"When the Butterflies are Churning."
Shaking hands, pounding heart and breathless speech. This is how I have felt in the past before and during public speaking and it is NOT a good feeling. I struggled through presentations in college and graduate school and eventually just conceded to write every word that I was going to say down in order to calm my nerves. This made my life easier because I could simply read from the paper. However, by the time I got to graduate school a professor told me that I should try to present without reading from the paper because it shows confidence and will sound more natural. For the remainder of graduate school, I tried to speak naturally during presentations. Sometimes it went well and other times it did not go as well. On the eve of completing my master's degree, I produced a presentation that unfortunately I will never forget. This was about a 30 minute presentation and we were being chosen at random to present. I also had been up until 4am the night before preparing for this pr