By Rosemary Ravinal
Public speaking is the foundation of leadership. Whether you are facilitating an online meeting, delivering a new business pitch, representing your company on an industry panel, doing a podcast interview, or speaking at a condo board meeting, how well you communicate will set you apart.
Public speaking mastery is hard work and requires tons of practice and great coaching. But if you take your delivery alone and the mental blocks that hold you back from greatness, there are a few things you can do improve right away.
1. Turn the terror into terrific.
There is a myth that fear of public speaking is the number-one fear of human beings. An Indian Buddhist treatise called The Five Fears ranks speaking in front of people as fifth, with fear of death as number one. Generally, public speaking jitters derive from poor preparation, nervous anxiety, and fear of embarrassment.
It is common knowledge among actors that stage fright can paralyze even the most seasoned of performers. But what the pros learn is to turn the terror into terrific by using the nervous energy to spur them to peak performance. Author Rob Gilbert put it this way: “It is all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.”
2. Be yourself, be authentic.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken,” Oscar Wilde said.
When you present on Zoom or in person, you bring ideas to life with your voice and charisma. You and who you are make the difference. If you are stiff, wooden, and mechanical, people will find if difficult to relate to you. Know your stuff. Be the master of your content but take a chance at playing yourself. If you make a mistake, your audience will most likely be on your side.
3. Use body language wisely.
Non-verbal communication—facial expressions, hand gestures, and body movement—enhance comprehension of what you say by more than 60 percent. Your words alone fall short when you are in front of a group of people or on the video conference screen. But be careful not to over-gesture out of nervous energy. Calibrate your body language with confidence, enthusiasm, and an attitude of service to your audience, and verbal and non-verbal will work in concert.
4. Fall in love with the sound of your voice.
When Dale Carnegie wrote Public Speaking for Success (an instant best-seller) in 1936, an audio recording of a speech was cumbersome and expensive to create. Today, we can do it handily with a smartphone. Record your speech and play it back without judgment. Focus on what you like, write down what you want to polish. Make a video and mute the sound when you play it back. Do your movements match what you are trying to convey?
Meeting recordings on video are made easy with Zoom. Get a friend or colleague to watch with you and make constructive comments based on what you want to achieve. Do not attempt to become Tony Robbins because there is only one Tony Robbins. Likewise, there is only one of you. Embrace the uniqueness of how you show up and make it the best version of your style and personality.
5. Get a coach and practice among peers.
Self-confidence in speechcraft comes with practice, practice, and practice. There is no shortcut. Here is an insider tip: a well delivered TED talk requires at least 20 hours of practice. And this does not consider the time (days, weeks, and months) required from ideation to final script and supporting visuals.
If you follow me, you know that I am a Toastmaster and an officer in my club. There is no better place to practice public speaking than Toastmasters. It is like going to the speaker’s gym, but better. The Toastmasters method is designed for peer feedback and evaluation—the secret sauce for accelerated speaker development.
However, when you have a high-stakes, make-or-break speech or presentation in a virtual or physical setting, a professional coach can work with your natural abilities and personality and empower you to communicate with authority and impact.
Rosemary Ravinal brings more than three decades of experience as a communications expert in the U.S. mainstream, Hispanic and Latin American markets, and has held senior public relations positions at multinational corporations, non-profit organizations and agencies in New York and South Florida.
