I’m going through the Dale Carnegie Immersion program this month and will be sharing my experience. But before we dig into what I’m learning in this seminar, I want to share with you my experience with Dale Carnegie over the last 23 years. This is the second post in the series.
When I was younger nothing scared me more than having to speak in front of a group, it terrified me. One of the ironies of my fear is that I was a musician and had been playing saxophone and bassoon both with groups and as a soloist since I was in 4th grade. I had played in front of tens of thousands of people over the years and I was more nervous to tell them my name and what I was playing than I was to actually play. I would break out in a sweat and would forget what I was supposed to say, but when I started playing everything was OK.
I would do everything but skip class to keep from having to speak. When I thought my turn was coming up I would break out in a sweat. Then when I was called in front of the room I would be sweating, my hands would be shaking and I would be reading my notes without looking up. Then I would rush back to my seat as soon as humanly possible.
Shortly after my introduction to Dale Carnegie through “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” I bought his book “The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking.” This book opened my eyes. I learned that I was far from alone and that millions, if not billions of people were afraid of speaking. I read story after story of people who had overcome their fear and I learned why I was afraid of speaking in public
I wasn’t really afraid of speaking I was afraid of failing while speaking in public. So many of the issues I had in the past were because I wasn’t prepared properly, was speaking on subjects that I had not earned the right to speak about and I simply didn’t have enough practice. It was the equivalent of trying to play a symphony without really knowing the notes.
Two things Dale said really resonated with me: you have to predetermine your mind to success and you have to seize every opportunity to practice. I took action on his advice. I wasn’t able to call up a local University and offer to teach a course like Warren Buffet was able to do, but I did the closest thing that I could and became a waiter. I figured as a waiter I would have to practice speaking every day.
I’m glad I took action, but had no idea hard it would be for me. I laugh when I think back on my first days as a waiter at the Upper Crust restaurant in Braintree Massachusetts. I would be standing in back and the host or hostess would tell me I had a table. I would have to mentally prepare myself before I would go up to my tables for weeks and it was months before I could deliver something as simple as the specials without sweating and not reading my notes.
My next big step towards improving my speaking skills was to get involved with Shaklee, a network marketing company. Though today I’m not a fan of network marketing and may share my reasons in another post, I took advantage of the learning that was available and learned a great deal through my experience.
While with Shaklee I sought out every opportunity to speak in front of groups. I would speak in front anybody that would let me talk. I was speaking 10-15 times a month on top of working as a waiter at nights. I did opportunity meetings for 1-3 people, I did nutritional talks in front of rooms full of wrestlers, I did training sessions for groups of 8-10 people and eventually I was speaking in front of groups as large as 300 people and even shared a stage with Robert Cialidini, the author of “Influence.”
By taking action and seizing every opportunity to practice, I was able to overcome my fear of public speaking. Now almost 20 years later, I still occasionally find myself getting nervous when I’m going to be speaking. But because of the principles that I learned from Dale Carnegie I’ve been able to increase my skills and by increasing my skills, I’ve learned to deliver talks in front of groups of all sizes without fear.