The number one fear is public speaking, exceeding that of death -- correct?

Or so we were told by a London Times survey of 3000 Americans back in 1973. This finding has been borne out repeatedly since then.

In my very early career days as a pathology resident (yes, my tortuous career has even included a year in pathology, which I quit after being buried in the hospital basement "dungeon" for hours on end with scary dieners), I had to resort to a beta-blocker to stop my hand shaking while using the laser pointer to show a scattering of abnormal cells on a projected microscopic specimen.

Since then, I have evolved to a mild belly flutter just before starting to speak, which is merely to emphasize that you too can overcome paralyzing fear and master the skills needed to be a competent and even engaging speaker!

The good news is that there are now numerous resources online to help speed up your acquisition of these learned skills.

But first, why bother?

Mastering presentation skills offers the following:

• the ability to get in front of your audience and lead them to the destination of your choosing - this is accomplished by many great entertainers
• the opportunity to speak to a larger group of people in your target market and leverage your time -- much easier than all those one-on-one networking coffees and lunches
• the ability to project confidence and trustworthiness that an email or letter or website cannot convey
• the opportunity for your prospective clients or patients to experience you and decide if they like and trust you
• the chance to get your audience's attention and interest, generate desire, and to incite them to action, without "pushing the sale"
• the opportunity to position yourself as an expert, go-to person or trusted advisor, without having to advertise
• the privilege of being able to influence, persuade and inspire others

In an earlier post, I shared resources that required some investment in your speaking career.

Here then are some of the freebies:

Presentation Masterclass Part 1: Introduction
5 Key Questions When Planning Your Presentation (Presentation Masterclass - Part 2)
Note: Shaping your presentation - Part 3 is yet to come
Presentation Zen - a great site to sift through to find the gems of top notch presentations with footnotes as to what makes them sparkle
MasterViews International - a site filled with tips on making those deadly PowerPoints sing!
Guy Kawasaki's under 2-minute 10-20-30 presentation video and blog

With all this help, what's there to be afraid of?