YouTube talk by Dr. Aziz describing his personal journey from severe public‑speaking anxiety to professional teaching, presenting practical steps to overcome fear through gradual exposure and addressing fear of judgment. He emphasizes public speaking as social confidence, recommends incremental practice (one-on-one → small groups), mental exercises to reframe judgment, and rehearsing the first 10 seconds of a talk.
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Did you know that I used to be utterly terrified of public speaking and really bad at it, and now that's one of the things I do for a living. So if you want to learn how to go from anxious, awkward, uncomfortable, terrified of public speaking to not only being able to do it, but do it well, then you're going to want to watch this video because I'm going to share the exact steps that I've taken and help clients take to become exceptional, confident public speakers. And the best news about it is become a Toastmaster speaker of the Year Speakers Association. It's actually a few key principles that you can build the skills to do rapidly and then you're not going to be like a professional speaker, but you can speak up at work, you can speak up at meetings, you can give presentations and basically feel comfortable and confident in your own skin, around anyone, in any setting. And that's ultimately how I see public speaking. Public speaking is not just a skill of speaking, it's actually a form of social confidence. In fact, let's start there. Most people, maybe 90 plus percent of people, are terrified of public speaking. They'll never do it. They'll just avoid all those situations, all those opportunities in their life. And maybe you're one of those people, you've avoided it for much of your life and now you're either going to miss out on an opportunity or there's some situation situation where you have to go give a talk and you're scrambling. That's why you're here on YouTube. So welcome and I'm Dr. Aziz. I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence and the author of six best selling books on confidence and public speaking is something that I've been doing for 15 years now. Before that, when I struggled with confidence, I never ever would put myself in a situation. In fact, the very first time that I had to give a talk to a larger group was when I was in college and I was studying computer science and we had to give some presentation on a project. And so it was probably about 70, 80 people in the class. I didn't even think that much of it before the presentation. I never got given one in my entire life. So I get up to the front of the all the students in the class to give a presentation about our project. I knew the project, I worked on it, so it wasn't like I didn't know the material. And I get up there, I look at this auditorium, about 80 people looking at me, I take a breath in and then I feel this overwhelming flush of terror. And so I just take another breath in and another breath in, and this panic overwhelms me and my brain shuts off. I have no idea what to say. Fortunately, I had a partner in the project, and he came forward and was like, thanks, Aziz, I'll talk now. And I just sort of stumbled off to the side all sweaty. And then from then on, it was like, I'm never going to do that again. That was awful. And I had like, I have a fear of public speaking now. And that lasted until I started to do the things that I'm going to share with you. The first thing is you have to realize that public speaking, even it's not about a skill that you got to get really good at. It's about overcoming a fear. Because if you overcome the fear, you'll instantly be better at public speaking. So you don't have to become the best speaker in the world and know all the tools and tricks. So how do you overcome the fear? You overcome the fear like you do any fear, which is through exposure. Now, before you turn off the video, you're like, what's the. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do the thing that scares me. You don't have to start crazy. You don't have to go start with the most intense presentation. The best form of exposure is called gradual exposure, where you build up your capacity over time. Think of it like a muscle. And so if you want to get a muscle stronger, you don't go, try to lift 200 pounds. You start with 10 pounds or 15 pounds. And it's the same thing with public speaking. So how do you do that? You look for opportunities to speak up in groups. Guess what a group is? It's you and at least one other person, right? So you start talking with one other person for you. Then can you speak in groups of two? Can you speak in small meetings of four or five people? You know, maybe you're on a zoom meeting and you get your camera off and you never speak up. Turn the camera on and speak up. Start where it's more manageable. The second thing that you have to be able to do is address the real root of the fear, which is that people are going to judge me, right? Isn't that ultimately what the fear is with everything, including public speaking? So they're going to judge me. So here's what you do. Sit down with a sheet of paper or notepad or something on your desk and write out, what exactly am I afraid they're going to Think of me like what specifically? Not they're going to judge me. You look awkward. You look nervous. You're stupid. You don't know what you're talking. Talking about. Right? I know. It's a lovely list. Get that list. And then your homework to liberate yourself is to get to more peace with each of those things. Like, someone might think that I don't know what I'm talking about. And if inside you're like, no, no, that's unacceptable, unacceptable, then you're going to be anxious always, right? So to really free yourself, we have to liberate yourself from that fear of judgment. And the way that you do that is you address each one one by one. And there's several ways to do this. You can just be with that fear until it passes. It's called the peace process. And if you want to find out more about that, go tonotnicebook.com and enter your email address and you get access Peace Process, the guided audio that helps you calm the fear of judgment, among many other things. So the key here is to actually address. Maybe you could challenge it like they do in cognitive therapy. You know, let's say someone thinks I'm stupid. Okay? How would I handle that? What would be the worst thing about that? Right? You can kind of talk yourself through it. So whether it's working directly with the raw emotion of fear or talking yourself through it, regardless, you need to get to the other side, where I'm not saying you love the judgment. I mean, of course you don't want people to judge you. Of course you want people to think you did great, but you're okay. That's really, it's okay if that happens. And then when you get to that place of it's okay when that happens, you're softer in your body, you're a little more relaxed, and then you can share. Now, one key practical tip I want to share about the talk itself is the first 10 seconds. The first 10 seconds is where it all either starts well or just falls apart and goes to shit. So you can't. If you want to try to script out your whole talk, that usually doesn't go super great. But the first 10 seconds, I mean, I think it's great to do some rehearsal, a little bit of practice in your bedroom, in your bathroom, in the mirror, whatever you want. In your car ride, say some of your key points, that's fine. But having an exact, almost teleprompter type script usually always falls apart because people forget where they are and they're just trying to sound like they're reading something, but instead, focus. You can have a little script for the first 10 seconds. What's the first thing you're going to say? How are you going to enter the room? How are you going to initially engage whoever you're talking to? And then practice that, like, 30 times the first 10 seconds again and again and again. And eventually you'll just feel really solid with that. So then when you start to talk, boom, you got momentum. You've let go of needing to never be judged because it's never going to happen in your life. And then you also have been doing practice over time. So don't see this as like, I just got to do this one talk and then I'm done forever. No. Can you take it on as a practice? And if you are and you're willing to do that, then you can become an extraordinarily confident public speaker. I hope this supports you. Please share down in the comments below what you're finding most valuable and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
