ANALYSIS AND SYMPTOMS

In the average class in Public Speaking nine men out of ten are affected with it. "What causes it?" they ask, "what is this mysterious thing called stage fright—this thing that makes me stammer and hesitate and repeat and forget every idea I had in the world?" Some call it nervousness-some call it "cold feet "-some call it "buck fever." Golf fiends call it "the mental hazard." Some ascribe the cause to a physical source, as did the young man who wrote to the editor of a physical culture magazine describing his strange sensations when he rose to speak—weakness of the knees, palpitation of the heart, shortness of breath, et cetera, and inquired if it was due to some strange disease, or some fatal hereditary weakness in his system, which had hitherto been unsuspected. But the young man was on the wrong track and the physical culture expert could do nothing for him, for the cause is mental, not physical. The symptoms, however, are often expressed through the body in a very distressing way. The hand shakes and the knees knock together; the voice trembles or chokes up; frequently the mouth and throat become so dry that the tongue can hardly work. I once asked a man who had been having a very hard time trying to get his speech out of his system, if his tongue felt as if it had feathers on it. "Worse than that," he answered. "It felt like it had overshoes on it."

Some men hop around on the platform as though they had St. Vitus dance-others in their embarrassment do all kinds of strange stunts of which they are entirely unconscious, like twiddling their thumbs or twisting their watch chains in knots.

CAUSE AND CURE

So much for the symptoms-now for the definition and cause. Stage fright is audience fear. It is fear of the audience and what they are thinking of him that paralyzes the faculties of an amateur speaker or makes him lose control of himself. Or it may be fear of forgetting or fear that he will make a mistake. Fear thought, then, is the root of the whole trouble.

Stage fright is merely a sublimated form of selfconsciousness. Nervousness, timidity, "shakiness," repression and suppression, negativeness are all forms of fear thought.

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No speaker does good work until he learns to forget himself utterly. He must not center attention upon himself. He must lose himself in his message. must think so much of what he is saying that all else is of secondary importance. Self-confidence comes only when self-consciousness goes. If Public Speaking did nothing else for one than to enable him to overcome this horrible, nauseating, paralyzing thing known as stage fright, it would be well worth while. During those agonizing moments when an unprepared man is suddenly called upon to make a speech and is trying to "bluff it through" or "face it out," he suffers torment. It is foolish for any one to go through life with such a fear hanging over him. Make up your mind that you are going to conquer it. Any one is likely to be called upon occasionally to make a few remarks—often unexpectedly-and often he cannot dodge it. If he is sure of himself as a speaker, he will welcome it as an opportunity and enjoy it as a privilege, but if stricken with stage fright, his one impulse is to flee wildly.

The sensible thing to do, then, is to tackle this fear and overcome it forever. The mastery is of value in other ways entirely aside from Public Speaking. Purely from a business standpoint, it is worth much. When you have conquered your fear of an audience, you will lose all fear of individuals. Read in a recent issue of the American Magazine, "How I Overcame Fears That Cost Me $10,000 a Year," the experience of a typical business man, and make a practical application in your own case. The winning vibration in business as in speech comes from striking the positive keynote-never the negative. The speaker must take the lead when he faces an audience he must meet them more than half-way. If he waits for an audience to come to him, it never comes. In a short time either the speaker or the audience will be on top, and woe to the speaker if the audience is in control of the situation. He is worse off than the proverbial under dog. Probably the biggest factor in the cure of stage fright is thorough preparation. The knowledge that you are well prepared-sure of your subject-does much to cast out fear. The consciousness that you know just what you are going to say gives you self-confidence right from the beginning of your talk. The unprepared speaker never has a fair chance. Fear assails him from every quarter and he falls an easy victim.

One big problem which worries the beginner lies in the fact that he must think of so many things at once. His attention is divided between two things: What am I saying? and How am I saying it? These points refer to the message and the delivery-two separate factors. But let the beginner express himself as freely and as earnestly and naturally as possible. Having

gained control of himself, he can then begin to improve on form and delivery. Even then he will find it difficult to think of so many things at once. He is apt to forget what he is trying to say when he tries to think of how he ought to say it. But even so, it is not more difficult than many other things which he does every day. In learning to drive an auto he must learn to do several things at once. At first he is nervous as he tries to watch the road, steer, and shift the gears -all at the same time-but after a time he learns to do it confidently. In learning to play the violin, he must do many things almost simultaneously. He must read the notes on the scale before him; he must do his fingering correctly, making his own keyboard as he goes along, and, most difficult of all, he must master the bowing. At first he gets things all mixed up. In watching his fingering he plays the wrong note, and when he turns his attention to the bowing he forgets his fingering. But, by and by, through long hours of patient practice, he learns to do all these things together. He gains coördination, and then with full concentration on the expression of the music, his fingers move accurately, his bowing is perfect, and he sweeps the strings with the hands of a master.

Just so the beginner in the art of Public Speaking must keep his mind on what he is saying, must stand in poise and breathe deeply and must not forget to modulate his voice and vary his action. It is only to be expected at first that he is likely to become confused and get all these things muddled up, or that in his effort to remember what he wants to say that he should forget all about voice, action or audience contact.

But by and by, through training and practice, he gains coördination and uses all the factors of delivery naturally, because he has made them a part of himself. Then he begins to stir his audience with the sure touch of a master. Having learned to control the forms of ability which make up himself, he can influence others.

The first objective in Practical Speaking is the development of self-confidence and poise. Until stage fright is conquered not much else can be done. Go to work, then, along this line. Begin by reciting or speaking aloud a few minutes every day, in a clear positive tone of voice. Breathe deeply from the diaphragm as you speak. Deep breathing is conducive to courage and control. Any man is a coward when he has only a teaspoonful of air in his lungs. You must get used to the sound of your own voice. It is a fact that a beginner is usually afraid of the sound of his own voice. Practice aloud is absolutely necessary. Try it out on the dog occasionally or on some other member of the family. I instructed one class of men to try it on the furnace, but one member remarked that the things he said to his furnace would be wholly unfit to repeat in public.

Practical experience is absolutely necessary to overcome audience fear and establish self-confidence. Theoretical study alone is not sufficient. All the correspondence courses on earth will not cure stage fright. You must actually get on your feet before an audience again and again and stay with it till you win. Practise! Practise! Practise! Each time you take the floor it will be a little easier for you. By and by you will reach the point where you will actually enjoy making a talk.