This document outlines Andrei Postolache's journey to overcome his fear of public speaking. It describes how he avoided public speaking for the first 30 years of his life due to irrational fear. It then details the steps he took to get better at public speaking, including: 1) Accepting the discomfort of public speaking and learning to feel bad while doing it. 2) Aiming to feel bad a lot through repeated exposures. 3) Forgiving initial poor performances. 4) Extensive preparation, sometimes 50 hours for a 1 hour speech. 5) Gradually improving from horrible to mediocre performances. The document stresses that preparation is key to controlling fear and communicating effectively.

1. June 2014
PUBLIC SPEAKING
Andrei Postolache

2. 01
I HAVE MY FEARS
LIKE WE ALL DO

3. 01
BUT I ONLY HAVE TWO IRRATIONAL ONES
HEIGHTS
PUBLIC SPEAKING&

4. 01
I HAD NO PROBLEMS
SPEAKING UP AS A
CHILD

5. 01
BUT THEN SOMETHING
CHANGED

6. I BECAME FEARFUL OF IT AND ENDED UP
AVOIDING IT FOR THE FIRST 30 YEARS OF
MY LIFE

7. TO THE POINT OF GIVING UP EVER DOING
IT

8. THIS IS THE STORY OF MY RECOVERY

9. AND THE ROAD I TOOK TO GET GOOD AT
THIS SHIT

10. when starting, don’t wait to feel
good about it - it won’t
!
learn to feel really bad and do it
ONE: THERE IS NO COMFORT

11. 0 - 28 years of age: zero
speaking, zero audience, zero
progress, zero confidence - the
thought alone made me sick with
terror
!
28-33: 20+ speaking, 6 TV
appearances, > 2000 live
audience, feels good
TWO: AIM TO FEEL BAD A
LOT

12. you will fear it
!
you will do very badly
THREE: THE FIRST TIME
they will forgive and forget

13. FOUR: THE SECOND
TIME
you’ll be happy you could
do it and get over the fear
!
the speech itself will still
be really bad
they will still forgive and
forget

14. prepare extensively
!
preparation is where you learn
from mistakes and gain
confidence
!
for complex presentations, I
routinely exceed a ratio of 50 to 1 -
50 hours of prep for 1 hour of
presentation/speech
FIVE: PREPARATION

15. research, experience, mastery of the topic
!
could take years
the actual successful presentation or speech
is the thin red line
we do this anyway; this is our
life, our work
this is what we don’t do well
and this is where “failure”
begins
we fear the thin red line
specific presentation prep: structure,
rehearsal, visuals, key points, props etc

16. fear of “why would they listed to me” combined with lack of
preparation means they will not listen to you
!
!
lack of preparation = blurting out information in an
uninteresting way => reinforcement of fear “I knew they didn’t
want to listen to me”
PREPARATION IS THE KEY TO BOTH CONTROLLING FEAR AND
SAYING SOMETHING USEFUL FOR OTHERS

17. SIX: THE PREPARED
PRESENTATION
from horrible, you are now
advancing to mediocre
!
it’s less harrowing to you and sort of
useful to the audience
they are beginning to remember a
little

18. SEVEN: IMPROVEMENT
you’ve done several
!
you are now able to focus on
improvement
!
you put yourself into as many
speaking situations as you can, as
varied as you can - practice
they are beginning to know you a little

19. ABOUT EMOTIONS
don’t look for “control”
!
let them be, let them flow
learn to operate with them,
alongside them
!
in time, with practice, they will
become something pleasant

20. THE END
is only the beginning
only now can you hope to really
communicate with your audience
it’s the next presentation that will be
the one
and the one after that
and …