The ways this course has empowered me as a public speaker. My strengths as a speaker before this course were my posture and my non-verbal gestures. Lesson after lesson, I felt more and more comfortable speaking and I wasn't as nervous and/or had less anxiety. When I felt less anxiety, I felt like I could think more clearly and my thoughts seemed well organized, it was a really good feeling. Rewatching some of my videos helped me prepare for the next one, pointing out my flaws such as things I need to work on, better pronunciation, more relaxed speaking pace, etc. Between classes, I would look for articles published by great speakers and read them for inspiration. I came across this article which helped me enormously. The article was full of good advice, but there was one that stood out to me. One of them being "The biggest key is just admitting you're nervous" after thinking about it, then admitting I was nervous before a speech, admitting I'm going to be wrong and to not focus on that one mistake but to focus on keeping my cool. Even the greatest speakers are not perfect, which is why they are great speakers. Because they can make mistakes and no one will notice because they are able to stay so calm and