We generally get what we expect. We can also create circumstances to get what we want. Positive expectations are one of the most powerful, outwardly identifiable characteristics that winning personalities demonstrate.

Evaluate your self-talk, the inner conversations you have with yourself. A winner's self-talk sounds like this: "I did well today. I'll do even better tomorrow." "I am getting to be a better speaker every day." A loser's self-talk is more apt to be, "Murphy's Law says whatever can go wrong will go wrong," or, "If I didn't have bad luck I'd have no luck at all."

The way you treat yourself really shows in your results. If two people have equally rotten things going on in their lives (an earthquake or a tornado, for example), the positive person will recover more quickly than the negative one. Positive people live longer and are healthier than people who are negative.

Do you see where we are going with this? Embrace the habits of positive, optimistic people in order to develop those qualities within yourself, and you will find your fears of speaking in public much smaller than they ever were.