11 easy ways to finally overcome your fear of public speaking

11 EASY WAYS TO FINALLY
OVERCOME YOUR FEAR OF
PUBLIC SPEAKING
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fear-of-public-speaking

How successful we are at
selling ourselves, our
products and our services
depends on our ability to
stand up and be heard.
What often prevents us from
telling our story successfully
is not our inability to articulate
what we do, or how strongly
we believe in the value of
what we offer..

Instead, it is simply the
fear of speaking in front of
an audience. Being
nervous while presenting
can put a dint in your
credibility and have an
adverse effect on
achieving your business
goals.

To manage the fear of speaking in public, you
need to first understand the root cause of the
fear. One of the best explanations comes
from Scott Berkun, in Confessions of a Public
Speaker
. "The design of the brain's wiring—given its
long operational history, hundreds of
thousands years older than the history of

makes it impossible to stop
fearing what it knows is the
worst tactical position for a
person to be in," Berkun
says. That "worst tactical
position" is standing alone,
in an open place, with no
place to hide, without a
weapon, facing a large
group of creatures staring
at you.

As Berkun puts it, being
in this situation "meant
the odds were high that you
would soon be attacked and
eaten alive ... Our ancestors,
the ones who survived,
developed a fear response to
these situations."

Understanding that our brain
can't tell the difference between a
real threat (a pack of wolves about to
attack you) and an imagined threat (a
group of your peers watching you
present) is the first step to
overcoming the fear.

This awareness
can help you manage the
that happens
in the absence of real
danger.

As you feel your heart racing
when you first start your
presentation, you can
consciously and deliberately
interrupt the fear response
with a quick deep breath and a
rational thought, "This is just
a false alarm.

The more you get into the habit of
interrupting the fear response as
soon as you feel it happening, the
quicker you'll prevent it from
being your default response every
time you present in front of a
group. You must ingrain in your
mind the thought that the fear of
public speaking is simply a
misfiring of the caveman "fight or
flight" fear response, and that you
can overcome this.

Here are 11 practical tips
to help you manage
performance anxiety so
you can focus on your
key messages:

When you worry before a high-stakes
presentation, you may have a tendency to ask
yourself negative questions, such as "What will
happen if I forget my material?" or "What if I
mess up?" This form of self-talk is like throwing
gasoline in a room on fire.
1. Reframe the questions you ask yourself.

Reframe the questions you ask yourself.
All it does is heighten your anxiety.
Replace these negative questions
with positive ones. Take an
inspiration from Seymour Signet, a
specialist in helping people
overcome public speaking anxiety.
He advises to ask yourself: "What
will happen if I knock it out of the
park?“ "Ask Yourself Good
Questions." Give this a try; it will
calm the noise in your head.

2. Practice as if you're the worst.
When you know your
material well, there's a
tendency to get sloppy when
practicing a speech: You
might flip through the slides,
mentally thinking about what
you are going to say, without
actually rehearsing out loud
exactly what you plan to say.

2. Practice as if you're the worst.
This results in a
presentation that's not as
sharp as it could be and
might cause you to be
nervous once you have 100
pairs of eyes staring at you.
You can also forget some
important sub-points and
key SoundBits.

3. Avoid this by practicing out loud and
verbalizing your complete presentation.
For a high-stakes
presentation, do this at least
five times, at spaced intervals,
to encode your material in
long-term memory. It's also crucial
that you practice your transitions—
the words that link one idea in your
presentation
to the next.

These are easy to forget if you don't
practice them and you end up with a
staccato presentation. Transitions are the
silken thread that guides your listeners
through your story.
Some examples:
"Now that we have
established ...";
"This leads us to ...";
"My next item
is particularly crucial ..."
3. Avoid this by practicing out loud and
verbalizing your complete presentation.

Knowing the sequence of
your slides so you can
anticipate and announce a
slide makes you look in
control. Nothing erodes your
credibility faster than having
to look at a slide to know
what you have to
say next. Being perceived
as credible boosts your
confidence and reduces
your anxiety and the fear of
failing.
4. Memorize the sequence of your slides.

One reason people often experience
anxiety before a presentation is the fear
that they'll be asked questions that might
be difficult to answer. Don't get caught off
guard. Think carefully of what potential
questions might arise and rehearse your
best answers Go one step further by
creating slides for some potential questions
about complex issues.

You can include in your slide
important information, numbers, stats
or even a pertinent graph or pie chart
that would be helpful to the audience.
If such a question arises, it's quite
okay to say, "I anticipated that you
might be asking this question. Let me
display a slide that will clearly show
..."

6. Visualize your presentation.
A study at Harvard University
showed the value of
visualization in developing a
skill: Two groups of volunteers
were presented with a piece of
unfamiliar piano music. One
group was given a keyboard and
told to practice. The other group
was instructed to just read the
music and imagine playing it.

When their brain activity was
examined, both groups showed
expansion in the motor cortex,
even though the second group
had never touched a keyboard.
Visualization is a powerful
mental rehearsal tool that peak
sports performers use regularly.
Einstein, who's credited with
saying that “imagination is
more important than
knowledge,” used visualization
throughout his entire life.

Take advantage of this
tool and visualize yourself
successfully delivering
your presentation.
Concentrate on all the
positives of your
presentation, and
visualize the talk, in detail,
from your introduction to
your conclusion.

Instead, as Jerry Weissman
puts it, "treat every presentation as a series of
person-to-person conversations." The more
you remind yourself of this, the more you can
shift your focus away from the fear-inducing
thought that you are required to perform.
Instead, as Jerry Weissman
puts it, "treat every
presentation as a series of
person-to-person
conversations." The more you
remind yourself of this, the
more you can shift your focus
away from the fear-inducing
thought that you are required to
perform.

8. Take some deep breaths.
This simple advice cannot be
emphasized enough. When
you're nervous, you breathe
rapidly and shallowly. This is
telegraphing to the audience
that you're not confident. Slow
and measured breathing is a sign
that you're in control. Before
you go to the front of the room,
concentrate on taking a few,
slow breaths.

Repeat this a few times.
When you start to speak,
remember to pause and
breathe after you make a
point. Psychiatrist Fritz
Perls said it powerfully:
"Fear is excitement
without the breath."
8. Take some deep breaths.

Harvard Business School
Professor Amy Cuddy
discovered that simply holding
our body in an expansive pose
for as little as two minutes
results in a higher level of
testosterone in our body.
Testosterone is the hormone
linked to power in both animals
and humans. At the same time,
the expansive pose lowers our
level of cortisol, the stress
9. Try "power posing" before the presentation.

In her TED video
presentation, Cuddy shows a
number of expansive poses,
such as spreading your legs,
placing your hands on your
hips, or striking the CEO
pose: legs resting on desk,
and arms behind your head.
You can apply this advice
before a presentation to lower
your stress level and give

Instead of hunching over your
notes or BlackBerry, find a
spot where you can have
some privacy and adopt an
expansive pose: Make
yourself as big as you can by
stretching your arms out and
spreading your legs, or stand
on your tiptoes with your
hands in the air.

10.Pause frequently.
In "The King’s Speech," a movie about
the true story of King George VI, one
of the successful strategies the speech
therapist uses to help the king
overcome his stuttering is the use of
pauses. Pausing helped the king
regain his composure whenever he
was gripped by anxiety. When you
feel anxious while presenting,
consider pausing more frequently. A
few strategic pauses between points
have a calming effect.

11. Come to terms with audience expressions.
Your anxiety level is increased
when you misinterpret the
audience's facial expression. In
normal conversation, we're
accustomed to getting feedback
from the listener—a nod or a
smile here and there that signal
approval. But when we present,
audiences listen differently.

11. Come to terms with audience expressions.
They're more likely to give the
speaker a blank stare, which
doesn't mean they don't like what
they hear; more often than not, it
simply means they're concentrating
on the message. This is especially
true of audience members who are
introverted.

You can get more tips for managing
presentation anxiety in my book,
Presenting with Credibility: Practical
Tools and Techniques For Effective
Presentations
. There's a Japanese proverb that
says, "Fear is only as deep as the
mind allows." Put your mind on
developing your key company
messages and crafting your story.

Replace time expended on worrying
with time spent on preparing
thoroughly for your presentation, by
knowing your material cold, and
practicing it beyond the point of
pain. Then go out there and win
them over.

11 easy ways to finally overcome your fear of public speaking

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