Thanks for your comments. You make an excellent point because you’re right, you never know when a speaking opportunity might arise. It’s always better to work on your speaking skills before you have to speak – the last thing you need is to have to tweak your speaking skills while preparing a talk.

Thanks for sharing your story.

James

A really important topic! Becoming a confident speaker is essential for any form of success in any area of life — and as you say, not just in business or career success.

You never know when you’re going to get thrown into the deep end to give a talk or take over a teaching position — this happened to me reasonably early in my professional career and I was so unprepared for public speaking! I was always quiet in tutorial groups but something deep inside me made me push beyond this fear and accept the opportunities made available to me. Needless to say, I made myself develop skills very quickly — and it has done wonders for my career!

Jeanne