[ctdonath]

My breakthrough in being comfortable with public speaking came from a quote:

"...though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does make the reassuring claim that where it is inaccurate, it is at least _definitively_ inaccurate." - Douglas Adams

If I am to make a mistake while presenting, then by gum I'm going to make that mistake with the most confidence and gusto I can muster. I will own up to being wrong, I will turn that into a "teaching moment" for the audience, I will plow forward confident in the spirit of Kipling's "If" knowing that while I may have screwed up I did so in a good-faith effort at taking the lead and making things happen for an audience that chose to follow. If I am wrong, then I shall be definitively wrong!

That's pretty good for an awkward introvert.

[danso]

Not only can you get away with mistakes by moving past them with gusto, but your entire speech can be a mistake if you pull it off with confidence.

The Dr. Fox effect:

> Forty years ago, a singularly interesting lecture was held at the University of Southern California School of Medicine. The subject was "Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education." The speaker was Dr. Myron L. Fox from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a pupil of von Neumann and an authority on the application of mathematics to human behavior.

> The attendees were psychiatrists and psychologists (MDs and PhDs) who were gathered for a training conference. They listened to the lecturer with great interest, asked many questions and were satisfied with speaker's replies.

> They gave him flying grades in the satisfaction questionnaire. Nobody suspected anything wrong. In reality the speaker was an actor and knew nothing on the subject of his lecture.

http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/123... http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r30034/PSY4180/Pages/Naftulin.ht...

[jimhefferon]

I had a friend who went to baseball umpire school. He said that the main thing they told students was, "Call it quick, call it loud, and then turn and walk away."

[CurtMonash]

That was the secret of Ronald Reagan's political success.

[wissler]

Explains 90% of what is taught in college nowadays.

[sopooneo]

Three thousand cheers to you. Of all the good things about my generation (early thirties) nothing bothers me more than the trend of never standing up tall in the wind and planting your flag. Always always it seems that people are infinitely hedging everything they say under the implied assumption that gusto and principal are hopelessly old fashioned. It is so refreshing when people are willing to risk being knocked over and smile while they're at it.