If you suffer from a fear of public speaking, you are not alone.
Even some of the most seasoned TEDx speakers come into the program with a lot of fear and anxiety, but myself and our team helps them through it.
This guide will give you my Top Tips for Overcoming Public Speaking Fear, which comes after interviewing 150+ TEDx speakers.
Many studies indicate that “people fear public speaking more than death”, which mostly seems insane, but is true.
In order to understand why people are so afraid of speaking in public, you must take an evolutionary perspective. This fear is about survival and is completely normal.
1. Chill, You Will Not Die
Humans have evolved to be social creatures. It’s why we become lonely without others, have lifelong companions, and are generally social animals.
Historically speaking it was essential to our survival that we belong to groups. Tribes were stronger together and could better protect themselves from animals, other tribes, and providing food and shelter for each other.
Anything that may lead to a possible separation from the group, or a drop in status in the eyes of the group, can lead to massive anxiety for that person. Ostracism would clearly result in not only social death of a person, but actual death as well when separated from the protection of the tribe.
So the first tip is to understand this, and breathe a sigh of relief. As today, no speech will result in your personal demise. In fact, if you continue reading public speaking content like this, you are well on your way to crushing keynote’s at conferences.
2. Record Yourself
The next thing people have to do is iterate a lot – you have to practice.
But don’t just practice to practice. You have to do it in the right way.
Practice while recording yourself on video with your smartphone. Watch the latest video of yourself whenever you can. This method helps in so many ways.
You get feedback on your body language. How you move your arms and what you are doing with your feet. If you are rocking too much or pacing too much. You should be moving intentionally, at the right moments during your talk, rather than during all the moments in your talk.
Watching video of yourself will also give you feedback on all the weak spots in your rehearsals. Are you saying “um”? Are you pausing properly? How’s your pitch? As you listen along, can you understand the content of your talk, or are you missing elements? How does everything flow?
You can also send the video to anyone helping you with your talk and get feedback remotely.
3. Comfortable Content = Confidence
During my sophomore year a the University of Delaware, I took a public speaking course called Oral Communication. It was taught by a graduate student over winter session, with smaller intimate classes, in a building I had never been in before, away from the engineering campus. The class was mostly filled with, from what I can remember, female students I wanted to impress.
We had to do three presentations during the course of these topics:
- Someone we admire.
- How something works.
- And I can’t remember the other.
I did an okay job on the admiration talk, thanks to Pop Pop Boyd who received a Purple Heart after surviving the Korean War.
As we moved into the second talk, I decided to give a presentation on intercontinental ballistic missiles. It sounds so ridiculous to say out loud, but it’s true. I did a 10 minute presentation on the most nerdy topic you can possibly imagine.
At the time, I truly believe this was a good idea.
And I barely practiced. I stayed up late over that winter session evening and played computer games. Got up, went to the class at 10:30 AM, and presented close to the end of the class period.
I can’t remember everything about the presentation, because i guess I blacked out. But I was not prepared. I remember being so nervous in front of all those girls, and my knees were actually buckling. I had never experienced that before and only read about it online in other people’s public speaking horror stories.
And then it happened to me.
So don’t be me. Don’t choose some insane or flashy or topic that you are not absolutely comfortable with.
This goes for speakers who are just getting started and speakers who are now crushing conference stages as we speak. Sometimes prominent speakers experiment with content that is too new and too detached from their experiences, and they bomb.
Choose something you know so deeply, you can handle any situation on stage because you know the content like the back of your hand.
That’s the best way to articulate a talk anyways. Not to have it entirely scripted, but to have a comprehensive outline of your talk in your head so you can speak freely as you move through the sections of your presentation.
4. Crush Your Opener
Owning your audience is all about capturing their attention in the first few minutes. You can do this in one of several ways, but the best method is by starting with a story.
A natural part of listening to stories is that you empathize with the experiences of the characters. You find yourself immersed in the emotions of the storyteller. In fact you physically feel what they feel; if they are stressed or excited or exhilarated, so are you. And that makes you care about the outcome. Your attention is held.
Not only do others share the emotions of the characters in your story, stories engage more of our brains than other stimuli. When a story describes how the rain smelled or what the bitter Canadian cold felt like, the sections of your brain that produce those feelings are stimulated. More of your brain is engaged in stories, so your attention is fixed on the words of the speaker.
And what’s even better, you can incorporate the silver bullet for audiences when it comes to speaker enjoyment.
Laughter!
There is nothing better than after opening a talk, getting a laugh. It’s truly the best feeling imaginable.
Would you find it strange that this tip is also deeply rooted in biology?
Laughter releases endorphins which results in us feeling great. If we are laughing with others, and those around us are experiencing the same momentary high and then positive hormonal release, we feel great together. Oxford research by Dr. Robin Dunbar shows that in a comedy club. You will experience a heightened resistance to pain.
So if you can, make them laugh. It will break all of your tension, put you and the audience at ease, and allow for a much better
5. Power Poses
Our TEDx speakers practice their talks for months. They rehearse and refine, and after lots of coaching from myself and support from the rest of the team, develop their content for the TEDx stage.
On the day of the event, I am usually backstage with our speakers. This may include preparing my words to introduce a speaker, or helping whoever is “on deck” with their face-microphone. Regardless, what I’m doing almost 100% of the time backstage, is hyping speakers up so they feel like a superhero.
While doing so, I have them stand in a series of two power poses.
TED speaker and Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy’s work shows that your body language can change the way you feel about yourself.
It can impact your mood, your attitude, and how you evaluate situations. Specifically adopting certain expansive postures, or “power poses”, will result in a positive emotional boost in all of these areas. Cuddy says from the TED stage:
“…Change your posture for two minutes… It could significantly change the way your life unfolds.”
Give them a try just before your next presentation, job interview, or make them a part of your daily routine. Integrate two minutes of power posing before you leave your house for the day, to prime you for confidence, and ensure success no matter what happens.
See the infographic below with information from Cuddy’s talk.
Do you want to give a TEDx Talk? Make sure you get the full TEDx Talk Pitch Guide below.
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