10 Tips to Overcome Nerves Before Public Speaking

Public Speaking.

Did you just feel a little queasy even reading those two words above? If so, you are not alone. According to this online study, 75% of people feel some level of fear about public speaking.  Let’s say you are asked to give a toast, tell a part of your story, lead a meeting, give a presentation, or do some other form of public speaking: here are ten tips that can help you overcome your nerves.

1. Decide ahead of time you are going to be you. 

   There is nothing that works up the nerves more than believing you have to be amazing in whatever public speaking event you are participating in. Instead, focus on accomplishing the end goal behind why you are engaging in your public speaking event. What is the goal of the toast you are giving? The story you are telling? The PowerPoint deck you are presenting? Just focus on that.

2. Relive a time when you were confident, really enjoying yourself and/or cracking up, especially if it was while you were speaking in public.  

   Let’s take the cracking up one. Stop right now and describe a time when you were really cracking up. I mean laughing hysterically. Really get into the details. Look what just happened.  You started cracking up. Emotional recall is a tool you can use to bring emotions from the past into the present.  You can do the same with confidence, relaxation, or enjoyment. Just give enough details for your body to start producing the emotion in the present. 

3. Using confident body language helps bring up confidence.

   Assuming a confident posture (like the Superwoman pose) leverages your physical body to trick your mind into feeling more confident. This resource explains this point well particularly well.

4. If you have the option to arrange the chairs in a circle, try to do that!

   Sometimes someone feels a lack of confidence just because they are standing in front of everyone. If you have to be standing in front of everyone, then try to get to the room early and practice standing in front of where everyone will be. If you have the option to rearrange chairs, arrange them so that everyone is in a circle and you are sitting in the circle with them. Use the real estate of your environment to your advantage.

5. Remember to breathe.

   Sometimes when we are feeling anxious we don’t breathe well. So if there is a lull or if you’ve just asked the audience a question, take that time to breathe in a little more deeply. It makes a difference.

6. Hold eye contact with the safest people in the room. 

   Usually there are people in an audience who seem more engaged than others and are giving you more positive body language. Focus more on them. They will help you get through the talk.

7. Worry less if people are yawning or seem distracted.

   By contrast, don’t focus on people who are yawning or seem distracted. You may not be failing at all. Sometimes by the end of a four-hour training it is just natural for people to be yawning, especially if they’ve been getting a lot of information to digest. Yawning is natural. The same applies with those looking on their phones or who seem distracted in some other way. It may not have as much to do with you as with the fact that they need a mental break, or that something urgent is going on that requires their response. We do anonymous feedback surveys after each training. When I see people yawning or showing distraction in some other way, I expect to receive lower scores on the feedback survey, but that has yet to be the case.

8. Follow your method of rehearsing.

   Some people need to go through what they are going to say over and over again until it is natural. Some people just need to do it a couple of times, knowing they will improvise some. Still others barely create an outline (usually in their heads) and when called on, they still do a great job!

   There is not one right way to rehearse. If you are in the first two examples, rehearse until you are comfortable by yourself (with a mirror or film yourself) and with others. For those in the third category, man I envy you!

9. Watch clips of tips for public speaking and apply the ones that fit you and your personality type.

   This resource is full of great tips and tricks to improve your public speaking. Use the ones that best fit you for the present occasion.

10. Increase the energy level of the room by telling a story.

    Sometimes if I sense that I am wearing people down with heavy content, I share a quick 30-second story to amplify one of the points. It can bring a breath of fresh air to the room.  

11. Controversial bonus tip: announce to the group that you fear speaking in public.

    Sometimes just being real about what you feel helps you to get through your nerves. If you decide to share that one, pay attention to who in the audience connects with you and subtly encourages you. After all, 75% of the room probably has some form of fear about public speaking as well!

While I’ve included 10 tips to help you succeed in your next public speaking engagement, there are many more you can utilize! Click here for a more extensive list of tips.

Chew On This:

• Which of the tips above would be the most helpful to you?

• Which of these tips will you try next time you are called to present publicly?

The One Skill That Expedites Trust and Relationship Building

Do you want to build trust with your team, stakeholders, or even those you know outside of work? One way to build connections is to learn how to tell your story and encourage others to share their stories with you.  

Think of a time when you heard someone tell their story in an interesting and compelling way. What did you personally feel afterward? How did you feel about the storyteller afterward? Where was your trust level before they shared their story? How about afterwards?

Most of us are captivated by a good storyteller. Even made-up stories can keep us on edge. Storytelling can be especially effective and fruitful in the business world, when team members learn how to share their personal real-life stories with one another.

In a workshop format, clients are given a simple format to write out their story. Then they share their story and receive encouraging feedback from the team on what they heard. When teams hear they are going to spend four hours in a workshop doing this, they tend to panic. They fear being vulnerable, and they wonder if they will be embarrassed or even rejected. They fear they won’t do it right or that somehow it will backfire on them.  

In individual coaching sessions we often hear objections like, “I don’t have time for that,” or “My team would never get why I am doing that. It would just be weird,” or “If I do this wrong, how do I know it won’t be used against me?” Actually, what we’ve found is that when the storyteller is properly prepared and shares the story in an authentic and vulnerable way, the team feels connected to the storyteller and typically wants to know more. The insights the team gains often helps them “get” who the storyteller is and why they may behave in the ways they do.  

More importantly, the biggest gain we’ve found is that trust levels on the team go up dramatically as they hear one another’s stories.  

We’ve seen long standing conflicts be resolved. We’ve seen communication improve. We’ve seen teams achieve higher levels of performance. We’ve seen leaders obtain far greater buy-in from their teams. We’ve seen direct reports express that their leader knows how to coach them better and helps them achieve excellence in what they do.

Sometimes you don’t have time to share your entire story with your team. In those instances, focus on a key event that really shaped your life. Answering the following questions can be a beginning:

1. Who is my audience?

   How would you describe the audience you are going to share your story with? Is it an individual? A member of your team? A stakeholder in the organization? A prospect you are wanting a partnership with?

   Be clear on who they are, what they value, and what would be most helpful for them in the context in which you are engaging them. This is all part of defining who your audience is.

2. What is the one event that has most shaped who you are, as far as benefiting your audience is concerned? What trait or characteristic will they observe that helps them to understand you and work even better with you?

   In other words, is your audience someone who reports to you? For good or bad, what one thing will they notice which, if they understood how it came to be, would help them work with you more successfully?

   For example, one of the biggest things my team has noticed about me is that I give them a lot of space to do their job, and I trust them to do it well.  Frequently I keep an open door so they may ask for help. I wasn’t always that way, but the story of how I came to change helped them to know me much better. And my open door reassured them that if it feels like I am too hands-off, they are welcome to approach me so I can get in the trenches with them on whatever their current task is.

3. What are the key details of that event?

   It is here that you want to bullet-point the key details of that event or story from beginning to end. What did you feel as you went through those key details?

   It is very important that you do not just state the facts but that you also share what you felt about them. This helps your audience connect to you and to see the events as you saw them rather than with their own biases.

   You don’t have to overdo this. Keep it simple, like “When XYZ happened, I felt ABC,” or “I felt overwhelmed by X,” or “I laughed hysterically when...”

4. How do I figure out the right level of transparency for this audience?

   I typically encourage clients to favor vulnerability and authenticity over transparency. Vulnerability is about taking a risk. The Oxford dictionary defines vulnerability as “the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.”  Authenticity is about being genuine. No posturing for the audience. No deceit or embellishing the story to try to make it more appealing. Transparency, in this case, is about the facts.

   Certain facts about our lives we may not care if others know. Other facts only some know. Still others a few trustworthy people know. And there may be a couple of facts that no one or only one person knows. You want to choose the level of transparency that fits your audience. 

   With a team that I am coaching or training, I might share a story that is only one or two steps deeper than the surface. As we get to know each other more, and only if it benefits them, I will go progressively deeper. With my own team, I might start at the same level as I do with a team I am coaching, but go at a much quicker pace in order to share deeper stories or events that will help them to know me better. This helps us to work successfully together, to cover each others’ blind spots, and work as a high performing team.

5. What would help me to be vulnerable as I share?

   What helps me to be vulnerable is to remember times when others risked being vulnerable in a boardroom or workshop. Inevitably, when someone became appropriately vulnerable, the whole room would relax and smile and realize it was OK to be human at work. The more I think about those occasions, the better it goes for me in present circumstances.

   If you can’t think of a time when you saw appropriate vulnerability, watch any of Brené Brown’s video clips. She does a great job of educating her audience and demonstrating vulnerability while doing so.

6. How do I share the most important part(s) of the story in a  way that helps listeners be in the “room” where that part of the story took place?

   You want to paint the scene for that part of the story. Give enough details for the listeners to sense that they are in the “room” with you. Describe the space you were in, give a play-by-play of what was happening. Describe what you felt in more detail. Use your tone of voice in a way that shows the emotion or energy you were feeling.

7. What would help me to remain authentic throughout the story?

   You can even describe what it was like to read a boring book in such a way that those listening will be captivated. Just share the facts and what you genuinely felt about the facts. Don’t embellish. Just be you.

   What also helps to foster a high degree of authenticity is to remember that you are enough. The very fact that you are human gives you a tremendous amount of dignity and makes you worth listening to.

   Something else that helps me is to sense when my walls are going up and to assess why. If they are going up because I fear someone else’s reaction and is not based on evidence I have as I am telling them the story, then I take the risk of bringing the walls back down and continue to share authentically.

   Finally, it helps me to remember that I can be authentic and vulnerable without having to share the facts of my deepest, darkest secrets. Think of moments when you witnessed someone being authentic and vulnerable.  No doubt on some of those occasions the person talking was not sharing the facts of their deepest darkest secrets, but was sharing their experience or about how they felt in a vulnerable and authentic way. It’s vulnerability and authenticity that make someone a great storyteller, and vulnerability and authenticity foster significant trust better than letting listeners into your secrets.

Storytelling is a skill that gets better with practice. Typically, when you are vulnerable and authentic, you draw hearts into you. Trust builds. People can relate to you. Master this art and watch engagement on your team soar. Watch them exceed their team goals, and watch how people will just like you more.

Chew On This:

• What one event has most impacted who you are today?

** This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is represented.

Five Small Steps to Get Your Passion Back

Life has become a matter of existing.  It has become a matter of fulfilling obligations.  Joy is fleeting.  Passion is waning.

Here are 5 small steps to get your passion back:

• Start a Gratitude Chronicle

One of the reasons why our drive diminishes is that we are so focused on the bad that we don’t take the time to see all the good that is happening around us.  We need a tool to remind ourselves to be grateful.

On a Google Doc or some other web-based word processing document, take a little bit of time every day to describe, in detail, one time when you were really grateful for something.  Perhaps you were incredibly grateful when a dark time ended, when you received a gift that really hit home, or when a deal landed “from out of nowhere."  Whatever the reason, write one story every day of a time when you felt grateful.

In order for this to work, you need to describe not only the facts of the story, but what you felt about those facts.

When you run out of stories, just start making lists of what you are grateful for.  Don’t take anything for granted (i.e. Did you sleep on a bed? Have you eaten?  Do you have decent clothes?). As you remember that you are not entitled to any of the things you have been given, your heart will start to melt.

Now, whenever you are starting to go negative, turn to your smartphone, bring up the document, and read some of the accounts of times when you were grateful.  Afterwards, take the occasion to add to your list the things you can be grateful for at that moment.

• Simplify the business

Many business leaders have spent so much time putting out fires that they have “forgotten” why they got in the business in the first place.

What was your vision for your role when you first started?  Has your vision evolved?  Take small steps towards nailing your vision and you will see drive come back.

After nailing the vision, look at how you spent your time over the last week or two.  How much of that time was spent on the core part of that vision?

Have you been trading what is essential for what is urgent, but not essential?

It is time to get back to basics.  If you knew there would be no negative consequences to your spending the vast majority of time doing what you do best to drive the greatest results, how would you spend that time?

Now develop a transition plan to get there.  You will need to delegate, delete, diminish or delay certain tasks.  Get on it as fast as possible.

Know that something is going to have to drop.  Don’t let it be what is essential in favor of what is urgent.  Choosing the urgent is probably what zaps your energy the most.

Proceed with the transition in small steps.  See if you can free up just five minutes from the urgent to give back to the essential.  Once you start, it will be addicting.  You will become proactive, and most of your day will be spent building the business instead of putting out fires.

• Really connect to others.

Here is a novel concept....  When was the last time you really connected at a heart level to someone else?  That is, you just let yourself be, and they let themselves be--no marketing.... no positioning.... no façades.... no hiding....  You just let yourself be.

For most of us, we have given up on having those types of relationships.  We are too busy.  We have too much anxiety.  We are scared of being judged.

If you are married, I bet deep down, your spouse longs for this with you.

If you are not married, who can you go deep with?

Once again, start small.  Don’t verbally vomit everything that you’ve been hiding.  Start with being real for a little bit with someone you want to get closer to.  See how they respond.  Once you get going you will find it refreshing.

• Make time for once-loved hobbies.

What did you used to love to do that you have not done in awhile?  For me, it is tennis.  I used to play all weekend in my teens and 20’s.

What is a small step you can take to get that back in your life?  I have not touched a racquet in 10 years.  I can start by spending 5-10 mins per week hitting against a wall and building on that until I get my game back.  What’s your version?

Taking small steps is the key to getting your drive back.  Just five minutes will generate momentum to help you come back to life.

Chew On This:

• Which of the five steps will you start with today?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.