Excellent Public Speaking Tips

Yesterday's post about my dream and absolute fear of public speaking brought a lot of support from my friends. I wanted to share a particularly helpful tip, sent by a good friend who learned how to get over her fear of public speaking. It's too good a tip to keep to myself!

"I wanted to tell you something that helped me get over my fear of public speaking. I had been quite scared, and now it doesn't phase me at all. The key for me was accepting that the audience was my priority. I was so scared that I was subconsciously making myself the priority. I learned a trick about introdicing a speaker which changed my whole view of speaking in front of a large crowd. A good introduction should answer the question "Why this speaker to this group on this subject at this time?" That is what the audience cares about, They don't care about the speaker's writing process or editing process or rehearsal process. They don't care about the speaker in that way. They only care about getting something, be it amusement, information, inspiration, from you. The worst public speakers assume we, the audience, care about the fact that they agonized for weeks about what to say. In truth, your best friends and maybe your mother care, but no one else does. A good speaker just presents the topic, and personal anecdotes should relate to the topic, not the banal: "when I sat down to think about what to write..."

If you have confidence in your message, you will automatically have confidence in your physical act of speaking, so concentrate on what you want to say, make sure you know it inside and out so you are not strictly reading, and do not focus on anything else."

This brilliant advice, to get over there with the audience and not focus on my performance, is a similar lesson to the one in my post about failing my coaching exam. It was my performance anxiety that ultimately had me perform poorly. Another friend told me that he was physically ill before his first public speaking engagement, until he realized that if he singled out individuals in the audience, he would be speaking to people, not the audience as impersonal and distant. It brought the audience closer to his comfort level, and he loosened up enough to joke around and be a good speaker.

Whatever you choose to do, the key is in making the connection to the audience, making them a priority and getting out of your own way.

What have you done to overcome your fear of public speaking?