Understanding Public Speaking Anxiety
Do You Have Employees Hiding a Fear of Public Speaking?
This email arrived in my inbox today, “Hi, I am terrified about public speaking and the panic attacks that come with it! I go to great lengths to avoid these situations, and it’s having an impact on my life. Is this the sort of course...
Nervous About Public Speaking? Self-Talk That Actually Helps
You’ve got an important presentation coming up. Your stomach’s in knots, your heart’s pounding, and your mind is already racing ahead to all the ways it could go wrong. You barely slept last night, and the thought of standing in front of a room full...
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...
Why Avoiding Public Speaking Is Worse Than Doing It! It Is Career-Limiting, Stressful, and Harder Than You Think.
Verbal communication skills are valued by employers. They consistently rank highly on lists of the top “soft skills”. For example, the LinkedIn Learning 2020 Workplace report found that employers ranked “persuasion” as their number two soft skill requirement. And you can’t persuade without good verbal communication skills.Public speaking is...
Seven Stories of People Who Once Had a Crippling Fear of Public Speaking and Did Something About It!
I am doing something different for this month’s blog article. I want to share seven stories of people who decided they were no longer willing to let their fear of public speaking define them. Why tell these stories? Because most people wait far too long...
Why the Imposter Syndrome May Explain Your Fear of Public Speaking- And What You Can Do About It
If you have ever stepped up to speak and thought, “Who am I to be talking about this?”, you are in very good company. In fact, those moments of doubt often show up most strongly in people who are highly capable, hard-working, and quietly ambitious....
Fight, Flight, or Freeze: Why Your Body Panics When You Stand Up to Speak
One of the most reassuring things I can tell clients is that nothing about their fear is unusual. Their bodies are doing exactly what they were designed to do. In evolutionary terms, the fight, flight, or freeze response kept us alive. The difficulty is that...
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. Nearly forty years on, its central message still lands with uncomfortable accuracy for anyone who fears public speaking. Jeffers identified five core truths about fear. When I recently...
How Susan Cain Overcame a Fear of Public Speaking to Give a TED Talk That Has Been Viewed More Than 25 Million Times
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...
Public Speaking and the Shame of Appearing Nervous – Why Do We Care and What Can We Do?
Do you worry that your audience will notice your trembling hands or shaking voice? In this article I explore why we care about looking nervous, whether the audience really does notice (or care), and what we can do to hide the nerves. Why do we...
Why Do So Many People Fear Public Speaking? – The ‘Spotlight Effect’ and Other Explanations
At my Toastmasters club, Talking Heads, we have a quote on our website that always gets a chuckle: “There are two types of speakers – those that are nervous and those that are liars.” – Mark Twain Sound familiar? You’ve probably seen the headlines too—those...
Presentation Anxiety in Students – How Can We Help?
Periodically, a debate blows up on social media about whether young people should be forced to present in front of the class. The Atlantic reported one such debate a few years ago after a 15-year-old high school student tweeted: “Stop forcing students to present in...
Fear-less, Not Fearless: The Real Goal of Public Speaking Confidence
Most people with public speaking anxiety imagine they need to conquer or overcome their fear. They hope that one day they will speak without a single flicker of nerves. The bad news is that this is not realistic. You will probably always feel some nervousness...
Stop Trying to Conquer Your Fear of Public Speaking
Body language expert Mark Bowden tells a memorable story in his book Winning Body Language. A man came to him, desperate for help because he broke out in hives every time he presented. He was understandably distressed and wanted the symptoms to stop. Instead of...