Is public speaking one of these skills you just have to be born with? No, no, no, it's not a skill you're born with nobody's born knowing how to speak anymore any more than anyone's born knowing how to be a great writer. People only become great writers after years and years and years of learning how to write ABC and getting instruction and feedback on a continual basis. Now, the good news about public speaking is most people never get any training on how to be a good speaker. So it only takes a little bit of improvement to really stand above most other people when it comes to public speaking. Now, if you doubt me about whether this is genetic or born versus a learned skill, just look at history.
For example, Martin Luther King Jr, rush limbaugh, two people, polar opposites of the political spectrum, both rows To great prominence based on their ability to speak, to speak well and to speak to large audiences, guess what they both had in common. They both when they took a public speaking course in college got the grade at C. Completely average. Let's see. I mean, that's pretty lame when you think about it. And this is not a small children. This is when they are 18 1920 years old.
So it is a skill that people learn. And they can actually learn at any age and like john F. Kennedy was considered a horrible public speaker. When he was a member of the United States Congress, back in the 50s. He would go around, speak, head buried, reading awful, and yet he grew to be a good public speaker. So if you think you're not born with a talent, get over it. This is not one of these things that require certain genetic abnormalities to be great.
You know, if you want to be Michael Phelps and swim at that level, it helps to have a really set of short legs proportionally long torso, and feet that bend in really odd ways. Now you and I can't do that. Michael Phelps. Yeah, he works hard. He trains hard, but he has certain genetic advantages that make him a world class swimmer. You don't need anything like that to be a world class, public speaker.
So all you need is that desire, the willingness to practice the willingness to practice on video and putting time into it and you can become a world class speaker.