I was like sort of clenching the sides of the podium and I thought I'm going to

leave. Like my mouth completely went dry. Like I was sweating. I felt cold. I

mean I was my nervous system was like get out of here you are being chased by

a predator. Welcome to How-To. I'm Amanda Ripley. So a big part of my job is to

go around giving talks about different things that I'm working on. And a few

years back I was asked to give two separate talks at a big DC nonprofit. One was

about how to survive a disaster. The subject of my first book something I had

learned a lot about. And the other was about how to speak in public. It was

funny because like 20 times as many people showed up to the one on speaking in

public. It was like standing room only. Surviving a disaster. You know a few

people came. But speaking in public was for most people the more likely

disaster. And in fact studies show that around 75% of people really struggle to

speak in front of an audience at least to some degree. Our listener this week has

this very problem. I'm Marianne and I'm a PhD researcher based in Switzerland and

my research interests lie in sustainable agricultural practices and I

absolutely love bird watching. Marianne takes pride in being a great listener

and a deep thinker. And a decent portion of her work is actually done in a group

setting and you'll often find her quietly but intently listening. However when

it comes time to contribute well that's not so easy for her. She gets nervous

and then her mind goes blank. Recently she was preparing for a meeting where the

topic was communicated in advance. So she thought to herself okay great I can

collect my thoughts and go in prepared to speak up. I just didn't I guess it's

...