A little analogy for you guys today:

Many individuals who are called upon to deliver a speech stumble due to nervousness and anxiety. It’s a disaster. One tried and true technique that used to be promoted by public speakers and speaking coaches throughout the world to help such individuals sounds a little silly, but it works: Picture the audience in their underwear. When you do this small mental exercise from the podium, your entire perception changes. You’re no longer standing in front of a room of critical minds judging you and watching your every move and breath, as you nervously try to win their approval. You’re standing in front of a group of fools in their underwear, telling them how it is. Your confidence shines through, your speech is better and more controlled, and you can have fun with it, which everyone enjoys.

“But Archwinger! That’s just plain not true! Your logic is flawed and you didn’t cite any peer reviewed scientific articles on this. Nobody in the audience is actually in his or her underwear. In fact, here’s a link to a study concluding that only 0.05 percent of speech attendees forget to put clothes on. And here’s another study that says that picturing the audience in its underwear doesn’t work for everybody all the time. So it’s a logical fallacy to talk about this like it’s true if it’s not true for everybody all of the time.”

Don’t care. It works for me. One hundred percent of the time, I deliver a better speech.

“But Archwinger! It’s offensive and unhealthy to assume something about your listeners that makes them seem foolish and inferior to you. It’s not the picturing them in their underwear that’s working for you, it’s the confidence, and you could have gotten that confidence in a lot of other ways besides thinking something inferior and hateful about the listeners!”

Don’t care. It works for me. One hundred percent of the time, I deliver a better speech.

“But Archwinger! What you’re doing demeans the audience and is hateful. Why don’t you just speak the way you used to speak? Eventually, if you keep at it for a long time and put up with a long string of failure and rejection, you’ll find a group of people who likes your awkward and insecure style.”

I’d rather be successful now. Thanks.

“But Archwinger! You can’t have a healthy relationship with your audience if you’re thinking something negative in your head about the listeners! And why are you so hung up on fulfilling the role of speaker anyway, while relegating the audience to the role of listener? Everyone in the audience has a mouth and a voice, just like you, and is just as capable of being a speaker as you are. If you really want a healthy relationship with the audience, you should scrap the idea of giving a speech altogether and engage the audience in an open conversation. I know that this diverges from the traditional roles of speaker and listener and that the audience didn’t prepare on this topic or expect to have to speak about it today, while everyone was expecting you to prepare, be knowledgeable on the topic, and deliver a capable speech, but the fact that you’d be treating the audience like equals, deferring to their thoughts, and listening to them is definitely going to outweigh the fact that you will look completely unprepared and non-knowledgeable about the topic and won’t have delivered what was expected of you.”

Every time I give a speech, listeners line up afterward to shake my hand. They love it.

“But Archwinger! Those are just dumb people. Most of the people who hear you speak when you’re picturing them in their underwear think you’re an asshole.”

When I picture the audience in its underwear, I dominate the room. I own it. Everybody – the other speakers at the event and countless listeners – comes up to shake my hand and complement me on my speech. Half of the people don’t even have anything intelligent to say and just want to hang out next to me. I’m invited to speak at subsequent events without fail every time I do this.

“But Archwinger! You’re just going from speaking even to speaking event, traveling around the country, living from day to day, when your goal is supposed to be a steady daily office job in a cubicle. If you really want a steady regular job, you have to stop doing this.”

I’m happy. I like traveling, meeting different people, and attending different events. I don’t need a steady office job to be happy and fulfilled.

“You’re full of shit, Archwinger! This doesn’t work. You’re just an internet virgin neckbeard loser spreading lies about public speaking! Why do you hate the audience so much just because you sucked at speaking when you were younger? Nobody listen to Archwinger!”