Media Training Worldwide

More Tips On Handling Speaker Anxiety

Would you be nervous about playing a high stakes tennis match on center court at Wimbledon? Of course you would. But what if you were playing someone who had never won a tennis match before, never hit an ace, never knocked a winning forehand? In fact, what if you were playing someone who had never played tennis before in his or her life, and wasn’t especially athletic?

Now, you aren’t so nervous, are you? Especially if you play tennis every couple of months.

Most of us are in very similar situations when we get up to speak at our company’s board meeting or at an industry conference. Most speakers are lousy. They have never given a “winning” speech in the sense that they have never thoroughly engaged an audience. Most speakers are boring because all they do is get up and read or recite a bunch of facts.

So when you start to get a little nervous before you stand up to speak, stop and think about the competition. If you are lousy speaker, the worst thing that can happen is that you will seem comparable to everyone else speaking that day. It’s like entering a golf tournament and knowing that if you shoot 150 for 18 holes of golf, you will still be as good as half the people playing that day. Kind of takes the pressure off, doesn’t it?

Prepare for your speech. Practice, rehearse, and then rehearse some more. Try to give a fantastic, wonderful speech. But when nerves do creep in at the last minute, try to keep some perspective. Even if you fail at being excellent, you can still be better than average. And that’s no reason to make you sweat.