra goodness as an outro. Why? Well as you'll see, our discussions range over a wide, wide territory. Most of that content never sees the light of day. I thought I'd include a bit of off-topic stuff to give you a sense of the kind of people that get MY intellectual juices going. Being around these types of folks and having these kinds of conversations and being comfortable with it is what has enabled ME to face and conquer public speaking fears over time. Maybe it'll work for you...

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