”Laurent – det här påminner mig om starten till TALAkademin…”

”Welcome, Marion !
I am Laurent, from France.

Panicking at the thought at having to speak in public was a part of my life.

And then one day, I decided that things couldn’t continue like that. I had to do a presentation for a small audience and the president of the bank where I worked.

I was so sick at the thought of it that I said to my wife that I was going to ask my boss to replace me. It would be best to accept that I wasn’t made for it and leave someone else to take my place.

But I realized that I would be much worse if I avoided the problem. I would undermine my confidence in my ability to speak and the next time I needed to do it the stress would certainly be worse. So I said to myself that I must defuse the situation:

most of the people who would be present knew that I sometimes had elocution problems. I should accept it, even if it meant that I had to joke about it or take a break if it really came to the worst.

As a result I decided to face up to the situation and do everything possible to make things go smoothly.

That was only the beginning of a great adventure. It hasn’t always been easy, but that decision was the basis of the enormous progress I have since made. 

Working on public speaking has been a giant leap in my walk on the lunar surface of stuttering.

Nowadays I regularly do presentations at work and I have also been invited to lecture at conferences on stuttering. Previously, faced with these gatherings – in places such as amphitheaters and congress halls – I would have run a mile.

In my book, I wrote a whole chapter on public speaking with 9 tips who could help you :

Prepare yourself

Be concise : less is better !

Practice

Prepare to stutter

Work on your posture

Smile

Make them laugh !

Slow down

Practice ! (again :-))

You can find the chapter ”I WISH I HAD KNOWN THAT SOME OF THE BEST SPEAKERS IN THE WORLD STUTTER” on this link :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NC3oeVdROjqZ6n4bi7foJz1UsbAofmJu/view?usp=sharing

Have a good time !

Laurent

http://goodbye-stuttering.blogspot.fr