Why You Hate Public Speaking

If you hate or even fear public speaking, you’re not alone. According to numerous studies, fear of public speaking (a.k.a. glossophobia) affects as many as four in ten Americans. And people around the world appear to be no less speech-anxious than we. 

Ok. So, but like, WHY do so many of us loathe getting onstage, taking the lead in a Zoom meeting, or standing up in a conference room to speak to our peers and fellow citizens? One guess: when we speak in public, even about fact-driven, impersonal subjects like sales report or technical updates, we find ourselves under a spotlight of sorts which forces us to reveal parts of ourselves we’re not eager to share. If we’re shy or uptight, depressed or insecure (about anything at all), people get a glimpse of it. If we try to cover it up, well, they sense that too. For many people, this forced vulnerability feels nearly intolerable. 

Worst of all, perhaps, is that when we’re bad at public speaking, we don’t reveal an accurate version of ourselves; we reveal the least authentic, least likeable, least cool version of ourselves. The upshot: public speaking forces us to be brutally honest and to show people who we are—and then through our bad performance, we’re not even honest at all!

The average American speaks 16,000-20,000 words a day. For most of us, using those words informally with friends and family requires little or no thought. Our mouths and brains seem to work in tandem, and things tend to work out. Our thoughts get expressed. So why does the act of public speaking mess us up so bad? 

Because it’s not the same skill set. Indeed, both forms of speaking rely on our brain to sort our thoughts, then channel those thoughts into words and muscle movements. But public speaking requires us to memorize a set of facts or other information, then relay that information in a specific order. It simply requires higher-level performance skills. And here’s the problem: no one has ever taught us those skills or how to use them.  

Most of us go off to school around the age of four or five until the age of 22… Or even 25 or 28. We spend this time learning to read, write, and do math—developing our ability to make arguments and solve problems on paper. Speaking? Interacting? Not so much. Where speech instruction was once a vital, central, years-long component of Western education [[link here to next post, where we discuss this education]], it has entirely fallen out of favor, giving way to curricula prioritizing “objective knowledge” over social skills. The result: we graduate into adulthood, sometimes even from prestigious universities, with little or no skill at explaining ourselves and our ideas out loud.  

If you’re a miner, a shepherd, or a hermit with no interest in connecting with people, please stop reading. This post isn’t for you. But if you work in an office or for your own company, selling things or coordinating activities with fellow humans by participating in conference calls, meetings, and other presentations, you’re judged—inevitably—on the basis of your ability to speak. Regardless of how skilled you are at doing whatever you do on your screen, regardless of what your job description says you do for a living (yes, even if you’re a tech whiz), your peers, bosses, clients, and everyone else around you determine your overall competency based on how well you talk and interact. 

Several years ago, I taught my first speech class: a group of teenaged game programmers from a magnet program for “disadvantaged youth” around New York City. My job was to teach them how to pitch their games. 

I introduced the subject of public speaking by saying, “People who can explain themselves decently tend to have better careers and relationships. People who can’t tend to be isolated, lonely, and depressed. They spend their lives being pissed off and frustrated that no one understands them. So, on the surface, yeah, we want you to be good at pitching your game. But in general, these skills are about not being pissed off and frustrated.” 

No one seemed to think it was weird, and I later realized it was a simple, accurate, helpful description of the benefits of speech training—for every part of your life, not just at work. When you can’t share of yourself or explain what you’re thinking or how you’re feeling, life is depressing. Period. 

So why do we fear and hate public speaking so much? Because ultimately, most of us really do want to share of ourselves. When we don’t know how to do it well, and when we’re convinced that it’s an impossible skill to learn, it’s easy to conclude that no one will ever understand us.