Ok, confession time.
I love presenting and public speaking, especially when it’s about a topic that I know well and am passionate about.
And not to be immodest, but I’m pretty good at it.
But it’s not because I have a magical gift for it.
Today, I’m going to share with you 5 specific tips/tools/approaches that have helped me become a better speaker over time.
Really? More Scary Than Snakes, Spiders, or Death?
Now, we all know that most people don’t like speaking in public, but it’s more than a passing concern.
Apparently, the National Institute For Mental Health did a study and discovered that for 73% of Americans, public speaking is their biggest fear. That means more people were afraid of public speaking than dying.
When it comes to speaking in front of groups, there are a few reasons that people get nervous.
1) They are not sufficiently prepared
2) They are afraid they’ll say something foolish
3) They’re afraid they’ll freeze up and look foolish
It’s remarkable that these fears are so debilitating. Thankfully, there are ways to mitigate that fear and even come to enjoy public speaking.
How To Make It Better
I’ve been in front of audiences hundreds of times, so it’s reasonable to ask if it’s just because of the sheer number of reps I’ve put in at this point.
The reps have definitely helped, and I’ll touch on that part shortly.
First, let me highlight one of the most practical ways to improve your public speaking.
1. Record Yourself and Critically Evaluate Your Performance
This is one of the most useful and, strangely, least-used techniques.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never come across anyone who does this to prepare, especially no one who is nervous about speaking.
It’s one of the most surefire ways to improve, and it’s so simple.
All you need to do is grab your phone or tablet, set it at the right angle, and hit record. From there, you can both practice becoming more familiar with the content and notice and fix all those basic problems people run into.
Once you see yourself repeating “ummm” a bunch of times, you’ll be highly motivated to fix it.
This works really well because most people are skilled evaluators of speakers, even if they don’t think they’re great at it. All they have to do is turn that evaluative lens on their recording, and voilà, instant critical feedback.
Do this 3-4 times, and you’ll start to see remarkable improvement. As you get better and more familiar with the content, your confidence should rise as well.
2. Memorize The Opening And Closing
This is a fantastic tip that I learned a few years ago.
Decide how you want to open and memorize it exactly. This let’s you walk out onto the stage confidently knowing exactly how you’re going to start out.
Likewise, with the ending. There’s no denying that a strong ending puts a really nice bookend on the presentation. It’s also true that due to the Primacy and Recency Effects, people tend to remember the beginning and end of speeches.
Memorize the last bit, and it’ll help you stick the landing.
3. Have Fun With It
There’s a chance some of you are kind of upset at this one.
You might be thinking, “Easy for you to say! How am I supposed to have fun with it when I’m terrified?”
Let me throw a question back at you. Do you think Michael Phelps goes out onto the blocks completely chill? When Jordan was watching the ball in the air as the NBA Championship games tipped off, he was completely neutral?
Of course not. Everyone, including top-level athletes, has nervous energy. They’ve simply learned, often through a pre-game ritual, to channel that nervous energy into excited or positive energy.
One of the simplest ways to do that is to use the tension you feel at the beginning of your speech to get fired up. An athlete might say it’s “time to put your game face on!”
Create your own pre-game ritual to get you into “the zone.”
Finally, hopefully, you can find something in the presentation that interests you. When you get to that part, try to enjoy talking about it.
Trust me, your audience will notice.
4. Put A Critic In The Audience
As you develop your public speaking skills, select someone or a couple of people in the audience to give you feedback on how you perform each time.
Ask them beforehand, but here’s the important part to highlight. Tell them that you’re trying to improve and that criticism won’t hurt your feelings.
People are often uncomfortable giving critical feedback. Experience has probably taught them to avoid doing it or to be gentle in their feedback.
As a result, the feedback is useless so you need to prep them so you’ll get real feedback.
The second thing to tell them is the specific things you’re trying to improve on. You need them to pay attention to those things. Then, they can focus their feedback on the things you’re working on in addition to anything else they might notice.
It won’t work every time, but you’ll often get really valuable feedback, which you can incorporate to make your next speech even better.
5. It's not about you; it's about serving your audience
This is the most important change you can make.
Once you really embrace this idea, a lot of the fear and pressure goes away. Instead of making it about you and how you’ll perform, make it about trying to serve your audience.
Then, your preparation shifts, and your mindset shifts.
There’s tons of evidence around the impact of mindset, like the large and growing body of evidence of the psychological benefits of practicing gratitude.
So, it’s not a novel idea to suggest that a shift in mindset can lead to better results.
I get that this is a little woo-woo relative to some of the other stuff I talk about. However, in this instance, most of the fear associated with public speaking is mindset-related. Finding a way to alter your mindset to be more productive can be really useful.
Parting Thoughts
This is a pretty popular topic, and it seems like a lot of people would really like to improve their public speaking. I’ll write more about this in the future and get into the weeds on specific ways you can level up your skills. In the meantime, check out my Youtube video for a bit of inspiration:
Hopefully, this was helpful. Be sure to let me know what you’re struggling with. I’d love to hear from you so I can keep writing about topics that you care about.
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