Speak Freely

It CAN boost your morale, when you get a lot of compliments from people tellig you how good you are at it.

It is much harder to be able to predict what will happen in your own friend's case. It depends on why he wants to speak in public, under what conditions and whether the issue has more to do with public speaking itself or simply wanting to find something to do to boost their morale!

Speaking for myself, I like public speaking, I do it frequently, I feel confident with it and I receive compliments from people telling me I'm good at it.

As you can see from the sentence above, that is a lot of positive feedback including confidence, enjoyment, practice and praise. If it is simply morale your friend would like, then he/she may like to find an activity in which he can feel able to produce a good positive feedback loop like the one I have from speaking, something he feels confident with, irrespective of the topic or skill. Morale, I believe, comes from success in a area meaningful to the person who wishes to build their morale. I don't believe public speaking can be used as a general platform for morale building, except when that platform is meaningful and has personal resonance for the speaker.

If it is simply public speaking which is the issue for them, I strongly encourage them, and you, to have a go. : )

Yes it can, especially if you succeed in it. If you don't, it might have a negative effect on you and you might feel embarrassed for a long time. Happened to me once when I was in school. I was forced to represent my class for an extemporaneus speech contest. I didn't want to and the topic was totally out of my league. On the day of the contest, I was the first to give the speech and I totally blanked out when it was my turn. It was pretty bad and I didn't want to go to school the following day. As it was high school, some insensitive classmate had to make fun of me and that person was on my hate list for a long time. But I'm not saying you should do that. It was just a really bad experience for me.

However, if you blank out and the crowd is supportive, I think the outcome would be different. Anyway, putting the negative effects of a failed attempt at public speaking aside, as mentioned by vapourmile, there are a lot of positive effects. And it can definitely boost morale and confidence.

Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey sh** he is! Hallelujah! Holy sh**! Where's the Tylenol?