Fear of speaking

I am speaking tonight, locally (which translates to speaking/failing in front of friends).

I wrote my friend LR about how I was feeling insecure about sharing tonight. I'm remembering the dead room of people I spoke to a couple of weeks ago, where I felt the lack of their response during my talk was because I was so boring. Probably not true (that I was boring), but it's my nature to be dependent on everyone's response to determine how I'm doing.

LR wrote back:

LJ,

I hope it goes well tonight. You have much more experience speaking than I, so my experience, strength and hope will be small.........but I always ask who has less than a year then I speak to them with a lot of eye contact. I do this for the incredibly selfish reason of not feeling less than in front of the remainder of the crowd. It works for me....does not make my talk any better or worse, but it makes me feel better afterwards. I also look around the room for the person that is like you and me...the ones that are aware of what its like up there and have that supportive smile or nodding head of identification. Those are the ones I focus on to make me feel good about me, and I thank them afterwards and recognize their assistance. It gives me something else to focus upon. The unresponsive, judgmental people do not get a whole lot of eye contact.

Of course, you could always go "commando"....then you could have that small "I've got a secret" smile going on.

I'll be thinking of you this evening....support from afar.

Love,

LR

I like LR's feedback.

I'm waiting for the response to my clarification of what going "commando" is?

LR in Zion National Park