One of the greatest challenges in public speaking is the matter of nervousness. I’ve not yet met the group in a workshop on this subject, where a majority of the participants are NOT nervous. In fact, I try to make a point of it. It was many years ago when I learned to reverse the question. Instead of asking; “who here is a bit nervous about today’s topic?” I simply ask; Is anyone here NOT nervous about public speaking? In most groups, there are none. In some groups, a couple of participants are not nervous about public speaking when we begin. It’s far better to ask those few to raise their hands than to put already nervous individuals in the spotlight with this question.
There have been many surveys conveying the same result as my own experience. Seinfeld makes a good point of it in this clip – even if old, so not outdated 🙂
Jerry Seinfeld about what people are most afraid of: seinfeld-public-speaking
A participant in one of my workshops experienced what many of us fear most during a public speaking exercise. It happened during one of the basic exercises, where she was supposed to share her story with a group of just three other participants. But she froze. Tears welled up, and she began to cry. She stopped the exercise and stepped out into the hallway. When I joined her outside, she was sobbing. We talked for a while about how common this type of reaction actually is. We also revisited something we’d discussed earlier— my opening of this post; how common nervousness is. She took some time to collect herself and calm down, then returned to the training room. She rejoined her group and completed the exercise. Later that same day, she stood in front of the entire group and shared her story. And just a few months later, she was on stage in a public venue, delivering her story vividly, expressively, and beautifully to an audience. This was an act of heroism on her behalf. And I think that it helps to realize that you are not alone in feeling nervous!
I don’t have many great practical tools to share in this department, except very general ones. Like focus on your breathing; long, slow breaths that help calm the heart. And work with your shoulders; up as far as you can, hold for three seconds, then let go. Repeat. Typically, when I work with somebody that has a problem in this department, I try to find solutions tailored for them. But one thing I did discover, that worked for me, was that acting confident leads to feeling confident. And much later, I discovered that someone had made a scientific study of this and come to the same conclusion. I will talk about this in the next post.
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