Public Speaking Skills
How a Lack of Confidence Can Stop a Good Public Speaker From Being Great
Skilled speakers exude confidence, right?Not necessarily. Many reasonably good speakers suffer from intense self-doubt, which ruins the experience of speaking for them and holds them back from becoming great speakers. If you are an anxious speaker, you have probably decided you are rubbish at it...
How I Am Using Yoodli — A New AI Tool — To Support My Public Speaking Coaching
Yoodli is an exciting new AI public speaking tool that I am using in my coaching.A lot of my work is with people who have extreme public speaking anxiety that holds them back from achieving their career and life goals. In my experience, there...
Giving a Good Presentation Is One Thing – But Having Impact Is Another
Recently someone approach me for private coaching. She was nervous about an upcoming presentation. Before she ran through her presentation, she told me that her topic was important to her audience and she really wanted to have impact. Then she practiced her presentation by sharing...
Why Reading Your Speech is Like Riding a Bike with Training Wheels
Remember learning to ride a bike? You probably started with training wheels. What happened when your parents removed the training wheels? Perhaps you went, wobble, wobble, wobble, splat. The next time the wobble lasted a little longer before the splat, and then maybe by the...
No Good at Public Speaking? Six Reasons Why Improving Is Just Like Learning to Play a New Sport (Or Any Other Complex Skill)
I recently heard someone describe the three phases he goes through when learning a new skill. The first stage is fear. The second stage is grit – the hard work that goes into getting good at anything. Thirdly, there is mastery – the feeling of...
How to Share Something Personal With an Audience Without Oversharing! Seven Questions That Will Help if You Are Unsure
On the first night of my public speaking course, I tell people the story of my epic public speaking fail. You can read all about it on my Medium site. The short version is that I had a panic attack in front of the senior...
Five Slightly Unusual Public Speaking Tips to Improve Your Delivery and Reduce Nervousness!
There are plenty of useful articles about public speaking, but many of them repackage similar tips. Remember to pause; practice your presentation thoroughly; maintain eye contact; focus on your audience; tell stories; and so on. Don’t get me wrong — it is all great advice! But I...
Are You a Procrastinator or a Perfectionist? The Answer May Explain Your Public Speaking Anxiety.
Few people can engage an audience without preparing and practising. Even those presenters who seem to speak off the cuff have usually rehearsed thoroughly or delivered the same material many times before. When I first started coaching public speaking, I emphasised preparation. It felt obvious...
How to Be an Authentic Speaker – and What It Really Means
It is easy to recognise an “authentic” speaker but unpacking what it really means is harder. After all, public speaking is a performance – so how can you perform and be authentic at the same time?Although public speaking is a performance, it is not the...
You Have Decided to Do Something About Your Fear of Public Speaking. Now What?
For years, I considered ‘doing something’ about my public speaking anxiety, but I put it off until I experienced a full-blown panic attack. Even then, it took me 6 months to act. Many people live with a fear of public speaking for years. They avoid...
How to Look Confident as a Public Speaker – Even When You Feel Nervous
Most people want the same thing when they present. They want to feel confident. But if that is not possible, they at least want to look confident. In my coaching, I often hear people say they could cope with the nerves if only no one...
Nine Ways to Calm Your Nerves by Connecting With Your Audience (and Imagining Your Audience Naked Is Not One of Them!)
Presenting 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...
How to Speak Clearly When You Are Put on the Spot – Impromptu Speaking Without Panic!
You might be articulate when you have time to prepare. You can structure a presentation, practise it, and deliver it well. But when you are asked to speak off the cuff, something different happens. Your mind goes blank. You ramble. Or you say far less...
Why Verbal Communication Skills Matter More Than Ever for Graduates
This article was originally published in 2018 and updated in 2025 to reflect current research and the impact of AI on graduate employability. Graduates are entering a workplace that looks very different from the one their parents stepped into. Technical skills are changing faster than...
When Your Topic Scares You!
When I ask a group of people if they have ever had to talk to an audience about something they didn’t understand or were not convinced about themselves I usually get a lot of nods. Then I ask them how they felt about it. They...