Late last week, I was called by a freelance writer for a huge international periodical magazine (usually found in doctors’ waiting rooms). Her editor is seeking an article containing responses from Australian business speaker coaches (like me) to a recent American article based on, as she said, “masking your anxiety whilst speaking in public”.

Well, I was inclined to spoil her thesis, for which I apologised in advance! In my view, a good speaker uses the adrenaline (which can create fear, anxiety) to good advantage: they manage it so that it produces ‘life’, ‘energy’ and ‘enthusiasm’ in their speech/presentation. Masking the anxiety (no matter what the method) is bound to produce (in the audiences’ eyes) a speaker who may well be perceived as insincere, flat, mono-tonal, uncommitted, – in short, plastic. Trying to learn behaviours which are different from your unique ‘displays’ is bound to cause confusion and breed disappointment – unless you are setting out to learn to be an actor – and that’s a very difficult, time-demanding craft to master. My thesis to her:

Above all else, be yourself. Be authentic. Understand your behaviours, learn what you are ‘good at’ and maximise those capabilities. Over 40 years of watching people, I have been continually encouraged by the way in which ‘maximising the good things’ overtakes ‘the bad’ things – which are often only subjective (self-perceived), and not real for the audience!

On a positive note, however, (for her story) I was able to offer suggestions for the person who is ‘fearful’:

• consciously better breathing – breath in, hold your breath and then breath it all out, use this to calm yourself;
• apply yourself to constructive, precise planning (cf. Optimal Thinking in the Reasontospeak.com program;
• concept of singularity (cf.”Keep each individual in mind )
• learn to be objective about yourself: see yourself as other people see you – not as you see yourself;
• these are all  ‘learn-able, do-able’.

So: Don’t mask your anxiety – use it!

What do you think? What’s been your experience? There’ll be many people here who will appreciate your contribution.

Paul Griffiths

www.reasontospeak.com

Many people tell me they have a ‘tipping point’ when it comes to the size of the audience they’re presenting to. I constantly hear things like “I’m OK when there are 20 in the room – but, when there are 40, that’s when I shake like you wouldn’t believe”.

Try to be very rational here. Any audience starts with just one person. Then you add one, then one more, then another one, and another. Do you see? It’s actually a collection of individuals. Each individual just happens to be in the same room as another, plus another etc., etc.

When you master this concept then your behaviours will modify to let the audience (of, say, 600) know that you regard each of them as an individual – and they’ll love you for it!

Paul Griffiths

www.reasontospeak.com

Many presenters “over-egg the pudding” *. They believe that they’ll gain credibility with their audience by ‘dazzling them with data’. They feel that the audience will see them as more expert – if they keep adding more and more reasoning and evidence to any and every point in their presentation.

Not so! From your own psychological point of view, it’s very important that you view yourself as an (maybe, the) expert while you’re doing your presentation – planning and execution. Experts don’t over-burden you with ‘facts’. They choose the one, most impressive fact which (alone) will convince you that they know what they’re talking about.

It’s an important concept, this! It allows you to be basing your speech/presentation on more points and outcomes – rather than a greater depth of data, which will probably bore their socks off!

What do you think of this thesis?

* An old English expression meaning they put too many eggs in to the dessert they are making. Eventually, it’s a soggy mess!

Paul Griffiths

www.reasontospeak.com

One of the best concepts you can use when you’re planning your presentation – or speech – is to start by thinking about the ‘boookends’ – the beginning and the end – together. So: “What are they looking for from me?” and “What do I want them to do as a result of the information I’m giving to them?”.

When you think this way you’ll be answering the question every audience asks, everytime! “What’s in this for me?”. That’s the basis on which each individual makes her/his decision as to whether or not he is going to engage with you (and each person makes that decision pretty quickly – these days within the first 15 seconds (I’ll discuss the reason for that a bit later).

So, once they see “what’s in it for me?”, then they’ll begin listening to whatever points (and data backing up those points) you then make during the presentation. If they don’t ‘buy in’, then it’s all the more difficult for you to engage them (at the end) to actually do what you want them to do. (I should say here that it’s not as ‘tyrannical’ as, perhaps, I am making it sound.  (It doesn’t say that if you miss them at the beginning, then all is lost!). Some people may be distracted during your opening remarks – thinking about something back at the office, maybe. But, they join in (‘buy in’) by seeing other obviously ‘benefitting’ from what you are saying – so they decide to ‘buy in’ also.

Then, thinking about the bookend at the end, since they’ve decided earlier that there’s something in your presentation/speech for them, at the end – give them something tangible to do (with the information you’ve delivered)! For example – “Use this info to re-plan the budget for your area, and send me an email by Friday with the new figures” or, “Take this information and pass it on to your direct reports. Monitor the results and be sure to have them with you when we meet again next month!”.

In both those examples above you’re doing two things – you’re asking every person in your audience to actually do something (with the info you given them) and then you have asked them to gain/give some monitoring feedback. That’s all-important when you’re wanting to motivate people to think and act the way you want them to!

I’d really like to hear your ideas about “bookends”.

Paul Griffiths

www.reasontospeak.com

Have a good listen to yourself next time you go to do a presentation or make a speech. The more “investigatory” you can be – then the better you’ll understand the outcome. If you find that most of your thoughts (and thus, your self-talk) is negative – then it’s likely you won’t enjoy the speech you are making, you be too judgmental (subjective) about the outcomes and probably judge the value of the speech/presentation on how YOU thought it went (subjective).

One of the really nice things to achieve in life is to become more and more objective about yourself. The secret here is practise. Yep, once again, it’s an achievable state (like so many others) but you actually have to do the work. Start by continually “putting yourself other people’s shoes. Eg. “How would I have responded to that speech, if I was a member of the audience?”. Then, “What would I change for next time, if I was to be a member of the audience”. You see, the audience is continually bubbling away in their mind with “What’s in this for me? What’s in this for me?”. When you can begin to continually think “How can I offer a benefit and keep on enhancing that benefit?”, then that’s when you’ll be answering the question: “What’s in this for me?”.

Seriously, it takes practise. So, it will need 3 or 4 occasions before you’ll generally feel that you are looking at the task from the audience’s end and judging it that way (and no longer from your own pov). It’s the start of feeling comfortable – and motivating the audience to do what you want them to do as a result of the presentation.

And, after all, isn’t that what you want?

Well, do you? What’s the point of standing up to make any speech/presentation at all, if you don’t want people to think and act the way you want them to?

Paul Griffith
www.reasontospeak.com