7 Steps to Overcome Public Speaking Fear

Public speaking can be one of the most stressful things you’ll ever have to do in your life, but it doesn’t have to be. With proper preparation and the right mindset, you can easily master the art of public speaking,

7 of the worst pieces of public speaking advice. 

1. Apologize for anything – last-minute speaker and not quite prepared, late. This takes away from your credibility and puts the attention on something that is other than what you want to talk about. Plus, nobody cares! That is information that is all about you or all about you trying to look good.

Public Speaking starts inside of you.

Have you ever considered who you are for yourself matters, and has everything to do with how you show up for your audience?

I am talking about your beliefs about yourself and your self-image.

Unconventional public speaking preparation. A lot of people have public speaking nerves. Just one of the sources of this is they don’t realize they are telling themselves the audience is judging and/or comparing them.

You actually have complete control over what you say to yourself before, during and after you speak.

Signature talk.  I like to start out a signature talk with a story designed to connect with my audience and illustrate that I was just like are and have dealt with what they deal with. Here is a story I often start my talks with.

Be the Cat.

What do cats have to do with public speaking?

First, I am a big cat fan. I’m sure I’ll be a crazy old cat lady someday.

Of course, I have a cat. A big, black, long-tailed one. That’s him above. His name is Seth. That’s a whole story of its own.

Talk Louder.

Talk louder than you think you need to or are comfortable doing.

If you are not comfortable speaking louder, then you almost certainly need to! Our voices are so much louder in our heads than out in the room in other’s ears.

This mistake has a huge cost for you as a speaker (and what to do about it).

I have observed over 500 speakers in my tenure of speaking.

Over the years, I have noticed behaviors in speakers that made me feel separate from them and turned me off from doing business with them.

Avoid saying “you guys”, “youse guys (Jersey version – I’m from NJ) or “y’all.

There is no one in the room by any of those names! Each person of your audience is an individual, and while speaking to them collectively makes sense to you from the front of the room, it isn’t personal to the listener – the person you want to impact.

I want to talk about the importance of relationships, how we show up in them and why it matters when you are a speaker.

Consider you are public speaking all the time – and that includes networking.

I am a big advocate of networking, especially as a newer speaker.

No stream of consciousness.

You can’t just say any old thing when it’s your turn to speak – not if you want to be thought of as credible and get taken seriously.

This makes me think of a woman that spoke at a women’s business networking event that I attended.  She had 25 minutes to speak.

There are some words people say that are rampant in our society that you want to make the effort to avoid saying when you are public speaking. Recently this was brought to my attention and I was shocked.  I’d never noticed, let alone thought about it before.  Then I began to hear them falling out of my mouth and out of the mouths of others.