Author Recap: 3 Amazing Ways to Smash Public Speaking Anxiety

Why does public speaking cause so much anxiety for so many people, and how do you overcome it? 

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Highlights: 📍
🗣️❤️ Why Public Speaking Causes Anxiety: Explore the root causes of public speaking fear, from lack of preparation to fear of audience reaction.
🧠💪 Preparation and Practice: Learn key techniques for preparation, including the importance of knowing your material and physical preparation to reduce anxiety.
🔄🌟 Handling Distractions and Mistakes: Discover strategies like the SHIFT technique to manage distractions and recover from mistakes during your presentation.
🧩 Engaging Your Audience: Tips on how to connect with your audience, including using humor and reading the room.

➡️ Tune in if you're looking to overcome public speaking anxiety and become a more confident speaker.

We encourage you to listen to the full episode and as always, we hope the time you spend with us will help remove the stigma of anxiety and mental health in the workplace and your personal life.

Transcript

Well, that was great. It was good to have our dear friend Scott Christopher with us, Ches, and even better to learn, really an amazing executive coach who helps people become better public speakers, something that you've never had a problem with. Kind of get up in front of an audience, but it's interesting for me to hear from you that you say, no, no, I still get nervous after doing this for 20, 30 years. Yeah, it is interesting. I know you get this comment a lot. Do you still get nervous? I go, every time. In fact, I think if you don't get nervous, maybe it's an indication that you don't really care anymore. So many great reminders for me, you know, comfortable clothes, it sounds like a simple thing. Make sure you're comfortable. I'll never forget I was giving a speech and I bought these new shoes and the laces didn't stay tight. I remember I've got this hour-long presentation. I must have re-tied my shoes like five times. People were wondering what was wrong with that guy. So comfortable shoes, comfortable clothes. I love this idea of tense up and then relax and make sure that you've got. So that was one of my first things. What you're doing is you're bringing yourself to the present, right? Whatever you're doing, if you have to, it's the 5-4-3-2-1, where you see five things, you touch four things. There are the little tricks that people use, the breathing, the 4-4-8, whatever we want to call it. What you're doing is you're bringing yourself to the present, which I love. What did you think about this shift idea, the sudden halt, introduce frivolous topic idea? What do you think about that? I love that he's got an acronym for it and that he actually places it there. I think you and I kind of do that when we see that. I remember you and I were presenting in a big hall and it was clear we weren't engaging and we actually went down into the audience to break things up, that little shift, that pause when you talked about the French name that he made fun of or mispronounced, not made fun of, but mispronounced might Mikey pants Mikey pants Yeah, I was just up in Quebec when he said that I could definitely see that happening for an anglophone, you know those little shifts that do make a big difference whether it's a little pause or it's calling somebody out or I thought that was a great I Didn't realize that that's what we were doing and it's nice to have an acronym and a placeholder for that. I thought it was great. Yeah. I love that too. And just a little distraction, if we not take ourselves too seriously and most people in these kinds of meetings, now if you're presented to the board of directors, don't try and be funny. You know, they're not looking for that. But you can still not take yourself so seriously. But most times you're making a presentation, people want to be with you, they're so willing to have a little chuckle or a little laugh, and I've just seen it done so well where you just distract the audience a little bit and, you know, thanks Bill for wearing that shirt today, thanks, you know, whatever it is, just a silly little thing that gets everybody laughing. Yeah, you know, it's interesting in a big audience. Every now and again, you just lean down and say, hey, I just want to call out somebody here in the pink dress. I don't know who your name is, but you have such a great smile. I got to tell you, whenever I feel like I'm being a little low, I look over at you and you give me just this burst of energy. See, that's great. Yeah. It's a great shift. And people know who that person is and they go, yeah, that's her. You know, that is definitely her. I love that he kept saying, look, anxiety comes down when preparation goes up. You know, rehearse it, talk to your spouse or your friend, you know, run through it. I remember I was asked to speak at a dear friend's funeral last year. In fact, it's almost a year that that happened. I wanted it to be perfect because he was such a dear friend and his family. It was very unexpected that he passed. And I remember going for a long walk. I'll bet I practiced that 12 minutes. I'll bet I went through that 30 times if I went through it once. And so then when I got up there and I walked it out, you know, it wasn't like we had an AV and all that kind of stuff. It was just stories of my dear friend. I felt so comfortable talking to those people because my preparation was high so my anxiety was low. I love that idea because sometimes you'll hear people say, you know you can over prepare. Not really. A, not really. B, you know, when Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000 hour rule, that only works if you are actually doing practicing in a good way. So you can't practice the piano badly for 10,000 hours and get better. You actually have to, as you did, you got more comfortable with it, you found ways to add inflection and tell the story in a meaningful way. The little levity that you brought in, which I know you did, became more from the heart. So no, you can't over prepare, but push yourself. Make sure that as you prepare, you're using different tone of voice. You get higher reports, you get lower reports, you get quieter, you slow down. Try different things as you prepare. Yeah, one of the great things that a guy gave me a tip, and we actually did it with our Sunday school class, actually, we went to a revival meeting and watched the preachers, and to your point, they'd get real quiet. And then they'd come back real loud, and there'd be the pause, and there'd be the repetition, and then there'd be the callback. And I thought, you know, those preachers, boy, you want a lesson in public speaking and making it engaging with the tambourines and the hallelujahs and the amens, treat yourself. Go find a really fun evangelical church and listen to the preacher. It's always great fun. Well, you know, we talk about great stories, and I'll tell you the story we love to tell is about our producer, Brent Kline. I mean, when you talk about the things that he went through as a child to get where he is today. No, no, we're not supposed to talk about that anymore, remember? Anyway, we love Brent Kline. We think he's the greatest podcast producer of all time, and we always want to give him a shout out because he takes our mess and makes it into a masterpiece. And to Christy Lawrence, who finds all those great speakers for us, great guests like Scott Christopher, and to all of you who listen in. You know, you've got time to do whatever you want to do with your podcast and we're delighted that you took the time to spend it with us. If you like the podcast, please share it. We'd love to have you visit thecultureworks.com for some free resources to help you and your team thrive, and we encourage you to go to the website for your free offer for Magic Mind as well. But Adrian, what else do we do? We love speaking to audiences around the world, virtually or in person. In fact, we were just about to do a presentation for one of the world's biggest banks here, and they wanna hear more about gratitude. Other organizations wanna hear more about culture, leadership, resilience. Give us a call, we'd love to talk to you about your event. And that's our story. Oh, by the way, also pick up a copy of our book Anxiety at Work. And there's now, isn't there a training on this, Chess? There is, and if you go to thecultureworks.com, you can sign up as an individual. If you've got a team that wants to do it, please call us. We'll talk about a licensing agreement. We're getting great feedback on it, by the way. We're very proud of their training. Well, until next time, everybody, thanks so much for joining us, and we wish you the best of mental health. much for joining us and we wish you the best of mental health.