Overcoming Presentation Anxiety: Effective Strategies for Public Speaking (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: An exact quote from one of my clients. This is a man who is very intelligent, one of the best at what he does. And he said to me, Jason, I want to hire you so that you can help me conquer my fear. I actually gave a presentation to about 160 people and he comes up to me afterwards and he says, that's all great stuff, but here's the thing, I have such an irrational fear that my hands, they sweat and I forget what I said when I presented and I'm so scared when I come up front that I, he says, I can't, I don't even remember what I'm going to say. Even though I practiced, what should I do? I said, set up three two-hour sessions with me and we'll fix it. And here's what he said afterwards. I sent him an email and I said, did you conquer your fear in this last presentation? Here's what he said. The short answer is, yes, I was able to give my presentation effectively in front of a crowd without the security of a podium or table. Because when you go behind a podium, when you go back here, you lose your body language. It's gone. All you have is your facial expressions and your tone. But when you're here, you've got body language again, which remember is what percent? 55. So what did I do with this guy? I did these three things. The first thing I said to him, and this is something you're all going to want to write down because it's so safe to hear this. It's not whether you're nervous. It's whether you show it. Isn't that interesting? He said, well, what does that mean, Jason? And I showed him this slide. Stop doing these things. These are the top 12 things that if you do them, you look nervous. And when you do it, your audience doesn't feel what? Safe. Check this out. How many times have you seen people shift their weight back and forth like this or rubbing their collar or rubbing their arms over using the mouse in a demo, blinking excessively, widening eyes? Here's one of my favorites, the T-Rex stance. You guys ever seen this with presenters? Why do they do this? Because you should know this is the most calm, comfortable stance on the planet where your hands are to your sides, feet are standing still like a magnet, and your head's just moving back and forth like a swivel looking at people. Because what are you looking at when you're looking at me right now? You're looking at my what? My eyes, my face. You're not looking at my feet or my hands. But the reason presenters do this, the T-Rex, is because they have to have a little buffer between you and them. Otherwise, it's uncomfortable for them. And I oftentimes say to the presenter, it's not about you. It's about your audience. I'm not saying you're going to walk around like this all the time. What I am saying is you can use your hands to be dynamic. But when you're done with them and making a point, put them back in their holster, which is right here.