Fear-less public speaking
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Our Courses
    • For Employers
  • What others say
  • FAQs
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Home

RSS Feed

Nervous About Public Speaking?  Self-Talk That Actually Helps

11/2/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
You are a bundle of nerves. You have an important presentation to give. You have been dreading it for days. You barely slept last night, and you can feel your heart pounding and the panic rising.

You look in the mirror, smile, and repeat three times, “I am a calm and confident speaker, and I am going to be amazing.”

Instantly you feel calm and reassured. Two hours later, you give your presentation. It is a huge success!
​
That’s great! If positive affirmations work for you, by all means, keep using them. But if instead, you have an inner critic that responds, “You liar. Don’t fool yourself. Last time was a disaster and this is going to be just as bad,” you need to try something else.

Read More
0 Comments

Preparing for a Presentation — Are You a Procrastinator or a Perfectionist?

8/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Few people can engage an audience without preparing and practicing. Even presenters who look like they are speaking ‘off the cuff’, have usually prepared thoroughly— or have presented the same material many times previously.

When I first started as a public speaking coach, I stressed the importance of good preparation. But I noticed that some people would still turn up unprepared. And they often started their presentation by telling us that they hadn’t prepared.

I realized that they were using this as a ‘get of jail card free card’. If they told us how unprepared they were and it didn’t go well, they could always blame their lack of preparation. It was an excuse for failure. But it was also self-sabotage.

And so, I doubled down on my preparation message. I even suggested that if people turned up unprepared, they shouldn’t tell us!
​
Then I started noticing something else. While I always have a few unprepared clients, the majority spend so much time preparing that they become rigidly fixated on what they have prepared. They often memorize or read their script. They don’t sound natural, spontaneous, or conversational. And my preparation message was potentially making this worse.

Read More
0 Comments

Fight, flight, or freeze response to fear of public speaking

25/5/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
In a previous article I talked about how a fear of public speaking could have an evolutionary basis. The fight, flight or freeze response that many people experience is a primitive response to danger. Although the danger is clearly not life-threatening, our bodies respond as if it. Unfortunately, while fighting, fleeing or freezing may be great responses to escape a predator, they are not very helpful when you are trying to speak to an audience!
Let’s take a closer look at what happens.


Read More
0 Comments

Feel the fear (of public speaking) and do it anyway!

13/4/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Susan Jeffers' seminal self-help book “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway” was first published in 1987 . Its messages are just as relevant today and are highly applicable to fear of public speaking. According to a website dedicated to Susan’s work, she identified five truths about fear.  This article looks at how we might apply these to a fear of public speaking. 
​

Read More
0 Comments

How Susan Cain overcame a fear of public speaking to give a TED talk that has been viewed more than 25 million times

2/2/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Susan Cain, author and celebrated TED talk presenter, once had a crippling fear of public speaking. Her TED talk, The Power of Introverts, has more than 25 million views and is one of my all-time favourites.

I am also a big fan of Tim Ferris, and so when he interviewed Susan Cain in this podcast, I had to listen. The first 40 minutes is about her fear of public speaking. Her experience closely mirrors my own and that of many of my clients. 

Her main points are:
  • A particular event at school triggered her ‘almost lifelong’ fear of public speaking. 
  • The incentive to deal with her anxiety came from having something she cared deeply about and wanted to share.
  • She signed up for a course that used ‘gradual exposure’ to manage her fear.
  • She discovered that public speaking is a skill that can be learned.
  • She still feels nervous, but her nerves are now manageable (and didn’t stop her from delivering one of the most popular TED talks of all times!)
  • She discovered there is enormous benefit in developing public speaking skills. 
Let’s take a closer look at each of these. 

Read More
0 Comments

Public Speaking and the Shame of Appearing Nervous - Why Do We Care and What Can We Do?

24/1/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Why do we care so much about looking nervous? How easy is it for the audience to detect our nerves? And what can we do to conceal our nervousness? 

I believe there are three reasons we are likely to view a fear of public speaking as a big problem.
  1. We hate the feeling of anxiety.
  2. We are worried about the impact on our performance -e.g. going blank or feeling disassociated from our words.
  3. We are highly embarrassed about appearing nervous. 
​It is this third reason that I explore in this article. 


Read More
0 Comments

Nine ways to calm your nerves by connecting with your audience (and imagining your audience naked is not one of them!)

24/11/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
esenting to an audience can feel unnatural. Most people don't like being in the spotlight. It is tempting to become less noticeable by hiding behind a PowerPoint presentation. But that is an unhelpful strategy. We need to do the opposite because connecting with the audience is the key to feeling more comfortable.

I had a conversation recently with a sales manager, Mike. He told me that when he was 18, he lived in Spain for his final year of schooling. He was asked to talk about life in New Zealand at a school assembly. His hand shook uncontrollably as he started to speak. He was holding notes which made this obvious! Then he put up a slide of a cow. I am not sure what he said, but everyone started laughing. And suddenly he felt relaxed! 

Most public speaking coaches agree that the old advice to imagine your audience naked is lousy advice! The intent is to make the audience seem less threatening. But instead of treating the audience as hostile or dangerous, we need to connect. 

Here are nine things you can try instead. 

Read More
2 Comments

Why do so many people fear public speaking? - the 'spotlight effect' and other explanations

25/10/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
With Halloween upon us, I thought it was timely to look at why a fear of public speaking is so common! 

My Toastmasters Club, Talking Heads, has a Mark Twain quote on our website, "There are two types of speakers - those that are nervous and those that are liars". 

Read More
0 Comments

Presentation anxiety in students – How can we help?

30/9/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Periodically a debate emerges in social media about whether young people should be forced to present in front of the class.

The Atlantic reported one such debate in September 2018. The story was about a tweet posted by a 15-year old high-school student:

“Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not too.”

This tweet had gone viral, as had a similar tweet posted earlier that year.

Some students were concerned that forcing them to present in front of their peers, could fuel their anxiety and have long-term harmful effects. Some of the tweets suggested it was a mental health issue, and that people suffering from anxiety should be given alternatives.

Read More
0 Comments

Using your nerves to enhance your public speaking performance

11/6/2018

0 Comments

 
(Updated February 2020)
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to stand in front of an audience and feel calm? Actually, no! While it might be nice to feel calm, the reality is that you generally perform better when you are a bit nervous.

Imagine you are an Olympic athlete turning up to the start of a race. Do you think that you will feel calm? Of course not. You will be very nervous and rightly so. Once more those nerves will serve you well as they mean your body is producing adrenalin that will make you run faster.

When it comes to public speaking something similar applies. If you are calm the chances are that you will come across as laid back but not particularly effective or dynamic. However, with presenting, being very nervous doesn’t serve you well either. When you start to show visible signs of fear such as shaking, sweating, or going red, you become focused on what is happening to you rather than what you are saying, to the detriment of your performance. 
​
What you want is to hit that sweet spot, where a bit of nervousness gives you optimal performance. Remember that those nerves are a sign that your body is preparing to perform. You want enough adrenalin to enhance your performance but not so much that it starts to undermine it.  I recently learned that the Yerkes-Dobson Law explains this relationship between stress and performance and the corresponding 'inverted U' graph. 
Picture

Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Catherine Syme

    I get huge satisfaction from seeing the relief, pride, and even joy that people experience when they complete a course and reflect on the progress they have made. See what others say for some inspiring stories.  

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018

    Categories

    All
    Careers
    Developing Confidence
    Developing Skills
    Fear Of Public Speaking
    Leadership
    Learning Online
    Students
    Success Stories
    Taking Action

    RSS Feed

Home
​About
Our Courses
What Others Say
​
FAQ
​Blog
Contact
Terms & Conditions
​Privacy Policy
Picture
Mount Eden, Auckland 1024
Picture
027 563 8295
Picture
catherine@fear-less.co.nz
Sign up for our newsletter
© COPYRIGHT 2018.​FEAR-LESS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Our Courses
    • For Employers
  • What others say
  • FAQs
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Home