Monthly Archives : June 2017

Mastering your ability to deliver a presentation or speech is an essential part of your future success as an employee or entrepreneur.

It allows you to promote yourself, make new contacts and provides an excellent platform for sharing your ideas and vision with a broader audience, in conference rooms and event halls alike.

Contending with speech fear and anxiety isn’t easy, but it can be done. Tweaking your preparation habits and the way you convey your message, along with an awareness of your audience’s perceptions and expectations, can help you hone the skills of a successful, persuasive and world-class communicator.

The psychology behind public speaking manifests itself in subtle ways.  Mastering the minutia of what’s happening in the minds of the audience as well as the speaker is essential in effectively sharing your message.

These next few tips will help you captivate and keep the seemingly ever-elusive attention of an audience.

Adjust Your Gestures

In an article for Entrepreneur, contributor Neil Petch noted a famous study as evidence to the power of nonverbal communication.

“Dr. Albert Mehrabian, author of Silent Messages, famously conducted research in the early 1970s which found that just 93% of any message is conveyed through non-verbal communication,” Petch wrote.

Gestures and gesticulations provide a direct connection to the brain, allowing extra access to memories and ideas, without which it would be considerably difficult for humans to communicate and share with each other.

“A previous 2012 study … found that gestures make people pay attention to the acoustics of speech,” explains Christopher Bergland, author and contributing writer for Psychology Today. “When you see a hand gesture, your auditory system expects to also hear speech.”

Control your body movements and you have added a layer of control over the audience’s attention.

Give Them a Show

Geoffrey James, contributing editor of Inc.com, features ideas from a former Harvard psychology department chair on how a bit of “razzle dazzle” via visual aids can help your audience retain information.

“The latest neuroscience research has revealed that human beings process words and pictures in different physical areas of the brain. If your presentation includes pictures alongside text, people are twice as likely to remember your message,” James wrote.

It may take some extra preparation time, but creating an interactive dynamic with an audience will promote far more attentiveness and genuine engagement.

Attract Attention Through Tone, Connections and Practice

Another Entrepreneur guest writer, Jonathan Li, pointed out that you’ll have to fight hard for your audience’s attention.

“The scarcest commodity in the business world is attention. If you’re a boring speaker, the audience will check their emails or think about where to have dinner tonight,” Li wrote in 2015.

Don’t forget to break interrupt the monotony. Our brains aren’t naturally configured to tune into the drone and lulls of a lackluster speech.

However, with a few adjustments, you will improve your delivery and confidence.

By setting the right tone of voice, interrupting the audience’s day-dreaming by asking direct questions, and creating emotional connections through personal anecdotes, you are sure to captivate them both with your expertise and your personal, vested interest.

It is also important to mention the role of practice and repetition in confidence and connection with an audience.

Knowing your material is an extremely necessary component in giving your listeners a reason to feel included. You’ll also connect with them on a deeper, more meaningful level.

Having a solid grasp on a pithy, focused speech also frees up extra processing space in your brain so you can spend more energy building a genuine, off-the-cuff rapport and less on giving a tired, uncertain lecture.

Don’t Fear It: Embrace It

Embracing the fear of public speaking will go a long way in maintaining a lasting, successful career. World-class communications skills are attainable, not through nervous pacing or breathing into a paper bag, but with an appreciation for communicating your entrepreneurial view.

No matter how you dress it up, however, there is no excuse for failing to make use of the incredible spectrum of communication and persuasion tools at your disposal.

Break up the rhythm of your speech to aid in the retention of information and get the audience active with methods that nudge them to utilize several parts of the brain at once.

Applying these principles will help you overcome your fear of speaking and will create presentations and pitches that engage the audience and, ultimately, lead to your success.

Inspiring the hearts and minds of those around you with an on-point presentation or pitch is easily one of the most daunting tasks facing today’s otherwise intrepid entrepreneurs.

Be it a convincing filibuster at a meeting you weren’t prepared for, presenting for the promotion of a lifetime, or giving a TED talk in front of some of the most influential people, it all requires finely honed speaking and presenting skills.

Fear is the major opposition to giving eloquent speeches, and, for many of us, public speaking doesn’t come naturally.

The following musings from seasoned speakers will allow you to not only identify some of the common ailments afflicting business professionals from all walks and disciplines, but will help develop your personal style and stage presence to command even the most intimidating group of entrepreneurs and business leaders without all the stuttering and pacing.

Listen and Learn

“It’s true that the mind can’t focus on two things at once,” declares Beverly D. Flaxington in a 2015 Psychology Today article. “Statistically speaking, 3 out of every 4 people fear public speaking (and) dealing with the effects of speech anxiety is so prevalent that there is a formal term for it – glossophobia.”

What does this mean for you, the speaker? Glossophobia comes in many shapes and sizes, but you don’t have to resign yourself to a fate worse than death.

After their foray into the terrifying world of TED Talks, Wharton and Harvard psychologists Amy Cuddy and Adam Grant shared their insights with Business Insider’s Shane Lebowitz.

Both suggested paying attention to the audience and other presentations as an effective way to take the focus off your own anxieties. Grant recalled how being engrossed in a friend’s speech relieved made him forget about being nervous.

“We’d been practicing together for months beforehand, and he delivered the best version of his talk. And I was so engrossed in flow that I forgot that I was speaking next, and I heard my name and said, ‘Ahh, gotta get on stage!’”

His assertions are supported by Cuddy’s research on studies correlating self-focus and high anxiety.

It may sound counterintuitive, but tuning into other people and presentations distracts from your own anxieties, and can teach and inspire you.

Absorb others’ confidence and mannerisms when they’re speaking and you’ll be able to demystify the task. You might find yourself invigorated and eagerly awaiting the spotlight, rather than pacing and fidgeting in your office or backstage in a palpable cloud of self-doubt and worry.

No Need for Speed

Most of us have experienced it: the speeding pulse, the racing thoughts, the debilitating anxiety that compels flight rather than fight when it comes to public speaking.  You have only to describe the symptoms to recognize the clear and present danger to your effectiveness as a speaker.

Adrenaline is by far public speaking’s enemy number one. Nerves must be expelled one way or another, and the forum for most public speaking venues doesn’t always lend itself to venting those anxieties on an audience.

“That energy has to go somewhere,” posits Forbes contributor Nick Moran in “Why We Fear Public Speaking and How to Overcome It.” Some speakers get ‘happy feet’ – they wander endlessly all over the stage. Some people lose affect. They become rigid, with few facial gestures, and appear virtually devoid of emotion. Others speed up, filling every available nanosecond with rapid-fire talk.”

Being mindful of our nervous ticks is essential to taking center stage in the business world. The importance of developing good physical habits before a presentation mustn’t be underestimated.

Deep belly breathing, exercise and meditation center you and keep the residual backstage adrenaline rush at bay so you can focus on sharing the message you painstakingly prepared.

Be a Little Full of Yourself

You’ve heard that confidence is key, but it can be tough to find the door to successful public speaking in business when you’re too busy navigating the various twists and turns of public speaking anxiety.

The audience feeds on your confidence just as they sense uncertainty in a stage actor delivering lines without conviction or emotion. You can mitigate this effect by deciding beforehand who you want to be perceived as the moment you walk out to perform.

Faking it until you make it is a tried and true adage for a reason. Just as an actor prepares their new identity before the cameras record, so too can you apply the same principle in your public speaking. The results will astound you.

What’s Ahead: Common Pitfalls

Once you’ve mastered the mental muzzle keeping your entrepreneurial voice at bay, you’ll be ready to focus on the minds of your audience. The work doesn’t end in the mind of the speaker.

We must also be cognizant of the perceptions and expectations of the audience. In part two of the Psychology of Public Speaking series, we’ll explore the common pitfalls that you might find when you’re trying to rein in not only your anxiety, but the anxiety of an expectant crowd.