I worked in sales for a few years when I was younger before I started my actual career, I went from an introvert afraid of public speaking to completely comfortable breaking the ice with basically anyone in those years (mostly because I liked having four walls and a roof) and that led to me doing technical training/talks to strangers years later.

I still don't really like it but I also realised that dragons don't appear from portals and eat you immediately if you do it.

My missus is much like I was but she never got through it, she finds it fascinating that I can.

I studied my masters in Denmark 5 years ago, before AI. This was absolutely the case - first oral exams in my batchelors many of my fellow students were incredibly nervous. By the end the exam atmosphere was very chill. I definitely improved with public speaking, and so did the other students - including some who had been almost incapacitatingly anxious (throwing up, requiring a lot of convincing from us to even attend exams) and ended roughly the same as the rest of us

Practice helps!

What also helped me is being so knowledgeable about the topic that I didn't need to prepare the presentation much (except for the slides and the general plan). When you know what you have to talk about, it becomes a lot more natural and relaxed for me.

I would be a lot more stressed if I had to learn a presentation by heart and it would probably be a robotic delivery.

So I did quite a few "surprise" presentations, with very light prepared material and a topic I cared about. Got me the practice I needed and I learned not to get "stuck" as if I forgot the next sentence. The presentation always flows!

Now, I have a talk at a major conference, and I'm afraid this won't work there, so I'll prepare my talk better this time, maybe even have speaker notes!

That's part of what fixed it for me. What really fixed it was three things:

1. Actually being very knowledgeable about the subject in question, to the extent that I can offer facts or well-reasoned opinion on the topic on essentially any reasonable question. In other words, not being a junior high school student asked to do a 15 minute speech on a topic drawn from a hat.

2. Not having the idea that the audience expects a correct and immediate answer to every possible question.

3. Not doing every single speech literally in front of 15% of my entire peer group, including all my friends, all the people I admired, and all the people who treated me poorly.

I still hate doing Zoom calls without slides or a screen to share because I can't stand having 20 people staring intently at me. It's just distracting. But otherwise I have no problem at all talking for hours on a topic I know well.

> What fixed me: more public speaking

Yup, that's the cure. Worked for me, too.

Thanks for sharing this, a good example that people can grow and adapt. Some need a push and support but it's possible.

The best class I ever took in any school setting was Public Speaking in my first year, first semester in college just to "get it out of the way."

The teacher started off with "you're all going to look like idiots and embarrass yourselves, and you'll have to get over it. Best you do it here now rather than in front of coworkers in a few years. She gave us skills and techniques that I still rely on today, and most importantly, the opportunity to practice.

I was a introverted going in to college, and that class didn't turn my into an extroverted social butterfly in 4 months. However, I have never been paralyzed with fear when required to talk in front of a crowd, and that has been invaluable in my career.

If kids were more aware how much public speaking is tied into their social and especially romantic life later they’d all be majoring in public speaking :)

I second this.

Yes, yes, yes. Thank you for posting this. It drives me absolutely freaking crazy when people do the "Oh, I'm just not _____," having essentially decided they are not _____, and therefore will never learn or change.

Like every time I hear "Oh I'm just not a math person." It's not that I expect everyone to like math because I do, not at all. But I do expect people to not artificially limit themselves. :/