Use Your Fear of Public Speaking to Your Advantage

Even if Our Biggest Fears of Public Speaking Happen, It Still Won’t Cause a Negative Difference in the Effectiveness of Our Message

All Politics aside, Senator Marco Rubio’s response to the President’s State of the Union address should ease the fears of most public speakers. 

 

The biggest obstacle that most people refuse to hurdle in order to share their valuable viewpoints, ideas, and information is the fear of public speaking. 

 

Those fears are specifically some of the following:

•  Not being perfect        

• Dry mouth

•  Sweating

• Red face

• Being laughed at

•  Being judged

• Not being liked

• Not being approved

Other fears include:

• White face

• Hands or knees shaking

• Feeling sick to your stomach

• Being stared at

• etc.

Senator Rubio had the first group of fears happen to him and he is still fine.  He survived, went to work the next day without losing his job, and got invited to be on many TV and radio talk shows.  He raised his profile by getting a lot of attention from the comedians, and questions from the press.  This resulted in more platforms to share his message. 

 

However, he did not get seriously judged for being nervous.  Nervousness is something all professional speakers can understand.  Even though most in the press brought it up, they (pundits of all political stripes) brushed off his nervousness as not important and not part of the message.

Ironically, Florida Democratic strategist, Steve Schale, said Rubio's water grab didn't hurt him and his initial good-humored response to it could end up being a plus for him.  Schale said Democrats should take Rubio seriously as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

The audience and the message, tailored to such audience, is where our focus should be, only partially on our performance.  To Senator Rubio’s credit, he did not focus on his performance, it was on his message.  Not once in his presentation did he apologize or bring attention to his sweating and dry mouth.

 

He will still be asked to speak many, many times in the future as his nerves were not and will not be a determining factor in his speaking ability.  He will be remembered for the water drink and could have handled that with better grace though; but, still it isn’t important in the larger picture.  We still need people like Senator Rubio and all other people such as you in all walks of life to have their voices heard in an effective, clear, and civilized way.

Do you want to fight for a cause?

Do you want to speak up; but, nobody listens?

 

Do you want to make an important point, but it gets lost in words?

Do you have a burning passion for a societal issue or political cause, but don’t know how to be heard?

That’s my job.  My purpose in this life is to teach people to stand up for their beliefs and be heard.  I teach you to say what you mean in the least amount of words with the highest possible impact.   

This is my cause, my way of speaking up, my important point, my societal issue.

You can call me and I will help you move people to action and/or change the way people think because of your passion.

www.MattsonCommunication.com

Don't Underestimate the Power of First Impressions

We all heard the phrase, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression.”  However, it is more powerful than most of us might think. Always “place your best foot forward” when making a first impression; otherwise, you will unfairly miss out on some great opportunities. At the very least, you are sure to “go down swinging.” 

Often, we make decisions based on biased perceptions because we do not always take in enough information to make sound decisions.  There are two main reasons for this: one, there is too much information in our environment causing “information overload.” Two, we “filter” out unwanted information selecting only information that confirms what we already know. This “selective listening” causes flawed or biased perceptions.

We like to think of ourselves as good people and consistent in that our behavior matches our values, beliefs, and attitudes.  As long as we have that “match,” we feel our decisions for the most part are good, and generally, we will stand by our decisions even if we had the chance to do them over again. 

When our behavior doesn’t match our beliefs—we slip into “cognitive dissonance.”  This dissonance causes us distress and disharmony triggering action to get the two back into harmony quickly.  We have at least two choices: we can change our thinking that is being threatened, or we can change our behavior. Reconciling dissonance affects first impressions in a big way.

In a job interview, the interviewer likely has perception biases too.  Given this assumption, she may instantly notice something unfavorable: your appearance, your dress, your handshake, or even the way you might answer the first question or two. More questions come and your responses may contradict her first impression; however, she won’t select that information because she already decided you will not be chosen; selecting contradictory information would cause her to have cognitive dissonance.

Amazingly, your answer on the 10^th question is the only answer that confirms her earlier unfavorable impression and she immediately thinks, “Aha!  I knew I was right about you” thus, she is confident in her decision, and you unfairly missed out on an opportunity.

4 Strategies to Managing the “Jitters”

Would you like to earn higher grades?  Would you like to land your dream job? Would you like to earn a job promotion?  Would you like to earn more money?  Most folks would answer yes to these questions; however, only a few will do what it takes to realize these things. 

One way to successfully earning higher grades, getting the dream job or job promotion, and earning more money is learning to give effective presentations! 

Being afraid of presentations shouldn’t stop us from doing them. Don’t be afraid; don’t avoid them at all costs.  Here are a few strategies for harnessing the fear, and getting the fear to work for you: 

One, Stay positive.  Understand that the biological feelings we are having like the nervous stomach are natural and we all feel it.  We are outside our comfort zone and it makes us uneasy.  Use those biological feelings to your advantage; they will make you sharp and animated. 

Two, Be rational.  Think of the worse things that could happen. Then, be realistic, and see how they will not happen.  No one is going to laugh at you, no one is going to throw tomatoes at you, you will not forget everything (if you do forget something, so what?  The audience won’t know it). 

Three, Focus on the listeners.  Concentrate on the listener getting the information she/he came to hear.  Don’t look at a presentation as a performance.  Presentations are not about the presenter; they are about the audience.  I hate to tell you this; but, the audience really doesn’t care about you, your hairstyle, your dress, your nose, you weight, or anything else about you.  They care about the message you are giving. 

Four, Prepare early and practice.  An audience will get downright hostile if you come unprepared.  You owe it to them to be prepared.  Many students tell me they aren’t good at presentations after only preparing for one day.  I tell them that is not the case, you can be good at presentations, you simply are not good at preparation.

Follow these four tips and learn to practice as often as you can; you will also learn that the “jitters” or nervousness is normal and natural.  Take advantage of this adrenaline rush and use it to keep you sharp, look confident, and enthusiastic.  You will become good at presentations thus earning promotions, notoriety, prestige, better grades, more money, and better jobs.

Made to Stick

When giving instructions as a manager, or when speaking to groups, it is important to follow six principles.  All the statistics, charts, and graphs in the world won’t “stick” in people’s minds even close to the effectiveness of these principles.  And, that is our goal right—to say things in such a way that the listeners remember?

Chip Heath from the Business Graduate School of Stanford University and his brother and Dan Heath a former researcher at the Harvard Business School have documented these principles in their in depth studies on ”the stickiness factor” of getting audiences to remember what you say.

Principle 1:  Simplicity. Get your idea down to a one sentence statement

Principle 2.  Unexpectedness. Violate peoples expectations, do something they don’t expect.

Principle 3.  Concreteness. Make your idea clear.

Principle 4. Credibility. Get People to believe your idea.

Principle 5.  Emotions.  Get people emotionally involved in your idea.

Principle 6.  Stories.  Relate your ideas into stories people can connect to in their minds.  Use a narrative. 

These principles can be remembered using the following mnemonic:  SUCCES.

I have found that fitting all these principles into my presentations and giving instructions has vastly improved my effectiveness.  It will for you too.

Source: Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath Random House New York 2007.    

It's Not Bad Speakers, it's Bad Speeches

In an email exchange with Jezra Kaye, author of the fabulous book on Public Speaking, Speak Like Yourself... No, Really! Follow Your Strengths and Skills to Great Public Speaking, I asked her why do we see so many poor presentations and speeches? 

Her viewpoint is (which I share) that some are not good speakers, and some are good speakers; however, “Their speeches aren’t good.”  From chapter two of her book, she shares her reasoning.

Here are the three steps in Doomed to Fail:

Doomed to Fail Step 1: Find out everything you can about your topic

Doomed to Fail Step 2: Put your facts into PowerPoint

Doomed to Fail Step 3: Ignore your speech until the day you give it

I found her reasoning to be spot on. 

For example, I got a call from a friend to help with his upcoming presentation.  He was promoted as new division manager at his manufacturing plant and one of his new duties was to give a presentation about his division to a monthly management meeting.  He didn’t know how to write a speech and called me.

I sat down with him and asked several questions about the audience, the topic, the purpose, what his boss expected, what other’s did, etc.  We developed a central idea and went to work supporting it with three examples and supported each example with some “Shop” stories and pictures.  I set up the Power Point to enhance his presentation.  Then, I strongly suggested he practice, practice, practice.

He showed the speech to the General Manager’s Executive Assistant, without my knowledge, and she said that nobody does it this way.  She said write out your speech, and I’ll put it on Power Point for you and all you have to do is read it.

So he scrapped all our work and fulfilled her request.  He gathered as much information as he could about his Division, wrote it down, and gave it to her to put on Power Point.  She typed it on several slides and gave it to him.  He, then, set it aside until the morning of the speech.

I called him that afternoon to ask how the speech went.  He said, “OK.”  I followed up, “Didn’t that opening line kill? How about that first slide on Power Point?  I bet they were rolling in the aisles.  You should have had their attention immediately!”  He sheepishly told me he didn’t give the speech we worked on.  When I asked why, he told me that the Executive Assistant told him that nobody did it that way. 

I guess she and he didn’t know that their way was exactly Jezra’s three steps to guarantee “doomed to fail.”