Learn how to turn your anxiety into a great public speech with this free video lesson from a professional public speaker.
Sometimes it’s necessary to dig down to the roots of our fear of public speaking. And there can be a lot of those, but if you dig them out, one by one, confidence grows.
Does fear of public speaking run in your family?
I’m not sure if there is a genetic cause for this but I do know that if you have seen your parents or a family member speaking or performing confidently in public, then you will most likely see it as something you can do too. But if you see fear and aversion to public speaking then you will probably adopt that as part of your culture as well.
So it may be time to kick it out of your culture again, disown it. You could have a “coming out” party where you announce to your family that, in fact, you are a confident pubic speaker, and even though that is so different to everything they believe in, you just have to go ahead with it. Can’t do that in real life? Then do it in your head. It’s just as effective.
Otherwise … rebel! Imagine yourself dressed in something absolutely outlandish – entirely different from your family’s normal, raising your fist in the air and speaking with confidence – the “rock star” speaker you always dreamed you could be.
You will know what works for you when it comes to being independent, just do whatever it takes to dig out that attitude that you have inherited, and grow a new one. Be the successful speaker you know you can be.
Many speakers fear and avoid a Q & A.
Why … because they fear a disaster spiraling out of control.
“What if someone asks a question and I don’t know the answer?”
Experienced speakers know, however, that rather than being a disaster, a Q&A is a wonderful opportunity and they prepare to leverage that opportunity.
“But how can you prepare for every question? No-one can know the answer to everything!”
Let’s look, instead, at preparing for the opportunity buried within this seemingly impossible disaster.
First step … If you don’t know the answer, admit it. That is not a disaster, in itself, or in the making.
Admitting to not knowing the answer is a chance to build authenticity.
Audiences are reasonable. They understand that in the avalanche of information available, no one person can know it all.
There is nothing authentic or credible about someone trying to side-step a question with blustering. Much better to tell the truth.
But before you lose your credibility as an expert, have a plan for response to these questions.
1. If it’s possible, know the experts in the room. Throw the question to one of them, and you are providing a resource just as much as if you had given an answer. You have provided an answer. You have created or reinforced a connection with the other expert. And you have positioned yourself within a community of experts.
2. You can also refer the question back to the audience in general. You are building engagement here with your interaction. If it is possible to allow discussion, you can build a sense of community within the audience. If it’s appropriate you can ask for opinions, stories and examples as well as facts.
3. Finally, saying “No comment” just doesn’t work. You appear either to be completely ignorant and helpless on the subject, or worse still, trying to hide something. If there is no way to answer in the moment, commit to getting the answer to the questioner as soon as possible – to either giving them good sources/resources at the end of your presentation or to communicating an answer in coming days. If you cannot answer because it is not appropriate or you are not at liberty to answer, explain why. Again, audiences are generally reasonable and understanding.
This is also providing an opportunity to reinforce your respect for your audience and its members. Answering with integrity and an honest effort to help, you are showing respect for the person asking the question and for the question itself, no matter how awful the question or the motives of the questioner.
That respect is all part of the process of building and maintaining your credibility and your authenticity. And Q&A has given you the opportunity to contribute more to that process. Rather than being a disaster waiting to happen, Q&A becomes a valuable opportunity.
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Let me take you through the process that will free you to present with confidence
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Understand why you feel the way you do about public speaking and how to work with that to turn public speaking into a positive experience.
Create a speech and a mindset that sets you up for success.
Prepare so that there is nothing to fear- not judgment, not accidents and disasters, not the unexpected.
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I don’t particularly like X_Factor videos and the emotional hype that goes with them, but watch this one, and you have to be inspired, especially if you suffer from performance nerves. If this man can do what he did, so successfully, so can you!!
This is a valedictory speech by a student who feared public speaking.
“I’d literally have sweaty palms and a pit in my stomach at the thought of being called on to answer a question in class. The worst part was that I thought I’d always feel that way but thank goodness I finally figured out how to get rid of it and I’ve never felt better about speaking publicly.”
Watch him as he waits through his introduction. It is still evident. Watch, though, as he makes his speech and know that this is one inspirational human being.
He still has a way to go with his speaking, but with an attitude like that, he should go far.
I would love your comments on this speaker and his presentation in the comments below. Especially I would like to hear what advice you would give him on his speaking. I think he would appreciate it.
The first piece of public speaking that I can remember doing was in about the second year of school. Every year of school, we learned several pieces of poetry by rote, wrote them in our best handwriting in our poetry books and recited them together each morning. I loved that poetry – loved the writing, the sound of the words and the way they fitted together in a new form of speaking. But in the second year of school, it was decided that each person in the class would recite the poem to the whole group. We were instructed to stand out the front, in the middle, with our hands clasped together with the finger tips of each hand nestled against the fingers of the other – “cupped” I think, is the word for it.
I don’t remember being nervous, but remember standing there. I don’t remember what the teacher may have said was good about my presentation, but in perverse and fairly normal human style, I have never forgotten being told that I had swayed while I spoke.
And that was the beginning of years of fear of public speaking. Obviously perfection was expected here and obviously, too, my body could not be trusted to be perfect without my strict supervision. By Year seven, the public speaking exercises had graduated to coming to the door of the classroom, knocking and asking “Are you Nelly Reddy?” That was too much! I would discover a sudden need to go to the bathroom –and stay there. It got to the stage where the teacher asked my mother if I was having some sort of health issue!
My love of language and an ability to use it reasonably well meant I built a successful career in public speaking at high school, but always at the expense of suffering horribly from nerves. There was still the expectation of a performance, and the degree of perfection against a set of criteria was always forefront in every experience.
I have worked hard over the intervening years to overcome the fear, because despite it all, I still love public speaking. And one of the best feelings these days is the feeling of being able to stand confidently on a stage and have a conversation with the audience. Another best feeling is knowing that that is the common trend in public speaking today as well. I watch “Show and Tell” in primary school and watch as the teachers make each child feel comfortable, supported, encouraged and never judged. I read about public speaking and see the growing number of people discussing this need to be perfect and what a burden it is, and how unnecessary.
The concept I love most is the idea of the performance/perfectionism as placing a wall between yourself as a speaker and your audience. Perhaps it should be refereed to as a screen, in the way that a screen holds a movie or video separate from its audience.
And of course the antidote is to break down the wall, take yourself out of the screen and see yourself as having a conversation with your audience. You can be so much more authentic as you be yourself in conversation rather than a performing persona. You can be so much more engaging as you interact, in conversation, with your audience. And as a speaking consultant I can now encourage my clients to be themselves – their best selves, mind you, but still their authentic selves.
© Bronwyn Ritchie If you want to include this article in your publication. please do. but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years’ experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
Stand with your weight on the balls of your feet, not on your heels.
The grounded balance will give you a firm base for confidence and from which to develop the most effective body language and gestures.
Your mouth is dry, heart palpitating, and knees knocking. You go into panic, facing a dreaded public speaking assignment.
It doesn’t have to be so.
These five tips will give you some strategies to overcome those symptoms and have the butterflies flying in formation.
1. Deep breathing will pull in oxygen. Adrenalin, secreted to help you deal with the fear brought on by little doubts, causes breaths to become shallow, or causes you to hold your breath. Deep breathing will help your brain work to capacity, and forcing the slower pace will quell the panic.
2. Bluff. Stand tall, with shoulders back and chest out. Smile. Even though you don’t feel happy or confident, do it anyway. You will look confident and your body will fool your brain into thinking it is confident. This really works!!
Bluff – body and smile
3. Keep you mouth and throat hydrated. Plan to keep a drink on hand while you are speaking., though this sounds impossible. Visualising how you will use it if you need it, and calling up the audacity to do such a thing will carry across to your attitude as you take your place to speak, placing your glass just where you need it to be.
4. Adrenalin sends the blood rushing to the fight/flight centres of your brain at the base of the skull. Place your hand on your forehead and press gently on the bony points. This will bring the blood to the parts of the brain that need it to present your speech best.
5. Know you are prepared. Obviously this depends on actually being prepared, so take every opportunity in the days leading up to the speech to prepare your material. Be familiar with the structure of the presentation, and the ideas to use. Memorise the most important parts, and the parts you are frightened of forgetting. I would memorise the opening of the speech and in the moments before presenting it, would reassure myself that I knew that part, and that would lead on to the rest. It worked!!
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©Bronwyn Ritchie
If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. Get her 30 speaking tips FREE and boost your public speaking mastery over 30 weeks. Go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
For my eBook on Overcoming public speaking nerves, visit http://bit.ly/NEKghl
It’s embarrassing for the nervous speaker and it’s embarrassing for the audience – those awkward, horrible moments when something goes wrong, something embarrassing happens. They are an experience neither the audience nor the speaker wants to have to endure.
Here are four situations where you can smooth out those embarrassing moments … and a powerful strategy to use in the future.
1. The mental blank That terrible moment when someone loses complete track of what they are saying – there is a blank, their face drops, and then becomes more and more frantic. This is painful not only for the speaker but for the audience. Develop a strategy now so that if, despite your best preparations, a blank happens, you have something to say. You could remark, “Oops I’ve lost it” and maybe you can add some appropriate humour (“Must have left the speech in front of the mirror!”) and then add something like “Now where was I?” Look at your notes if necessary – “We were talking about …” If it’s really bad, ask the audience. Whatever strategy you use along these lines, you keep the audience, and yourself, moving on, returning to target and none of you is embarrassed. So if you fear the blank moment, be prepared with a strategy that will allow you to deal smoothly with the situation.
2. The audience is bored It’s a moment that nervous speakers dread – to realise that most of your audience is bored. They’re glassy eyed, maybe even falling asleep, chatting or texting on their mobile hones. Horrors! Worse still and more embarrassing is the presenter who becomes frantic, attempting to regain attention. Avoid the whole situation if you can by ensuring you have variety wired into your presentation, and have something up your sleeve that you can move into if necessary. Introduce a new visual. Involve the audience. Change your stance, body language or walking pattern. Stop. Stand still. Whatever you use, it will become a smooth, professional piece of your presentation instead of a situation that embarrasses you and your audience.
3. Dry mouth Do you have a persistent dry mouth? Then take a glass of water with you. Before the speech, organise a place to put it and then choose a time where you can drink without interrupting the flow of your speech. Incorporate this into the planning of your presentation and your visualisation of your successful presentation. If it does interrupt, then find a way to explain it, incorporate it, or joke about it.
4. Those other embarrassing physical symptoms The same applies to anything else you expect might embarrass you or detract from your speech. If you cannot overcome the physical symptoms in the lead up to the speech, then these are the ones you need to develop strategies for. And use this same set of tactics for any other symptoms like blushing or shakes – if they detract from your speech – find a way to explain it, incorporate it or joke about it.
Then you will have defused any embarrassment that you feel or your audience feels. In all of these situations where you might make mistakes or have a mishap, there is one underlying powerful principle that works to avoid embarrassment: “It doesn’t matter what happens. What matters is how you deal with what happens.” It really does not matter!. The embarrassment for everyone lies not in the event itself, but in how you respond to it. So instead of being embarrassed, respond, instead, with professionalism and confidence.
Be as prepared as you can for whatever may arise, and be prepared to explain, incorporate or joke if something does happen. Then you will have been able to deal with it, confidently and professionally – without embarrassment. The added bonus? You are reducing your nervousness and increasing your confidence in the process.
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©Bronwyn Ritchie
If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. Get her 30 speaking tips FREE and boost your public speaking mastery over 30 weeks. Go to http://www.30speakingtips.com