Before I discovered this,
I used to put incredible pressure on myself to deliver a perfect performance.
I worked for days to prepare a talk.
I stayed up nights worrying about making mistakes.
I spent hours and hours rehearsing what I was going to say.
And you know what?
All this did was to make me even more anxious.
The more perfect I tried to be, the worse I did.
It was all very disheartening, not to mention unnecessary.
The essence of public speaking is this:
give your audience something of value.
That's all there is to it.
If people in your audience walk away with something of value,
they will consider you a success.
If they walk away feeling better about themselves,
feeling better about some job they have to do,
they will consider you a success.
If they walk away feeling happy or entertained,
they will consider their time with you worthwhile.