This is Part 3 of a 3-part video series on how to conquer your fear of public speaking.
- Part 1 – Top 10 Fears of Public Speaking
- Part 2 – Face Your Fear of Public Speaking
- Part 3 – [You Are Here] Make Public Speaking as Easy as Brushing Your Teeth
It was the year 2012.
I had just finished a keynote speech about public speaking, and a dozen people came up towards me after the speech and stood in line waiting to talk to me.
One of them actually waited until the very end of the line so that he could talk to me privately about his fear of public speaking.
He came up to me and started telling me how much he learned in the presentation and how grateful he was for all the techniques.
Then he said something to me that inspired this entire blog series you are reading and watching right now.
He said, “While all that stuff is great that you taught today, no other advice you give me will matter until I can overcome my fear. Once it sets in, I can’t think about anything else.”
His didn’ t have the typical nervous fear either.
He was terrified of public speaking.
I asked him to describe that fear, and he said, “When I stand up in front of my audience, no matter how big or how small, I can’t speak and I forgot everything I was going to say. I can’t breathe. I can’t talk in a clear or normal voice. I can’t stop shaking. I can’t hide the excessive sweating. I can’t hide the color of my face, and I don’t appear confident.”
After hearing this, I looked him in the eyes, after everyone had left the room, and I said, “Nobody is born an amazing public speaker. That trait is learned, and there is a specific recipe you can use to do it. I can teach it to you if you want.”
He looked at me and said, “Yes, absolutely.”
Over the course of the next month, he worked through everything we talk about in our Calm program: How to Conquer Your Fear of Public Speaking.
One month later, he delivered his next big presentation, and he got rave reviews.
He was so thankful that he wrote me a letter.
I want to share with you this letter so that you can see how he was able to overcome his fear of public speaking as a result of the recipes in this book.
This letter is real.
The process we went through is the same process you will go through.
He gave me permission to share this with you because of how profoundly it affected his life and how much he believes in sharing it with others.
It’s one thing to face your fears.
It’s another to be a fearless public speaker with a recipe for presentation success.
That’s what you’re learning in this program.
To better understand this, let’s take a look at another task we all do in our lives – brushing our teeth.
Do you have any negative beliefs about brushing your teeth?
When you wake up and get out of bed in the morning, what goes through your mind when it’s time to brush your teeth?
Do you spend up to four hours a day anxiously worrying about brushing your teeth?
Last time I checked, toothpaste didn’t taste very good.
Yet, many people actually enjoy brushing their teeth.
Why?
Would you eat toothpaste by itself?
Would you put it on a cracker and eat it?
No. It’s terrible!
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Then why do you put that bad tasting toothpaste on your toothbrush every morning and brush your teeth?
The answer for most adults is that they know what it feels like when they’re done.
As a competent adult, you don’t even think about brushing your teeth anymore. It’s like second nature to just brush your teeth.
Think of public speaking like brushing your teeth in the morning.
When you stand up on that stage, it should be the same process.
What is this process?
First, you need a good strategy on how to prepare your presentation.
Most speakers procrastinate until they’re on fire.
Second, you need your own opening language.
Most speakers have only scratched the surface on this, and even gotten closer, but haven’t gotten there yet.
Third, you need a good environment for practicing.
Again, most speakers have only scratched the surface.
There aren’t many speakers who have all three of those skills and still have negative speaking beliefs.
That’s because profitable speaking beliefs are a prerequisite to all of these skills.
Without the profitable speaking beliefs we learned in session one of this program, these skills can’t be harnessed and mastered as well.
Establishing profitable speaking beliefs and creating a fail-safe presentation can pay hefty retention dividends.
Imagine the following scenarios:
- You can speak and remember everything you want to say.
- You can breathe when you speak in front of people.
- You can talk in a clear and normal voice.
- You can handle any shaking or nerves that come your way.
- You can hide your excessive sweating.
- You overcome and even eliminate your face from turning colors.
- You appear confident.
- Your audience is happy and entertained.
Establishing profitable speaking beliefs and creating a fail-safe presentation will clear the roadblocks for you to be open to even learning about presentation delivery and confidence.
It’s like brushing your teeth.
If you’re teaching a child that does not want to brush their teeth, you could spend three hours with that child learning how to brush their teeth that day.
If the child says, “I don’t like the taste of toothpaste”, or he says, “I think this toothpaste is actually going to rot my teeth”, then no matter what strategy we give that child on how to brush his teeth, he won’t be as open to it.
Each of us has beliefs in our minds when we speak in front of people.
How you prepare and practice will affect how you establish those beliefs.
A fail-safe preparation and practice regime can lead to more speaking success as opposed to taking away from success.
Let’s start by identifying some of the common times when presenters get nervous.
In all my years of presenting and observing others do the same, I’ve discovered there are ten main moments that commonly cause the nerves.
Do me a favor.
As you read through each of these, write whether you get nervous during that time.
If so, write down what it looks like or feels like for you.
- Discovering you have to do a presentation
- Thinking and procrastinating about the presentation
- Writing the presentation
- Practicing the presentation
- Rewriting and practicing the presentation
- The day of the presentation
- The hour of the presentation
- 5 minutes before the presentation
- When you first go up onstage and you start speaking
- When it doesn’t go very well
Now, use this list below to think back to the top ten fears of public speaking…
Chances are, one of these times below caused one of the above 10 fears for you.
In fact, I’ll bet you’ve had your fears pop up at most if not all of those times.
- Discovering you have to do a presentation
- Thinking and procrastinating about the presentation
- Writing the presentation
- Practicing the presentation
- Rewriting and practicing the presentation
- The day of the presentation
- The hour of the presentation
- 5 minutes before the presentation
- When you first go up onstage and you start speaking
- When it doesn’t go very well
Once you know how to handle each and every one of these situations, you can conquer your fear.
And, that’s what our Calm program was created for…
…to show you how to face those fears while you create, practice and deliver a fail-safe, no-fear, no-nerves, confident presentation.
Before I go, I want you to remember one thing…
It’s not whether you’re nervous, it’s whether you show it.
It’s not whether you have fear, it’s whether you show it.
It’s not whether you’re confident, it’s whether you show it.
Knowing this changes EVERYTHING.
