Fear in Public Speaking

Marketing

Fear in Public Speaking
by Richard Amme



I was beside myself and anxious beyond reason that Saturday morning years ago. Queasy stomach, lightheaded, people passing in a blur, talking.  I nodded absently, hearing nothing.

My palms perspired. My fingers numbingly cold.

"Why do you do this?" I asked myself rhetorically, "why do you speak publicly when it causes so much anguish."

In just a few minutes tens of thousands of people would be watching me speak. 

I had to "go live" on television in an unfamiliar location, with no script, cue cards, notes, or TelePrompTer. 

As a television news anchor, I was about to report live from a charity golf tournament.  I was uncharacteristically nervous despite many years of experience reporting and anchoring the news. On that day, ten years ago, live reporting was relatively new for me and I was intimidated.

As the broadcast approached , I felt faint.  I knew I was hyperventillating, but was powerless to stop it.

"No breakfast", I  remembered. 

Fearing that on an empty stomach my very mind would go blank, I spotted a box of donuts and gulped one down for a shot of sugar.

It stopped mid-swallow.  The fried dough stuck to my teeth, mouth, and throat.

Now I feared I would choke to death.

Fear became panic.

The live report bore down less than five minutes away and I could not talk. 

I wanted to disappear. 

Desperate, with all the air my lungs would accept I blew the chunk of dough onto the grass. 

Once again my jaws were liberated! 

The live shot was now three minutes away.

Astonishingly, mercifully, that was when providence touched me.

The adrenaline rush from that near-miss with a Heimlich Maneuver focused my mind like a laser.  The mental clarity and the relief from the donut scare left me with an uncanny calm.

I drilled the live shot. 

Whew!

Welcome to the frightening world of public speaking.  While this was a obviously a particularly stressful experience for me, I have found elements of that fear in almost all of my public presentations.  You probably have too.

Just about all of us in business have to speak in front others with regularity - and we often encounter some variation of that dread.

How, we all want to know, how can we sidestep that alarm?

Avoiding the terror - You can't! 

Sorry.  I don't know how to get around it and know of no one else who does.  We can only moderate it.  Some key suggestions.

First, you probably already know the common anxiety reducers: arriving early to get comfortable with the surroundings, working the audience to make the people less threatening, practicing deep breathing exercises and relaxation techniques. 

They help some, but for me, two routines work best.

Minimizing the terror - You can!

Preparation.  The hands-down single most effective stress reducer for public presentations by far is... knowing you are prepared.  A survey of speakers found 75 percent of them believed preparation works best. 

How to prepare?

Begin writing your message as soon as you place it on your calendar. Exploit the word processor and massage the content at every opportunity and daily at the least. 

Finish the final draft no later than three days ahead of time.

Rehearse the presentation aloud as often as possible leading up the address itself.

My experience is that you can write and rehearse your material to the point that you can still deliver the goods and rise above initial jitters even if you are unduly anxious on presentation day.  As your preparation begins to pay off, your confidence should increase throughout the presentation. 

If you're preparing for a television or radio appearance, write your key messages as well as likely questions and your answers on index cards, shuffle them, and practice communicating in your own words without looking at them.

Making your body your ally

Feed it or starve it.

As the donut debacle indicated, I become unusually nervous under stress if I go a long time without eating. I once went to give a speech on an empty stomach assuming we would eat before my address.  Murphy's Law struck!  They asked me to speak first and dine later.  My unfed nerves gave me fits. 

For many of us, food either calms or excites us under pressure.  Take that into account and eat or diet to fit your speaking demands.  I have found that an apple is a terrific pre-presentation snack.  It has just enough sugar to ease agitation without provoking a major swing in your metabolism.

Just do it!

A no-brainer! The more you speak, the more confident you become, but don't look for the butterflies to leave.  Learn to compensate for them and you'll communicate well.     Just stay away from those cake donuts.


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Rick provides crisis PR consulting and media/presentation training for Fortune 500 corporations and is reacable at 336-768-9435, rick@amme.com, and www.amme.com