You’re about to speak to an audience and then it happens: the nerves accelerate.
Do you panic? No, you embrace it. That’s because you’ve been training for this and understand being nervous is actually a positive attribute.
Gaining confidence in public speaking was the topic of a recent “The Starr Conspiracy” podcast. Page Fehling, a communications consultant and a 20-year veteran broadcast news journalist, gives advice on becoming a better oral communicator.
Nerves are an essential part of speaking
Fehling says no matter how experienced you are, the nerves will hit you every time, but they can actually do more good than harm.
The key is training yourself to use nerves to “lock in and get focused,” as opposed to succumbing to them and shutting down. She suggests trying tricks like putting your body into a triumphant pose and forcing yourself to smile for at least 10 seconds before you speak.
These types of physical actions will change your psychological state and allow you to turn that nervous energy into focus.
Presenting on Zoom
While presenting on Zoom may not feel natural to you, Fehling disagrees with the notion you can’t effectively make the transition.
Fehling says people often tell her they can’t come alive when they’re just staring at a black hole the whole time. Her response is, “I stared at a black hole for 15 years of my career. I got you.”
She offers the practical tip of pasting a picture of someone you love as close as you can to where the camera is. Then make eye contact with that person the whole time and tell your story to them.
The key is to have the picture in the spot near the computer’s camera lens. This way, you’re not only making yourself feel more at ease, but you’re also making eye contact the entire time directly with your audience on the other side of the screen.
Being confident if English isn't your first language
When you’re not confident with the dialect, Fehling says it’s natural to look around a room and say, “There’s nobody else here who looks like me or sounds like me. I don’t belong here.”
Instead, change your mindset to “there’s no one else here who, for whatever reason, blank like me. What unique perspective do I bring to the table that people here may not have thought of?”
Fehling says shifting to this thinking becomes a confidence builder for the individual who feels “different.”
You can listen to the entire podcast here.