Tips For Tuesday,
March 23, 2010 – more tools for overcoming fear of public speaking
Here are three more tools you can use to overcome your fears. They have worked for me in the past and work for others who do this for a living.
13. Identify with your audience – This really does work. It takes a little effort, but it has benefits. Think about the things you have in common with those you are getting ready to speak to. Are you all students? Is your topic something everyone cares deeply about? Do you all have red hair? Most carrying a Starbucks cup? Find something. And then reach out to that something and make a connection.
Then I learned that she really meant it as a way to connect. Her to me and me to her. She used our brief conversation in the body of her talk, and I am certain she used the bits she got from others in the talk too. That was her way of connecting to me, identifying with me. And of course, making me identify with her.
14. Limit your topic – One of the biggest mistakes I see in speaking classes and in talks in general is where the speaker tries to cram as much information as possible into his or her allotted time. Don’t do that!
More is not better when it comes to giving a talk. As a general rule, this guide works best - focus on the two or three points that are most important, illustrate those points with a story or interesting facts or data, and share that with your audience. Think of a Tony Robbins presentation. (I have a couple to share with you if you don’t have a reference for that.) Then think of the last speaker you listened to who droned on and on about something he wasn’t fired up about. Which is more appealing? Which will have a more lasting impact?
Think about trying to cover less. Your audience will appreciate it.
15. Be enthusiastic - Seriously, if you aren’t fired up about what you are going to talk about, how can you expect your audience to be? Pick a topic you care about. Put your heart into the words. Practice the delivery. Do jumping jacks or something before you get up to talk to get your blood going. And enthusiastically deliver! One of the easiest ways to get over the fear, is to focus your energy on being enthusiastic. Your brain can't do both fear and enthusiasm. At least I don't think it can.
Tips For Tuesday - 3 More On Overcoming Fear Of Public Speaking
Here are 3 more tools I have used to overcome my own fear of public speaking. I find these among the easiest for students to focus on. Please let me know if these are in your toolkit or if you have other tools you use.
10. Be Yourself
Don't try to be Tony Robbins, or Barack Obama, or Joel Osteen, or Oprah Winfrey. Be yourself. The audience is not expecting to hear Robbins or Obama or anyone else. They are there to hear you. Let them.
This goes along with the tip that you should realize the audience really wants you to do well. They are there listening to you. Give them your best. And be authentic.
The biggest danger of trying to sound like someone else is that it comes across as false and inauthentic. Maybe Tina Fey can do it. But you can't. Or you shouldn't try in your efforts to find your voice. After you get good at speaking, maybe there will be a time or a place for being someone else. But a sure way to fall flat is to try to mimic Tony Robbins on the stage. Robbins and the others are great at what they do for a reason - they do it a lot.
Even a nervous, halting, authentic you is better than imitation.
11. We are not looking for perfect.
Again, along the lines of the audience wanting you to do well, know that the audience is not expecting you to be perfect. They are expecting you to be human. And humans make mistakes. Humans mis-speak. Humans say "nuculear." Humans get nervous. It's ok. Only in the crazy hyper-critical world of politics is there a price for being human. When you are speaking in public, be human. And don't fret over making a mistake. Or two.
12. Do not apologize.
Tiger Woods can apologize. Politicians who err can apologize. You, a novice speaker making a presentation, should not include an apology as part of your speech.
I see this over and over again with students. They start or end speeches with an apology. Why? As filler. As a nervous twitch. To seek absolution for their anticipated flaws.
Don't do it. First, it is wholly unnecessary. No one cares about the flaws, if any. Probably like I said earlier, we didn't even notice. Second, it takes away from your presentation. Makes us think something might have been wrong that we missed. Don't give the audience a reason to doubt the greatness of your speech. Just be great. Or human. And don't say you are sorry for it.
Are you ready for some March Madness? No? OK, well how about a full day workshop on overcoming your fear of public speaking and gaining some comfort talking in front of a group?
I am very excited to announce today that our first two workshops of 2010 are going to be held on March 20 in the loop downtown Chicago and on March 27 in Skokie. More details of the venues will follow shortly. I am also going to post a video to introduce the workshops.
Space is going to be limited for these two events - 25 to 30 in the loop, 45 to 50 in Skokie. You can sign up by going to the PayPal form at the following page. Seminars and Workshops Make sure you send a confirmation email to msw@mackenziewelsh.com after signing up so I can reserve your spot.
The workshops will be from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. We will spend a part of the day learning tools and tips to get you out there on the stage talking with confidence. We will spend the better part of the day talking out loud. Everyone. And unless you sleep through the sessions, you will feel the difference. The workshops have one goal in mind - to help you gain the skills you need to start speaking in public with confidence.
A word of caution - this seminar is not going to train you to be an actor or an orator. If you already feel comfortable speaking in front of groups, this might not be for you. This seminar is also not going to be getting you speaking gigs. That is not what I do. You are going to have to get your own speaking gigs.
But the day-long events will be fun, and I guarantee that you will benefit from attending.
More info will come soon.
3 Tips For Tuesday - On Overcoming Fear Of Public Speaking
Here is the third installment of Tips For Tuesday, with three more
tips from my Overcoming Fear Of Public Speaking presentation. I look forward to hearing from you about
your experience with these, or about some of the techniques you use.
7. See friends and family in the audience. This tip kind of depends on who you
choose to see. Some families, and
sometimes friends, aren’t the supportive, non-judgmental crowd you want to
speak in front of. Think of those
in your life who are supportive of you, who don’t judge you. Imagine they are out there in the
audience. See them. And direct your opening statements to
them. Once you get rolling, you
won’t need them out there anymore.
It’s all about momentum.
8. Do not memorize your talk.
Really and truly, this is about the worst strategy to take if you want
to overcome any fear you have about speaking in public. Almost no good can come of this approach.
First, memorizing your talk puts you in the position of needing to
recall it all on the spot. The
added pressure this will place on you will outweigh any imagined benefit. What if you forget something? What if you lose your place? Unless you are performing in a play or
reciting poetry like Saul Williams, you don’t need to and should not memorize
every word. I promise you that it
won’t help.
Second, reciting a speech from memory almost always leads to a
dry, rote, uninteresting presentation.
Your brain will be so focused on the words you memorized, and perhaps a
memorized intonation here and there, that the overall recitation will be
wooden. It will sound like you
memorized it. And that won’t be
good.
Instead, try to memorize your cues for scanning the audience, or
your cues for using your visual aids, or your cues for taking a drink of water
or catching your breath. Or better
yet, put the energy you would have spent on memorizing towards
practicing your presentation, preparing your notes, or working on your visual
aids.
9. Do not think negative thoughts. You are in control of the thoughts in your head. Block negative thoughts from your mind
before getting ready to speak.
Focus as much as possible on positive thoughts, thoughts of a successful
speech, thoughts of connecting with the audience, and thoughts of
confidence. I am big believer in
the power of positive thinking. It
really works. If you need to, find
a resource of positive images.
Negative thoughts are contagious and dangerous. Avoid them. Do not let them play a role in your public speaking
preparation.
Tips For Tuesday
Here are three more tips that I have relied on to overcome my
fears of speaking in public.
Please let me know if you use any of these in your own speaking experience.
4. You are not alone in your fear of speaking in public. This is a difficult concept to keep in your head as you are preparing to speak to a crowd. But it is true. Most of the people in your audience have been afraid of getting up in front of a crowd. Many probably still have that fear. You are not alone, and that should give you some measure of comfort. You share that with your audience. So maybe you can use it as a way to connect, even just silently. Know it. And take comfort from it.
5. Most people want you to succeed. This is related to number 4. Most of the audience wants you to succeed. They are not sitting there watching for mistakes, hoping for a stumble. This isn’t a NASCAR race – we aren’t waiting for the big crash.
Most of us have endured long, boring and passionless speeches. We don’t want that. We want you to knock yours out of the park. Be interesting. Be fun. We are rooting for you. In our common interest in listening to a good presentation, you should take some comfort. Not only are you not alone in your fears, your audience is predisposed to be on your side. Take advantage of that. Give them something they will remember.
6. Act Confident.
I know this may be easier said than
done. But it really works. This goes along with number 3 from last
week – Your audience really cannot see how nervous you are. Acting confident makes you look
confident. But it also gets you
past the initial stage fright.
You are out there, having acted confident, standing tall at the podium
launching into your speech.
The
act gets you momentum.
Really. It does. And once you get going, you can relax
into your topic. It’s like getting
a rolling start on a bike – with momentum it is easier to find your balance,
and then you are riding. Use that
to get going. And then it’s easy.
How about you? Do you use these? What are some of the tools you use?
Where do you turn for pointers when you have a talk to give? I am not speaking now to those who give talks for a living. I am speaking to those of you who talk in front of others rarely, infrequently enough that you forgot what worked last time you had to do it.
My intention with this blog is to be one of your resources. You can find a wealth of great examples of confident and articulate speeches and presentations in the TED Talks category in the left sidebar. Each of the videos profiled there, or found at the TED site, are excellent tools to watch and learn from. Learn from the conversational style and the confidence you see there.
Today, I begin a series called "Tips For Tuesday." Some of these posts will be by video. Some will be lists. I invite you to add your own tips in the comments below, or tell me what worked for you and what did not.
3 Tips For Tuesday - On Overcoming Fear Of Public Speaking
1. Control your state. You are in charge of your own state of mind. Control it. I know, easy to say. But really, you are the only one in there, in your head. If you are not, you have a different set of issues that I cannot address here.
There are a number of ways to control your state. The ones that work best for me are: deep breathing, meditation, doing deep knee bends or taking a good focused walk. Slow down your heart rate. Slow down your breathing. And move your body. As Tony Robbins says, motion controls emotion. If you want high energy in your pitch, do jumping jacks right before you talk. Smile big to yourself. Bounce around. If you want calm, breath slowly and deeply.
When you take charge of your state of mind in advance of presenting, you gain confidence and project the energy you intended.
2. Visualize success. Seriously. Visualize the crowd ten minutes or thirty minutes later smiling, clapping, responding positively to what you are getting ready to say. See yourself giving an articulate well reasoned presentation. Hear yourself speaking out with confidence. And then go do it.
3. Know this - your audience cannot see how nervous you are in most cases. And they probably aren't even looking for that. This was one of the most difficult things for me to get. I always thought of myself as a nervous wreck, sweating, turning red, mumbling through a parched mouth. Some of the time I probably was all of that. Especially in front of my first few juries when I was a trial lawyer. How could they not see?
They can't see it because we tend to exaggerate. We think we are showing the world our fear. We think the audience can see it, and that they are focusing on it. They aren't. Really. And most of the time, you don't really appear nervous. And moreover, a lot of your audience shares your fears - which means they have a few things on their minds other than looking for your weaknesses. Like being thankful they aren't up in front of the crowd speaking.
What do you think? Have you tried these tools before?
A friend told me yesterday that she was getting ready to make a series of presentations for work and turned to several of the TED videos I have posted on this site for a refresher. Perfect. That is the perfect use for this material.
Everyone can learn a lot, so much that it is difficult to measure, from watching any one of the people who are the stars of public presentations. Each presenter featured on this site offers something different. An expertise outside of our own. Or supplementary to our own. All offer fascinating material or information.
But it is the presentation itself that I want you to learn from. How do they do it? Why that outfit? Why those words, those slides, that movement across the stage? What makes a Tony Robbins talk so big? (Why we do what we do) Why is Elizabeth Gilbert (Creative Genius) so compelling? Why do we like David Pogue (David Pogue On Cool Tools) or Seth Godin? What is the best way to use notes or slides in your talk - see TED Talks - Taryn Simon ?
You can become a better speaker by watching and thinking about the techniques of those who do it well. Find sources and study them.
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