One of the main reasons that you're feeling nervous about public speaking, is that you have some wrong thinking going on. And I really want to tackle that now. So the theory here is that you are running a script in your mind that is not serving you very well. These will be thoughts like, what if I make a mistake? And what if my voice sounds really boring? You'll notice that those will be popping up in your mind often as what if questions, and there might even be phrased as why questions such as, why did I ever agree to this?

I often think that myself just before I'm about to go on stage. Now, it really matters what you're thinking just before you go on because it will affect your behavior. But it goes deeper than that. Those thoughts are popping up because of deeper ideas that you have about yourself and about the world and about speaking. We call these limiting beliefs limiting because they are not helping you. And we ideally want to get rid of those.

So this is a really in depth exercise that I'd like you to do. There'll be a handout on this for you to download. So, take about 30 minutes, at least if not an hour to do this exercise for yourself. What I want you to do is take the handout, and in the left hand column, I'd like you to list all of the things that you're thinking about speaking, that are negative, that are not helping you very well. Now, I'd like you to write those in full sentences. And they usually begin with I or my you know, in the first person.

So for example, I think my voice is really boring, or my voice is really boring. Things like people are going to think I'm an idiot. I'm going to make a mistake when I'm on stage. So full sentences are really important, because what I'm asking you to do is look Listen for the thoughts that are in your head. I don't want you to write down nerves or mistakes, that doesn't mean anything it needs to be in this specific script for you. That is the voice inside your head.

So pause the video and do that now make a list in the left hand column, and then come back to me when you've done that. So how did you get on, you should by now have a list of beliefs that are hobbling you that are getting in your way in that left hand column. Now, in the middle column, what we do is take these beliefs and look at them, rationally. evaluate them for what they are. So let's take your first belief. What I want you to do is decide how true that really is.

You can express this as a percentage. So is it zero percent true, it's just total nonsense. Or is it 60% true? Maybe you do. Have a monotone voice. Maybe that's true.

You need to work on your voice. And I have some teaching on that elsewhere. So let's take that belief, though. Give it a percentage. And also, what is the evidence for and against that belief? Have you been told that your voice is boring?

Or are you just imagining it? Let's put this into a court of law if you like, and really argue hard as to whether it has any validity. Now, once you've done that, I would like you to go to the right hand column, and think about creating a new belief for yourself. So this is something that's going to serve you better than the original belief. But it still has to be believable for you. It can't be totally fantastical.

If you write here, I've got the most amazing and wonderful voice in the world. But you don't really believe that, then it's not going to work. We're looking for a realistic belief that will help you to go around the world and enjoy more success. If you want to put, I'm now able to work on my voice, and it's no longer monotone. And that's great. Put that.

And the idea here is that we're going to replace each one of these beliefs in this way in order to give you a better in a script when you're thinking about speaking. So go ahead and complete that handout. And then I'd be really interested to if you could drop me a line and let me know how you've got on with that. And if you have any questions