Thursday, September 9, 2021

Bogus claims in a press release about a ‘new’ public speaking book

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On September 8, 2021 my Google Alert on the phrase “public speaking” included a press release at PR. com (and AP News) titled The Plague of Public Speaking Anxiety Has Met Its Match. It discusses a ‘new’ book by Sean Tyler Foley titled The Power to Speak Naked. That same release also appeared at PRweb with a provocative different title, Controversial book banned by Amazon now available in bookstores. But Foley’s book was NOT banned by Amazon – it appears right here, as does the previous version from 2019 (noted as a #1 bestseller).

 

The second paragraph in the press release says:  

 

“The statistics say it all. Fear of public speaking has 10% impairment on one’s wages and 15% on promotions and 90% of public speaking anxiety comes from lack of preparation. With ‘The Power to Speak Naked,’ anyone can learn to unleash the power to speak confidently and step apart from the 255 million Americans who have public speaking anxiety.”

 

Claims that public speaking fear has a 10% impairment on wages and 15% on promotions are bogus – those statistics really are for social anxiety disorder. I blogged about them in a post on December 15, 2016 titled Believable and unbelievable statistics about fears and phobias of public speaking.

 

Do 255 million Americans have public speaking anxiety? No! That number is what you get when you take 77% of the 2020 census number for the U.S. population (331,449,281 million). On October 12, 2020 I posted with the title Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder.

 

The second sentence of the press release has a typo. It says that:

 

“This was a common tip for people with stage freight(sic) to try and calm their nerves.”

 

Way back on November 12, 2009 I blogged about Stage freight and other true typos or yakwirms. Yakwirm is an acronym for You All Know What I Really Meant.

 


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