“Previously, on this subject …”
About thirty years ago, I was lucky enough to get some great advice about public speaking, which has stayed with me ever since.
I was at an industry conference in the States, where most of the presentations were on technical or business subjects; but I’d discovered previously that US conferences often have a motivational speaker of some kind too. This one was no exception; it had a football coach, who was renowned as a motivator; but it also had a man who was a million miles from being a football coach, as you will read, but was a motivator extraordinaire. His name was Kenneth Wydro …
Now read on …
In my last post I mentioned some of the tips Ken Wydro gave for terrified (and even experienced) speakers. His talk was so powerful it kick-started me on a 30-year career as a speaker, so it’s clear to me that some more of his wisdom is worthy of recycling here.
“All those eyes”
Ken has trained and consulted at many large corporations in the States. He tells the story of a senior executive who said: “I was perfectly composed … before I took the platform. I was confident, prepared … until I saw all those eyes. Then the lights went out. I went blank … embarrassed myself terribly. I was cold and sweating at the same time. My mouth was dry.” Ken’s experience has told him what a challenge this is for so many people; I venture to say that’s it’s sometimes even worse presenting to six colleagues or a small board than to hundreds of conference delegates.
Last week, at a UK meeting, the head-hunter and personal branding guru John Purkiss used a very dramatic comparison when talking briefly about this particular challenge. He said: “many people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of dying.”
So Ken Wydro, John Purkiss and scores of other experts know what a problem this is. How can we minimise the potentially scary effect of “all those eyes”?
Push your own buttons: learning to relax
Ken Wydro says that if we are to push our own buttons, we must learn techniques for relaxing ahead of any stressful event, especially public speaking. His book contains some good tips on this and I recommend it.
You may already know that meditation, affirmations, visualisation, NLP (neurolinguistic programming) techniques, hypnotherapy, all have a place. I have known speakers who successfully used Valium to counter the pre-speech nerves. It’s a question of finding what works for you; what reduces the butterflies yet still leaves you with enough of nature’s fight-or-flight adrenaline to give you an energy boost and let your brain be a few words ahead of your tongue, which is the way I think of the beneficial effect of adrenaline.
On this blog I will be discussing a variety of techniques to handle the “all those eyes” problem; because unless we can do that it’s pointless talking about the other important aspects of public speaking, including the more practical aspects of preparation; structure; delivery, etc. You may or may not know that Muhammad Ali is not only the most famous boxer in history but was also a great exponent of using visualisations and affirmations to manage his subconscious mind before a big event. Yes, the events were boxing matches, but the principle is the same.
I shall also be inviting some successful speakers to share their thoughts as guest bloggers or as interviewees.
Watch this space!
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
To get up-to-date info on US author Kenneth Wydro, click here.
For info on his book “Think on Your Feet”, click here.
To find out more about my talks; or to book me to speak to your club, group or business, click here.