Most Speakers Face Public Speaking Anxiety, Even Barack Obama’s Speechwriter – Forbes

President Barack Obama works with Terry Szuplat, Senior Director for Speechwriting.
Great communicators are made, not born: It’s a conclusion about public speaking that I’ve reached after two decades of writing books on communication skills. I’m glad to see that another expert agrees with me. He’s Terry Szuplat, a former White House speechwriter for President Barack Obama.
Szuplat opens his new book, Say It Well, with a remarkably candid story that should relieve everyone who fears public speaking. The story reminds us that speaking anxiety is real, and most people experience it, even the guy who wrote speeches for Obama.
“I was a speechwriter who couldn’t seem to hack it as a speech giver, Szuplat writes. “Just the idea of speaking in front of a group of people left me wracked with anxiety.”
After eight years of writing for Obama and traveling with the former president around the world, Szuplat had the opportunity to give speeches himself. But, like many people, he experienced such intense feelings of anxiety that he often passed on speaking invites.
It wasn’t until Szuplat was in his late forties that he decided to stop saying no and start saying yes, facing the fear that grips so many people and holds them back from advancing in their careers: fear of public speaking.
The first step to managing your public speaking anxiety is to recognize that most people experience it. Szuplat’s former boss, widely considered one of the best orators of our time, shared his own struggle with public speaking early in his career.
Obama worked as a community organizer with churches on Chicago’s South Side for several years. He felt confident and didn’t think nerves were an issue until they hit him.
Obama once told Szuplat that he, too, “froze up.” Obama was twenty-four and making a fundraising pitch in a Chicago high-rise. The room was full of philanthropists, and Obama was feeling good, perhaps too confident. His confidence was his undoing. Obama thought he could walk into the room without written remarks, speak off the cuff, and win them over.
Obama said,
About four or five minutes into my presentation, I started freezing up. I lost my train of thought. I was in an unfamiliar setting with unfamiliar people and one in which there were some stakes involved…I was terrible. I felt a little bit of flop sweat and hemmed and hawed, and got stuck, and was not particularly coherent.
Most of us can relate to Obama’s feelings at that moment.
The key to Obama’s success as a speaker is that he never stopped speaking. He took on every opportunity to address larger and larger groups, growing his confidence as the size of his audiences grew.
In other words, he put in the reps.
You can build your confidence, too.

The key is to remember that there are no shortcuts on the road to becoming an exceptional public speaker. Public speaking is a skill, and, like any skill, it can be sharpened.
Just as professional athletes build their skills by practicing over and over, you have to do the same and put in the work. The more work you put in, the better you’ll get.
Do pro athletes show up for the big game without practicing? Of course not. It’s the same with public speaking. Practice effectively before entering the room for your next presentation.
Effective practice means putting yourself in a situation that mimics the real thing. For example:
Practice is not something you do because you’re bad. Practice is what you do because you’re good.
Put in the work, and you’ll see a sharp improvement in your public speaking skills.

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