When you need to speak in public or on camera…
Your heart starts beating faster. You fumble over your words. You don’t feel like you’re in CONTROL.
Here’s how to go from hating to loving the stage:
I call this my Out-in-Out strategy. It has nothing to do with in-n-out burger, but it’s just as delicious
𝟭. Understand why you hate speaking. Do you feel cornered, judged, stared at? Do you become painfully self-conscious? I loved getting up on that stage to talk and present. But I couldn’t fully focus on my presentation because I was TOO eager to please.
𝟮. For a little while, stop focusing on the audience and focus on YOURSELF. Your 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀, your 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. It’s not important how you perform. It’s important if you are understood
𝟯, Create your winning strategy. Understand what your opportunity areas and challenges are and focus on them one by one. Looking above the audience’s heads. Rehearsing a lot. Controlling my gestures.
𝟰. Start rehearsing. I took every single opportunity I could to speak in public. I took my skills out for a test drive again and again. I analyzed my performance. I analyzed how I felt before, during and after my presentation.
𝟱.Tune the audience back in. Now I was confident of what I wanted to say and how I could say it. Now I could tune the audience back in. The eyes looking at me turned into friends I hadn’t met. I started playing with the audience. Adapting on the fly. Calling out Susan who’s laughing and Andrew who looks offended.
You move from being self-conscious to being self-aware and aware of your environment.
Once you learn how to dance with your audience through your words, your energy and your body language; That’s how you know you’ve squished that fear of being judged.
Which stage are you at?
