My first foray into public speaking was painful to say the least. I was so sure that I was going to fall flat on my face without notes that I did what many people do – I wrote something compelling, and I read it to my audience. What I quickly realized was that this is a recipe for disaster; if they wanted to read what I wrote, they would have done that. When you have something worthwhile to say, then say it, don’t read it. What’s worse is that I was being asked to speak about topics that I was passionate about, and I wanted to pass this on to my audience. What I ended up doing instead was connecting…