Why do so many people fear public speaking? And what are a couple of top techniques to feeling and looking more confident? (hint: one is a delivery/practice technique and one is a mind-set). Transcript below video (3:36)
Confidence. Have you ever wondered why so many people lack confidence when it comes to public speaking?
I think it boils down to mostly one thing: fear, the fear of being judged, the fear of messing up and wondering, “What are people going to think about me?”
Now, I know that fear. A few years ago I was in a speech competition. It was a short five to seven minute speech. I had it memorized word for word. I was delivering it flawlessly until I wasn’t. In the middle, I completely blanked out and I stared at the audience for what seemed like an eternity, like this. [Diane stops speaking and stares at audience]
That was only nine seconds [actually it was more like 7 seconds], but it felt like forever and it was definitely too long for a meaningful pause. The words came back to me. I finished my speech, and needless to say, I didn’t place in the top three. Maybe I was number four. I’ll never know. I lost that speech competition, but frankly I won. Whenever you have a failure, if you can learn from that failure, you win. You win the hard-earned lesson of life and what I won, what I learned, were two important things when it comes to public speaking. Number one, don’t memorize a speech word for word. When you try to memorize a speech word for word and then give it, it’s like you’ve created a neural pathway rut. You have one path you go down and then when a little stress comes in . . . different venue, different audience . . . you don’t have any alternate paths and that’s what can cause a blank out.
So I learned the importance of not memorizing, but internalizing my presentations and that’s something you’ll learn about today too. The other lesson, and probably the more important lesson, was that I was being selfish. I was worried about what the audience was going to think about me. I was wondering how they were going to judge me. Me, me, me. The focus was on me. What if, instead, I had focused on them, on the audience? What if I considered my message a gift, a gift that I was excited to unwrap and give to the audience instead of being worried about what they were going to think about me. Give your audience the gift of your presentation, a gift with great content wrapped in an engaging delivery. When you focus on giving a gift, you take the focus off of yourself and you automatically will show up with more confidence. Present your message, present the gift.
Do you want to be a confident speaker? Take my online course, No Fear Public Speaking.