One of the biggest fears in life is public speaking and for some of us, just speaking to a stranger in any environment has the same affect.
My journey as a speaker started many years ago before it was a necessary skill in my career. For most of us it was probably at a very young age at school, at church or somewhere in your community.
I was recently invited to speak on stage as a panelist in my industry to share my thoughts and experience as to what it takes to be at the "top" of my field in front of 200+ people. Although I have achieved lots of different recognition and success in my business, I really never thought of myself as being on "top" and that I was still climbing my way there because I have not reached my standards of what it means to be successful yet.
As the day of the event crept up, I started to feel the immense amount of pressure and it started to affect me. I felt my palms sweating, heart racing and constantly having it run through my heart. On the day of the event, during lunch, a good friend in the industry came up to me and said, "just speak to your true self, some people will connect with your story and some people would not, and that's okay. As long as you are true to yourself, you'll be fine." When I heard those words, I felt at peace with me going up on stage but the real secret is that the nervousness will never go away but it simply did not impact me as much.
I think people have this big fear of public speaking is because in our minds we put this task on this high pedestal that it is some god-giving talents and that a great speaker is someone who is successful, confident and charismatic.
I am here to demystify this and tell you that ANYONE can be a great speaker if you follow the steps below:
1. SPEAK WITH CONFIDENCE
Seems like an obvious place to start and for a lot of you the title itself strikes fear in your heart. What is confidence, really?
Confidence in my opinion is your passion. It is your dedication to your craft. It is your belief of yourself. You might have this innate fear that you don't like speaking is because you don't want to "say the wrong thing" or that speaking brings a possibility of embarrassment. Here's the reality that I found, no matter if you're going up to a stranger to say hello or going up on stage to speak about your topic, you're simply
telling your story. You are the expert of your own life story; you cannot be wrong. What you experienced, what you've learned in your studies or what your interruption of the topic, they are all yours and no one can be a judge of that. Therefore, in most cases you cannot be wrong for simply sharing your thoughts, they are yours so how can someone else tell you that you're wrong?
There is no need for fear when you're simply introducing yourself and sharing with someone your history and experiences in life. People might have a different opinion or a different experience, but there is no need to enter in to an argument with them. Some people will connect with your story and some people might not and that is okay.
2. BE TRUE TO YOURSELF AND YOUR CRAFT
I have said this in one of my previous post but if you're passionate about the work that you do or that you are genuinely interested in your area of expertise then the passion should come naturally to you. You've dedicated many hours, hard work, sweat and sleepless night thinking about or studying up on your area of expertise.
This is also probably the number one reason why someone has asked you to speak to an audience in the first place. They saw the passion in you. So, when you are on stage just let that passion shine through.
It is okay to be nervous; it is okay to be scared but I think people can sense it when you try to hide it. One trick I have learned in my early days is to start with the words, "As you can tell I am a little nervous being up here today, so please be gentle with me." This does two things for me: first it allows the audience to connect with me, they understand and know that I am nervous, second, psychologically
when those words leave my mouth, all of a sudden I got permission to be nervous and so I am no longer to scared of being nervous and I stopped being nervous. So, give yourself the permission to be nervous and scared and the fact is all of your audience members would be as well, if THEY were the one speaking.
When you admit who you are in front of people, suddenly all the judgement goes out the window and it gives you the ability to just be true to yourself.
3. SLOW YOUR HEART BEAT
Someone wiser once came up to me after a presentation and asked if I was nervous? I told him I was and he said he could tell because I was speaking WAY too fast for anyone to understand anything.
A tell-tale sign of nervousness is the speed of your speech. We're so nervous in our heads that we wanted to just spit everything out and be done with it that we don't pay attention that we are speaking way too fast for anyone to follow.
So, before I speak now, I take the 3-second-deep-breathe-in, slow my mind, my heart beat and my nerves. Sometimes I might catch myself in the middle of my presentation that I am speaking too fast, so I repeat that process. Just take a big breath of air, count 3 seconds, and as you breath out, imagine all your nervousness going out of your body with the breath out.
This is the same routine when I am nervous to meet someone new or after a presentation from another keynote speaker and you want to go say hi or ask a question, I would slow my heart, take a deep breath, let all my nervousness, fears and second-guesses all out with my breath too. This gives me the courage and a reminder that I just need to be my genuine self and I will be well-received.
4. THINK OF IT LIKE A CONVERSATION RATHER THAN A PRESENTATION
A classic advice I hear all the time is to pretend everyone is in their underwear and that will take the fears away. I never found that to work for me. Maybe it is because I am a shy guy or that I am insecure about my own body but either way, I found that advice just flat out WEIRD.
For me it was always about the eyes! When you're presenting it feels like there are a million sets of eyes on you so you don't want to screw up or say the wrong thing. What I found super useful is to find someone in the audience that you can lock eyes with and pretend this is just a conversation between two people rather than a presentation to the masses.
CAUTION though, don't do the creepy stare.
Don't spread your eyes WIDE open and death-stare them in the eyes for the whole time you're presenting. Bounce around, move about, start different conversations with different people you can lock eyes with.
This makes the presentation more personable, less formal and it makes the audience feel like you were speaking to them directly.
5. DON'T RELAY TOO HEAVILY ON YOUR POWER POINT OR SCRIPT
My last piece of advice is not to rely too heavily on the prepared material. I am not saying DON'T PREPARE, I am simply saying don't try and memorize everything that you wrote down. This isn't a recital and there's no docked marks if you don't get every word of your script perfect. Scripts has always given me an added stress. After I prepare a speech, if I try to remember everything that I wrote, I get so nervous trying to remember the exact words I used rather than focusing on the message I am trying to tell.
If there is something that is super important to get every word accurate, for example, someone's biography or a paraphrase that you wanted to quote, what I suggest is that you write that one down and just read it straight off the paper. People won't be offended that you had to read off a paper to be accurate on your words on those specific parts. This doesn't mean you just read your entire presentation off the paper though. Keep those things straight; you're allow to read off the paper when you're quoting or speaking about something specific but NOT for you to read off a paper the entire time.
This is true with your power points or slides. I hate it when someone simply starts reading off the entire slide for the whole presentation. If that's what I need, then I just needed you to put the slide up on the screen, walk away and play a recording then.
Stop relying on the perfect script or the perfect words, just be yourself and speak about the material and not just reading the material. You're the one in control of the content that was written. It was your words in the first place. Focus on the message you want to deliver and not the words that you used to deliver them.
In conclusion, these 5 principles have helped me be more engaging when I meet someone or when I need to deliver a presentation. Both of which is just a form of communication that we must master if we want to live in a world of people and not in solitude.
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