Post: #1

Anybody got any serious(!) ways you can take the nervous edge / nervy voice / anxiety away from public speaking in a serious environment, ie - work / conferences etc please?

I take a beta blocker beforehand which helps with the shakes / stops the "fight or flight" but if I know I have to give a speech it gives me mental angst for ages before......any ways you guys cope?

Post: #2

I'm a teacher, so I do public speaking every day. I still get a bit nervous even after doing it for years. It never goes away, but being well prepared is the only defense against true embarrassment.

Just know your topic inside and out, know how you're going to condense it to hold interest, and know how to deal with questions that may arise that you don't know how to answer. Also, consciously make yourself speak slowly and authoritatively. You should be able to realize when you're speeding up too much and rambling awkwardly.

Post: #3

Try to rehearse your presentation before hand as much as possible. When you do the presentation it sticks in your mind better and the nervousness will decrease relative to the time you put into it. Other than that the only thing that will reduce the nerves is doing lots of public speaking.
According to one of my lecturers at my university, the US army wanted to simulate the effects of battle nerves on its soldiers and the only thing that increased the nerves to a similar extent was public speaking. Not sure if this is true but it shows that public speaking is one of the top things that make people very nervous.

Post: #4

I posted this in a reply over at RoK to the article "5 Principles To Improve Your Public Speaking"



I'd imagine many guys don't have the experience of speaking in front of an audience of 1000+ so I'll give my two cents when I have to do it.

Speak from your diaphragm. When giving a speech to a large number of people, you'll be using a microphone so you don't necessarily need to speak louder, but you'll need to speak deeper to catch and command attention. To practice this, stand up straight and speak as if you were gathering the words from deep in your stomach or chest.

Also, tell a very brief but funny anecdotal at the beginning. A large majority of the people at a large speaking engagement are bored and want time to pass as quickly as possible. As a result, they will latch onto and laugh at anything remotely humorous. Use this knowledge to your advantage.

If all else fails, take half a Xanax.

Post: #5

Toastmasters - Britain and Ireland - UK and Ireland ::

"Conquer your fear of public speaking - and enjoy the experience at a Toastmasters club."

Post: #6

Imagine all of them are in their underwear

Post: #7

@ Maledefined...if you can speak to 1000 people+ big respect to you, think I would die!

@ Sombro...thinking of giving toastmasters a bash...have you done it yourself? Anybody else tried it and can comment good, bad or indifferent please?

Post: #8

(03-18-2013 04:18 PM)sportbilly Wrote:  @ Maledefined...if you can speak to 1000 people+ big respect to you, think I would die!

I don't have much of a choice in the matter. It comes with the territory.

I almost lost my shit the first time around, but once you're up there you'll be fine.

If you know your audience, then look for a humorous anecdote to hook with in your everyday life. I already know when my next large speaking engagement will be, and I already know what my opening 30 second anecdote will be.

Post: #9

1000 people...seriously that is mad. I get scared shitless in front of 40 to 50 people......in fact less than that. I really struggle with the fight or flight syndrome...without a beta blocker I defo could not cope. Do you mind me asking what job you have.......?

Post: #10

(03-17-2013 04:29 PM)sportbilly Wrote:  Anybody got any serious(!) ways you can take the nervous edge / nervy voice / anxiety away from public speaking in a serious environment, ie - work / conferences etc please?

I take a beta blocker beforehand which helps with the shakes / stops the "fight or flight" but if I know I have to give a speech it gives me mental angst for ages before......any ways you guys cope?

Its fun man, used to hate them the best answer I can give you is right before presenting you do this.

"What would I be doing if some douche is going to get on stage and give a speech. I am going to get on my cell phone and text cute girls and try to set up dates"

What I'm trying to say is no one actually gives a crap about what you're saying up there.

Presentations are awesome there is ONLY upside.

1. Give a motivating + Cool + interesting presentation = you get swarmed with questions and praise
2. Give a shitty presentation = No one was paying attention anyway and they will ignore it. No impact.

Just practice as you see fit then when those lights go on and the presentation stand is there, repeat after me. "No one gives a shit about what you have to say" nerves die immediately.

Think about lecture halls, have done a few of those lately as well (not 1000 but about 300 people) most people are unhappy and dry/boring up there. Go up there and have fun with the content and you'll be fine. Informative + interesting + not giving a shit because you know everyone there is texting their fuck buddy or updating their facebook status.

Basically your fear of speaking is simply your irrational belief that people actually care about you

Post: #11

BE prepared and just blur them out.

I've performed in front of hundreds of people in my day and you just blur them out. For me being unprepared is my downfall, I've fucked myself over on that but even then I've always been able to keep my cool and recover simply because I don't internalise the environment around me. I simply just focus on what I have to do and how I have to do it.

Post: #12

(03-18-2013 09:59 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Basically your fear of speaking is simply your irrational belief that people actually care about you

Solid advice man. I struggle with this all the time. I have to constantly convince myself that no one even cares about what I am doing.

My better speeches have come when I was most prepared and kept the content humorous.

Post: #13

(03-18-2013 04:18 PM)sportbilly Wrote:  @ Sombro...thinking of giving toastmasters a bash...have you done it yourself? Anybody else tried it and can comment good, bad or indifferent please?

Some sales reps I work with would go once a month. Not so much to learn how to speak in front of crowds, but to hone one-on-one communication. They spoke positively of it. I think it's better at helping inner game than outer.

Post: #14

(03-18-2013 09:59 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Basically your fear of speaking is simply your irrational belief that people actually care about you

Ha

I love it!

So true!

If I had a fear of public speaking, which I don't, I would give at least one public speech a day, or more.

I used to have a fear of approaching girls, until I stated approaching like 5 a day.

Now that former fear is laughable.

Post: #15

@ Giovonny....I also agree with WestCoats comment, it is true. Problem for me is I don't get the opportunity to public speak that often...it is only work situations I get the fear....but only get 2/3 opportunities a year to do it........next time I am just going to run on stage get my johnson out and start looping my mule on stage!

Post: #16

Much progress can be made with this. At secondary school I nearly shat myself when I had to read from the Bible during morning assembly. People commented on how much I was shaking. Then after uni I had to present a scientific paper to an audience of engineers - still pretty scared. Then I took up amateur acting and that really helped because you can hide behind the character you're portraying. I had a go at stand-up too, and that was the scariest thing I've ever done. Now I know I would have no trouble at all addressing a large audience.

I came a long way, and you can too. Take it in easy stages and remember what WestCoast said.

Post: #17

(03-19-2013 03:37 PM)sportbilly Wrote:  Problem for me is I don't get the opportunity to public speak that often.

Create more opportunities. Join Toastmasters. Volunteer to give presentations. Give a sermon at your church. Give a talk to a class. Give a talk to support group. Give a talk at a senior center. Seek out and find/create oppurtinities to speak in public!

If you join Toastmasters you can give a speech everyday!!!

I am on college campuses everyday, I always see random people giving weird speeches in the quad.

If you want to fix your problem you will create opportunities to speak in public. That is the solution to your problem.

This man is one of my idols:

Post: #18

^^ I actually disagree with gio.

The best solution is to force yourself into presentations where you must perform.

In stock terms toast masters is like trading a fake PA.
In game terms it's like trying to day game a ugly bitch.

You need to tackle the real fucking deal. Take a class where if you fuck up you get a bad grade.

Now don't take that advice to the super extreme and ruin your gpa or whatever, but the truth is giving a presentation when you already don't care because there are no consequences is NOT the same as a presentation when there are consequences.

Toastmasters is like practice. A presentation where your credibility is on the line is the real deal.

My suggestion if you don't want to take a class? Take up karaoke singing dead sober. Your irrational belief is again that people really are judging you when they don't care

Post: #19

(03-19-2013 05:27 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  ^^ I actually disagree with gio.

The best solution is to force yourself into presentations where you must perform.

In stock terms toast masters is like trading a fake PA.
In game terms it's like trying to day game a ugly bitch.

You need to tackle the real fucking deal. Take a class where if you fuck up you get a bad grade.

Now don't take that advice to the super extreme and ruin your gpa or whatever, but the truth is giving a presentation when you already don't care because there are no consequences is NOT the same as a presentation when there are consequences.

Toastmasters is like practice. A presentation where your credibility is on the line is the real deal.

My suggestion if you don't want to take a class? Take up karaoke singing dead sober. Your irrational belief is again that people really are judging you when they don't care

Hahahaha!!!

You are right!

There was one problem with my suggestions..

NO PRESSURE!!!

My suggestions were too easy. If you fail, no one cares. They will just clap and support you and thank you for coming. That is too easy.

The OP needs to perform under pressure.

Pressure is what separates the good from the great. It just like in sports. Everyone is smooth in practice. Why? Because no one is watching...No pressure!

But, when the big lights come on and thousands of fans fill the arena and you see those ESPN cameras come on -- Thats when you know that your career is on the line -- Play well, and you become a star, play bad and your once in a lifetime opportunity could be over.

Practicing without pressure is a waste of time. You think you are making progress but its a false sense of progress. If you can't do it under intense pressure then you can not do it!

Westcoast,

If this guy went out day gaming with us for 3-4 hours and we guided him thru 10-12 approaches, how much better would his public speaking get???

I think it would get alot better.

The answer is not practice, the answer is high pressure practice!

Post: #20

(03-19-2013 05:27 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Take up karaoke singing dead sober. Your irrational belief is again that people really are judging you when in fact they don't care

Post: #21

I'll reiterate what others have said previously and encourage you to join Toastmasters.

I did two years in a TM club and it helped me tremendously. They have an easy-to-follow program designed for people with no prior skills. Each module teaches you something, from speech structure to body language to persuasion skills. Once you complete the basic training you can take up advanced topics such as giving a sales pitch or speaking on TV.

Much feared but highly useful are so-called "table topics" in which the leader asks a questions and you answer it in two minutes without any prior preparation. That's as close as it gets to surviving an unforeseen attack in the boardroom / meeting and prepares you to handle such situations with ease.

You are in a company of peers and are evaluated / give evaluations to one another. There's no teacher, only students. Some more advanced, others beginners.

Most importantly, TM clubs meet regularly and nothing beats regular practice.

I've seen people give a horrible first speech and becoming master speakers and entertainers in as little as six months. Anyone can do it.

There are some disadvantages to the TM program as well, such as being overly positive and encouraging to the point of making you think everyone you'll speak to will love you, which can bring disappointment later on. Like any school it's an artificial environment and you have to take it as such. Still, I haven't seen anything nearly as effective for developing solid speaking and public presentation skills.

Post: #22

(03-19-2013 05:27 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  The best solution is to force yourself into presentations where you must perform.

....

Toastmasters is like practice. A presentation where your credibility is on the line is the real deal.

The majority of my job is doing presentations, and I can vouch for this. TM is fun, but when you go it's beta-hour with a bunch of old people who have been doing speeches in a supportive environment. It's not the trenches.

That being said, if you are starting from scratch it's a good idea just until you get the basics, which in a few months already puts you ahead of 90% of people.

Get a job where you HAVE to do public speaking and you'll get a stupid amount of experience, not to mention great momentum. I do outreach, and in the past year and a half I've done about 500 presentations, totaling about 1200 hours.

After 2 hours of presentations you can bet you're in a talkative mood.

Like everyone has said so far, not giving a wet fuck about your audience is the most important thing. They aren't sitting in a huge group because they like the uncomfortable folding chairs. They are there to listen to shut the fuck up and listen to whatever you have to say.

You are the shit, they are not.

I started a second job about two months ago, and be leaving my current one doing outreach at the end of August. I then understood that this shit doesn't matter, and started just not caring a single iota what the audience thought of me, even more so than before. I'll ignore outbursts and stupid questions, I speak more dynamically, crack better jokes, the same shit that you should be doing in a chat with a girl.

I'm not saying don't prepare, you should prepare like your life depends on it.

But once your prep work is done and it's time to actually do the speech, the best frame of mind you can have is: fuck it.

Post: #23

Dropping a data sheet on public speaking.

Post: #24

Done.

Post: #25

I've given quite a few public speeches, and recently was asked to give a series of lectures in the energy field to a group of 50 - 100 people.

One thing that can give your speech some extra 'kick' is to use props which invite audience participation.

For example, in a speech about new solar energy technology, have on-hand some examples of PV panels, inverters, etc. In a speech about natural gas, have a few 1" models of valves, regulators, etc. Make sure people can see them, and tell them that you'll pass them out at the end of the speech 'if they're a good audience'.

That's key - you don't want to pass them around at the beginning of the speech or you'll lose their attention. Make it something they're looking forward to and they'll stay tuned in to your speech.

Of course this needs to be relevant to the speech topic. I don't know what kind of props you can use for a speech on finance, for instance. It also needs to be attuned to the size of the audience - with a crowd of 1000 you can't really rely on props.

Everybody nowadays uses Powerpoint, and it can be the best way to lose an audience's interest. But you can liven this up by leaving some information out of a slide, and asking the audience to fill in the blanks. Then you animate the slide to fill in the missing information as the audience gives answers. For example, a slide with a pie chart of sales penetration by continent. Show the chart, with the sales percentages, but don't fill in the continents - ask the audience to provide the answers.

This reduces the pressure on you by ensuring the audience's active participation.

Use physical props and audience participation to set your speech apart. When I did this, many people came up to me at the end of the lectures and said that mine was the only one they enjoyed, because they got to 'participate' by actually seeing and handling the subject.