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Shifting Focus of Attention

In our discussion of the role of the speaker as a listener, we emphasized the need for the speaker to be aware of the reactions of the persons to whom he is talking. The public speaker does not ordinarily anticipate an immediate verbal response to his remarks. He should, nevertheless, be more concerned with what he has to say to his listeners, and with their possible reactions than he is with his own feelings. The speaker whom assumes a mental attitude and set of talking to and with his listeners, who is actively engaged in communicating, will find less time and opportunity for excessive introspection and reaction to his own internal reactions. Such a speaker will gain confidence from the realization that his listeners are indeed listening and responding to his ideas. With such confidence, intensification of feeling will serve to stimulate the speaker rather than to produce disintegration and true stage fright.