What are you most afraid of? The answer volunteered by surprising numbers of people is: public speaking. The mere thought of stepping onto a stage in front of watching eyes is enough to make many of us break into a sweat.

If this sounds like you, you aren’t giving yourself enough credit. Worse, you might be missing a major opportunity.

With enough practice, anyone can be a great presenter. I’ve seen hundreds of people who would never have called themselves “naturals” give talks that brought down the house, generated buzz, maybe even changed someone’s life. All of them had one thing in common: They had something worth saying.

Take Richard Turere, a 12-year-old Maasai boy whom I met in Kenya several years back. He had a smart idea for helping his family protect its cattle from lion attacks at night. He had devised a system of lights, built from scrap-yard parts, that would turn on and off in sequence, creating the appearance of movement. Richard installed the lights, and—presto!—the lion attacks stopped. Instead of seeking to kill the lions as they had done before, villagers now installed his “lion lights.”

But could we invite Richard to speak at the annual TED conference? He was painfully shy, his English was halting, and he struggled to describe his invention coherently. It was hard to imagine him in front of 1,400 people, slotted alongside Sergey Brin and Bill Gates.