Does the thought of doing a presentation make your stomach churn? Are you comfortable speaking up in front of a group of people? How do you deal with being the center of attention? Fear. We all know the feeling from a terrifying experience at some point in our lives. However, 75% of the people get fearful when having to speak in front of a group of people. Even the idea of doing it is sometimes enough for many people to get fearful.

Yes, most of us — even those at the top — struggle with public-speaking anxiety. When people think about what makes them nervous, they usually come up with the same answers:

I don’t like being in the spotlight I don’t like being watched I don’t like the eyes on me Some might say the fear will go away as you do more and more talks. This is not always true: our guest today, Thierry de Pauw, has done many talks: about Continuous Delivery, Agile transformations, Trunk based development and so on. However, Thierry has publicly shared about his struggle to start public talks.

Sometime in 2022, the lovely people of FourScouts invited me to share my experiences with public speaking, including the challenges and rewards.