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...

13 October 2022

Why a ‘Service Mindset’ Will make You a Better Public Speaker – And a Less Nervous One!

Public speaking is a performance, but it is not the same as acting. There are two main differences. The first is fairly obvious – as an actor, you are being someone else, but as a public speaker, ideally you are being yourself. Many people struggle with...

19 May 2022

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 are...

20 April 2022

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...

29 March 2022

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...

31 January 2022

Why You Are Wrong About What Your Audience Thinks of You – If They Think of You at All!

When I ask my clients why they think so many people fear public speaking, they almost always talk about being judged. ​​Concern about being judged is a significant factor, but it is only part of it. Someone with strong self-belief tends to worry less about being...

27 October 2021

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...

27 July 2021

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...

26 June 2021

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...

16 November 2020

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

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...

08 November 2020

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...

18 June 2020

How to act on your resolution to improve your public speaking – and three traps to avoid

Have you made a New Year’s resolution to ‘do something’ about your fear of public speaking? That’s fantastic! You won’t regret it. Read this article to find out how to keep this resolution! You probably felt great (even euphoric!) when you made a decision that...

14 January 2020

How to look like a confident public speaker (even when you don’t feel like one!)

We all want to look confident when we are presenting. We also want to feel confident – but most people can handle feeling a bit nervous as long as they can hide it from others! This in itself is interesting and I touched on it in...

30 October 2019

How to apply a ‘growth mindset’ to public speaking

I had a cooking teacher at high school who told us that “good cooks are born, not made” which left me confused about why she had decided to become a cooking teacher! Her comment is a perfect illustration of a ‘fixed mindset’ described by Carol...

29 September 2019

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

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...

13 April 2019