CHAPTER I ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

CHAPTER I

ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an

audience. It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the

speaker, especially if he permits himself to steadily return that gaze. Most

speakers have been conscious of this in a nameless thrill, a real something,

pervading the atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have

borne testimony to the power of a speaker’s eye in impressing an audience. This

influence which we are now considering is the reverse of that picture—the power

their eyes may exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak: after the

inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes of the audience lose all

terror.—WILLIAM PITTENGER, Extempore Speech.

Students of public speaking continually ask, “How can I

overcome self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me

before an audience?”

Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that

some horses feed near the track and never even pause to

look up at the thundering cars, while just ahead at the next

railroad crossing a farmer’s wife will be nervously trying to

quiet her scared horse as the train goes by?

How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars—graze

him in a back-woods lot where he would never see steam-

engines or automobiles, or drive or pasture him where he

would frequently see the machines?

Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-

consciousness and fear: face an audience as frequently as

you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never attain

freedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may

give you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet,

perhaps even strangle and be “half scared to death.” There

are a great many “wetless” bathing suits worn at the

seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge

is the only way.

Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an

audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as

practise in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in

the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.

The Apostle Paul tells us that every man must work out

his own salvation. All we can do here is to offer you

suggestions as to how best to prepare for your plunge. The

real plunge no one can take for you. A doctor may prescribe,

but you must take the medicine.

Do not be disheartened if at first you suffer from stage-

fright. Dan Patch was more susceptible to suffering than a

superannuated dray horse would be. It never hurts a fool to

appear before an audience, for his capacity is not a capacity

for feeling. A blow that would kill a civilized man soons heals

on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of life, the

greater is the capacity for suffering.

For one reason or another, some master-speakers never

entirely overcome stage-fright, but it will pay you to spare

no pains to conquer it. Daniel Webster failed in his first

appearance and had to take his seat without finishing his

speech because he was nervous. Gladstone was often

troubled with self-consciousness in the beginning of an

address. Beecher was always perturbed before talking in

public. Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the

nose of a horse, and by thus inflicting a little pain they

distract his attention from the shoeing process. One way to

get air out of a glass is to pour in water.

Be Absorbed by Your Subject

Apply the blacksmith’s homely principle when you are

speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be

able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of

distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think

about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the

platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to

say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the

infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your

unsubstantial fears.

Self-consciousness is undue consciousness of self, and,

for the purpose of delivery, self is secondary to your subject,

not only in the opinion of the audience, but, if you are wise,

in your own. To hold any other view is to regard yourself as

an exhibit instead of as a messenger with a message worth

delivering. Do you remember Elbert Hubbard’s tremendous

little tract, “A Message to Garcia”? The youth subordinated

himself to the message he bore. So must you, by all the

determination you can muster. It is sheer egotism to fill your

mind with thoughts of self when a greater thing is there—

TRUTH. Say this to yourself sternly, and shame your self-

consciousness into quiescence. If the theater caught fire you

could rush to the stage and shout directions to the audience

without any self-consciousness, for the importance of what you were saying would drive all fear-thoughts out of your

mind.

Far worse than self-consciousness through fear of doing

poorly is self-consciousness through assumption of doing

well. The first sign of greatness is when a man does not

attempt to look and act great. Before you can call yourself a

man at all, Kipling assures us, you must “not look too good

nor talk too wise.”

Nothing advertises itself so thoroughly as conceit. One

may be so full of self as to be empty. Voltaire said, “We must

conceal self-love.” But that can not be done. You know this

to be true, for you have recognized overweening self-love in

others. If you have it, others are seeing it in you. There are

things in this world bigger than self, and in working for them

self will be forgotten, or—what is better—remembered only

so as to help us win toward higher things.

Have Something to Say

The trouble with many speakers is that they go before an

audience with their minds a blank. It is no wonder that

nature, abhorring a vacuum, fills them with the nearest

thing handy, which generally happens to be, “I wonder if I

am doing this right! How does my hair look? I know I shall

fail.” Their prophetic souls are sure to be right.

It is not enough to be absorbed by your subject—to

acquire self-confidence you must have something in which

to be confident. If you go before an audience without any

preparation, or previous knowledge of your subject, you

ought to be self-conscious—you ought to be ashamed to

steal the time of your audience. Prepare yourself. Know what you are going to talk about, and, in general, how you

are going to say it. Have the first few sentences worked out

completely so that you may not be troubled in the beginning

to find words. Know your subject better than your hearers

know it, and you have nothing to fear.

After Preparing for Success, Expect It

Let your bearing be modestly confident, but most of all

be modestly confident within. Over-confidence is bad, but to

tolerate premonitions of failure is worse, for a bold man may

win attention by his very bearing, while a rabbit-hearted

coward invites disaster.

Humility is not the personal discount that we must offer

in the presence of others—against this old interpretation

there has been a most healthy modern reaction. True

humility any man who thoroughly knows himself must feel;

but it is not a humility that assumes a wormlike meekness;

it is rather a strong, vibrant prayer for greater power for

service—a prayer that Uriah Heep could never have uttered.

Washington Irving once introduced Charles Dickens at a

dinner given in the latter’s honor. In the middle of his

speech Irving hesitated, became embarrassed, and sat

down awkwardly. Turning to a friend beside him he

remarked, “There, I told you I would fail, and I did.”

If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You

will.

Rid yourself of this I-am-a-poor-worm-in-the-dust idea.

You are a god, with infinite capabilities. “All things are ready

if the mind be so.” The eagle looks the cloudless sun in the

face. Assume Mastery Over Your Audience

In public speech, as in electricity, there is a positive and

a negative force. Either you or your audience are going to

possess the positive factor. If you assume it you can almost

invariably make it yours. If you assume the negative you are

sure to be negative. Assuming a virtue or a vice vitalizes it.

Summon all your power of self-direction, and remember that

though your audience is infinitely more important than you,

the truth is more important than both of you, because it is

eternal. If your mind falters in its leadership the sword will

drop from your hands. Your assumption of being able to

instruct or lead or inspire a multitude or even a small group

of people may appall you as being colossal impudence—as

indeed it may be; but having once essayed to speak, be

courageous. BE courageous—it lies within you to be what

you will. MAKE yourself be calm and confident.

Reflect that your audience will not hurt you. If Beecher in

Liverpool had spoken behind a wire screen he would have

invited the audience to throw the over-ripe missiles with

which they were loaded; but he was a man, confronted his

hostile hearers fearlessly—and won them.

In facing your audience, pause a moment and look them

over—a hundred chances to one they want you to succeed,

for what man is so foolish as to spend his time, perhaps his

money, in the hope that you will waste his investment by

talking dully?

Concluding Hints

Do not make haste to begin—haste shows lack of control. Do not apologize. It ought not to be necessary; and if it

is, it will not help. Go straight ahead.

Take a deep breath, relax, and begin in a quiet

conversational tone as though you were speaking to one

large friend. You will not find it half so bad as you imagined;

really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after you are in, the

water is fine. In fact, having spoken a few times you will

even anticipate the plunge with exhilaration. To stand before

an audience and make them think your thoughts after you is

one of the greatest pleasures you can ever know. Instead of

fearing it, you ought to be as anxious as the fox hounds

straining at their leashes, or the race horses tugging at their

reins.

So cast out fear, for fear is cowardly—when it is not

mastered. The bravest know fear, but they do not yield to it.

Face your audience pluckily—if your knees quake, MAKE

them stop. In your audience lies some victory for you and

the cause you represent. Go win it. Suppose Charles Martell

had been afraid to hammer the Saracen at Tours; suppose

Columbus had feared to venture out into the unknown West;

suppose our forefathers had been too timid to oppose the

tyrrany of George the Third; suppose that any man who ever

did anything worth while had been a coward! The world

owes its progress to the men who have dared, and you must

dare to speak the effective word that is in your heart to

speak—for often it requires courage to utter a single

sentence. But remember that men erect no monuments and

weave no laurels for those who fear to do what they can.

Is all this unsympathetic, do you say? Man, what you need is not sympathy, but a push. No one

doubts that temperament and nerves and illness and even

praiseworthy modesty may, singly or combined, cause the

speaker’s cheek to blanch before an audience, but neither

can any one doubt that coddling will magnify this weakness.

The victory lies in a fearless frame of mind. Prof. Walter Dill

Scott says: “Success or failure in business is caused more by

mental attitude even than by mental capacity.” Banish the

fear-attitude; acquire the confident attitude. And remember

that the only way to acquire it is—to acquire it.

In this foundation chapter we have tried to strike the

tone of much that is to follow. Many of these ideas will be

amplified and enforced in a more specific way; but through

all these chapters on an art which Mr. Gladstone believed to

be more powerful than the public press, the note of

justifiable self-confidence must sound again and again.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES.

1. What is the cause of self-consciousness?

2. Why are animals free from it?

3. What is your observation regarding self-consciousness

in children?

4. Why are you free from it under the stress of unusual

excitement?

5. How does moderate excitement affect you?

6. What are the two fundamental requisites for the

acquiring of self-confidence? Which is the more important?

7. What effect does confidence on the part of the speaker

have on the audience? 8. Write out a two-minute speech on “Confidence and

Cowardice.”

9. What effect do habits of thought have on confidence?

In this connection read the chapter on “Right Thinking and

Personality.”

10. Write out very briefly any experience you may have

had involving the teachings of this chapter.

11. Give a three-minute talk on “Stage-Fright,” including

a (kindly) imitation of two or more victims.