Confessions of a Public Speaker
By Scott Berkun
Book review by Judy Beveridge
I do not like speaking in front of a group. And I don’t know anyone among my friends and co-workers who enjoy it either. So when I volunteered to present a slide show of my work to fellow graphic designers and peers recently, I became very nervous.
Therefore, I found the book, “Confessions of a Public Speaker” by Scott Berkun to be comforting in a strange way like a good friend who kept reassuring me that everything was going to be okay and that I would not die of stage fright.
The book is an easy read with lots of funny stories from Scott’s personal experience as a public speaker for many years. He also goes into detail about our fear-response system and how to deal with it and with practice, to overcome it. Scott also offers insight to just about every bad situation that can happen to a public speaker and provides simple solutions or options.
The book is filled with tips and tricks to help produce entertaining presentations and to hopefully keep the audience’s attention for most of the time.
With several lessons and Scott’s confessions of life behind the microphone, I felt more confident with my own presentation and I think being comfortable in a public speaking situation all comes down to one thing…practice. And practice again and again.
The book is one I consider a “keeper” and I’m sure I’ll refer to it over and over to help calm my internal ‘butterflies’ the next time someone asks me to speak in front of a group.
Available in bookstores or for more information,
O’Reilly Publishing (oreilly.com)
