How to master your nerves and defeat your public speaking fears – 5 Must Dos

“…and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households,  and all the men who belonged to Korah with their  possessions”  –  Numbers Chpt 16: Verse 32

Do you have public speaking fear? Yes? You are not alone.

Glossophobia (the fear of public speaking) is as old as the art of rhetoric itself. It is an irrational fear because in the course of human history the earth has never opened up and swallowed a public speaker whole (even if some speechmakers probably deserve it)

Did you know that public speaking often ranks higher than the fear of heights, spiders and death in surveys? You may have heard the famous joke by Jerry Seinfeld about the fact that most people at a funeral would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy!

But does knowing that even the greatest public speakers historically have great, often debilitating nerves before giving their speeches, give you any comfort about your public speaking duties? Probably not.

Fear is bad. Nerves are good.

Fear inhibits your ability to perform. Nerves give you the fuel you need to deliver with passion.

Therefore, your aim when giving a speech or presentation is to master your nerves but  conquer your fear. But how to achieve that?

The things that don’t work

A tot of whiskey 

  Imagining the audience naked

  Meditation and slow breathing to achieve a Zen like calmness

All these things may help take the edge off the situation, but they are not solutions to the central problem.

You cannot defeat your fear or master your nerves with techniques that just tackle the physical symptoms you might experience on the day. You have to go to the heart of the issue.

Things that will not happen

The audience will not storm the stage and attack you. Even if you end up giving a terrible speech, the worst that will probably happen is muted applause from your audience.

Take, for example, this speech by candidate Phil Davidson. As bad as it is (and it is bad), the earth did not swallow him up whole.

How to master your nerves and defeat your fear – 5 Must Dos

If you can have a great conversation with a friend, you can give a great speech or presentation, because a speech is nothing more than a conversation with your audience. The trick is to replicate what you do naturally and without thinking in a private setting, to the unnatural setting of public speaking.

If you achieve this state, your fear will disappear and your nerves will be brought under control.

Here are 5 things to ensure that you do to make this happen:

1. Be a Master of your subject. Nothing is more calming than knowing that you know your stuff inside out.

2. Focus on the audience, not on yourself. By shifting the emphasis from ‘how am I doing?’ to ‘how is the audience doing?’ thinking about and talking about the audience and how they will benefit from what you are talking about, your concern about yourself will quickly fade.

3. Make genuine eye contact. This is more than just glancing over the top of the heads of the audience. Actually catch and engage several individuals in your audience, one at a time, all the way through your speech. The effect is that you will see your audience members as they respond and this will make you more comfortable, which will make them more comfortable, which will make you more confident, which will make them more confident, which will make you relax.

4. Pretend you are completely comfortable even if you are quivering. Audiences cannot hear your heart beat or see your knees knock. If they perceive your nerves, they will completely understand and accept it. So don’t draw attention to the fact that you are nervous or scared. Don’t make reference to it or joke about it. Just get on with it and get through the first 30 seconds, after which you will get into your flow.

5. Practise like mad. Practise the speech all the way through. Practise specific parts, specific lines, even specific words. Remember that Steve Jobs, widely considered the master of the business product launch/presentation, was meticulous even obsessive about every aspect of his presentations, rehearsing for hours and hours to get every aspect right. Churchill annotated every line of his text with points of emphasis, pauses and so on. Should you do any less?

Fear holds you back. Nerves will propel you forward. So aim to be calm but alert, nervous but not fearful, because in the context of speechmaking…

You have nothing to fear but fear itself!