I’ve had the opportunity to do lots of public speaking over the last 10 years or so and am forever learning and improving still.

But this one point resonated with me as it’s something I identified early on that helped tremendously and I often give it as advice to others.

The moment I stopped thinking of the audience as “cold and menacing beasts” who were looking for all the faults and started thinking about them more as what I genuinely believe they are — open minded folks ready to learn and give gratitude — things became much easier.

When you’re up on stage, you’re already commanding most people’s respect and gratitude just by showing up and being vulnerable. Heck, some folks have even paid money to come to events where I’ve been a speaker! So surely that’s proof they are grateful and willing to invest time in considering what you have to say.

Thanks for the reminder of this in your post.