<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Published in the May 2013 issue Osteen is a senior pastor at Lakewood Church, Houston For seventeen years, my father tried to get me up in front of people at his church. I said, &amp;quot;Daddy, I am not a minister.&amp;quot; I couldn&amp;#039;t even get up and make announcements. I was so nervous and I so dreaded doing it, I had to hold on to the podium because I felt like my hands would shake. My first thought was Why are all these people staring at me?  Then I looked up three or four years later and thought, Ya know, I&amp;#039;m pretty good at this. I used to play basketball with a lot of guys at the YMCA. They knew I was a preacher&amp;#039;s kid, but these were just guys. They didn&amp;#039;t go to church. But my dad&amp;#039;s church was on TV then, and when he died and I took over, I knew these guys were going to see me on television. So I made the decision then that when I spoke in the church, I was going to imagine I was speaking to the basketball players, the ones that didn&amp;#039;t go to church. I spoke in everyday language. The biggest mistake I made was early on. In the first few months after I took over for my father as pastor, I tried to be like him. He was old-school, more dynamic and strong, preaching at people. But that just wasn&amp;#039;t who I was. When I stepped into who I felt I was meant to be \u2014 when I stayed within my own gifts \u2014 that&amp;#039;s when the ministry started to grow. I learned over time it&amp;#039;s easier for people to listen to you \u2014 to hear you \u2014 when you change your pacing, when you&amp;#039;re conversational. Now I memorize the whole thing. I type my speech word for word, and I&amp;#039;ll go over it a half page at a time. Maybe it&amp;#039;s a story. I get the story down, and I move on to the next one. Your memory is like a muscle. The more you use it, the better it gets.  There&amp;#039;s nothing wrong with using notes, but go over them and know them real well.  The day before I give a sermon, I&amp;#039;ll practice it and act as if people were actually there listening. If I mess up, I recover. I don&amp;#039;t stop and go get a drink of water. If something happens in the middle of an actual speech, someone stands up or the mic doesn&amp;#039;t work, or if you get tense, you have to tell yourself to slow down, relax, regroup. So even when I&amp;#039;m practicing, sometimes I&amp;#039;ll say, &amp;quot;I forgot my spot!&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll need to look at my notes.&amp;quot; Try taping yourself when you practice. Most people can&amp;#039;t stand to listen to themselves on tape or watch themselves, but that&amp;#039;s the only way you can grow. I used to say &amp;quot;ya know&amp;quot; every sentence, and it wasn&amp;#039;t until I watched it that I got out of that habit. You&amp;#039;ll pick up other things. Why do I look down? Why do I talk so fast? Plus, you&amp;#039;ll pick up a lot of good things! Oh, man, I&amp;#039;m good at that. That&amp;#039;s important.  If you&amp;#039;re taking questions, be confident enough to say, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know.&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s nothing wrong with saying, &amp;quot;We haven&amp;#039;t crossed that bridge, and I&amp;#039;ll have to think about that answer.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s not all about showing unshakable confidence; it&amp;#039;s about being yourself and finding your own voice. I have some of the greatest ministers in the world come to the church, and, man, they sound like James Earl Jones. They give me goosebumps. And I think, My goodness, I am so stinkin&amp;#039; boring. But you have to be confident that Okay, this is who I am. I&amp;#039;m going to do the best that I can. It&amp;#039;s not that we can&amp;#039;t all change and grow, but you&amp;#039;re never going to be someone you&amp;#039;re not.  A lot of speakers are a little bit on edge, and they&amp;#039;re a little bit angry because of it. I think 99.9 percent of the people you&amp;#039;re speaking to, they don&amp;#039;t even know why you&amp;#039;re that way. And you have to fight those thoughts of This is boring to them; they&amp;#039;re not getting it. You have to think, They&amp;#039;re enjoying this; this is good information; I&amp;#039;m doing my best; and everybody likes it. If you want to get people&amp;#039;s attention, think about if you&amp;#039;d like to listen to it. Edit yourself. Ya know what? These two sentences are not even necessary. When I get eight and a half pages down to seven? That&amp;#039;s when I get really good. And if you&amp;#039;re talking to one person or a smaller group of people, eye contact is very important. But with a large crowd, I don&amp;#039;t focus on individual people. I just see it as a big group. If I focus on individuals, I tend to lose my train of thought and start thinking, Are they listening? Are they paying attention? Why is that? What are they wearing? So I just stare out. \u2014As told to Rachel Richardson "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/money/a22360/own-the-room-0513/?click=mid>