The poetic-narrative autoethnography presented here explores my experience and struggle with my fear of public speaking. Public speaking is the number one fear in America that people possess, even over death, which is at number two. Jerry Seinfeld made a joke about this statistic in one of his bits when he brought up that at a funeral, people would rather be in the casket than to speak the eulogy. Halina Ablamowicz said, “…public speaking is one of the greatest fears among Americans and at the same time, it is considered as one of the most desirable and sought after skills” (98).
Over 74 percent of people in America struggle with public speaking. This means about 238 million people have this social issue. Among that statistic, 73 percent of men and 75 percent of women have suffered from speech anxiety. Moreover, 5.3 million Americans have a social phobia and 3.2 million Americans have a phobia of larger crowds
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Trina Swerdlow has her BFA, CCHT and is a certified clinical hypnotherapist has her patients who struggle with public speaking use the emotional freedom technique (EFT). EFT is an effective tool to assist a person to discharge negatively charged energy. A person should use this technique before and after whatever setting they are publicly speaking. EFT is an effective way to uncover negative core beliefs and address anything that we might do to sabotage our self. An example is thinking, “I don’t deserve this job/promotion,” or “I’ll screw up my job interview and not get the job.” The utmost effective way to overcome glossophiba is practice. The term “Practice makes perfect” might not always be true, but it will make a person better. In a study conducted by Tony E. Smith and Ann Bainbridge Frymier out of 220 undergraduate students, the students who practiced their presentation, their speeches before they presented in class received a much higher grade than students who did