How to excel at Public Speaking

In Public Speaking anyone can move from unease to calm, from fear to confidence, from dullness to zest, from confusion to clarity, from being boring to being remembered, from stress to fun. This is one of those subjects where it really is “all in the mind“. Moving from fear to calm is a matter of knowing yourself, knowing your stuff and knowing the audience. The more familiar you are with them, the easier it gets. But what if you have never seen the audience before? Well, in this case you act-as-if you are very familiar with them. If you have given lectures and workshops or held speeches and presentations for many years then you have such a high familiarity with the subject and with people in general that there is zero fear when you publicly speak. Your challenge then is not fear but boredom. But if you are insecure then simply pretend to be with a group of people you have intimately known for ages. This will have an immediate calming effect. The sense of familiarity can be increased by the way you relate to and think of others in general. If you feel alienated from others in general, if you are uncommunicative in general, you won’t be very fond of public speaking. You can also increase your sense of familiarity with your audience by externalizing attention, that is, looking right at them,  breathing with them, being with them. Increasing familiarity (and thereby decreasing fear) can also be accomplished by being in the presence of people who are attentive to you – and this is why fear of public speaking is usually higher before you step on stage.Familiarity can be increased by learning about what the audience you are speaking to wants and does not want. An intimate understanding of what the people desire will have quite a calming effect.

Anytime a human being accesses the truth of the soul, it has a calming effect. The souls truth is that these people are not much different from you. By neurotic distortion – that is, trying to be bigger than human or trying to be smaller than human – you tense up. If you tell yourself “I am very, very important, my speech is very, very important and the people are idiots who have to learn what I have to say” you are trying to make yourself bigger. If you tell yourself “I am so insignificant, nobody cares about what I have to say” you are trying to make yourself smaller. Both attitudes will create unneeded tension within you and within the room. The truth of the soul is that you are very familiar with any human. And  as you deeply understand this, you will never be worried about public speaking again. And you will be able to connect with who you are speaking to, no matter the topic, time or place.

If you are too concerned or timid about your public speaking, first gain more familiarity with who you are, then with who others are, and also with the subject you are talking about. Familiarity with your subject allows you to focus on it in detail, and as you focus, all concern and worry fade away as you get into the flow of your expertise.

For those who have already overcome fear, it’s a matter of finding zest, of not only having mastered a subject but also loving to talk about it. You can gain or re-gain zest by adjusting the topic of your speech or lecture to what you more believe and enjoy. Another way to regain enthusiasm for speaking is by coming unprepared…by preparing no notes, no papers, no plan, no anything. In this way your speaking becomes a spontaneous expression of your soul. Of course, if you are on the consciousness level of fear, you certainly need preparation to have control. But on the highest level of this art, your speech is almost “channelled” from the soul-plane, without much need for rigid preparation. If this is too high for you, see if you can find a balance between memorizing or reading off script and talking without script. In the case that you do use notes or script, do not stick to them like glue. Keep making pauses between speaking, keep looking up at your audience to establish rapport.

It’s easier to get your message across to people if that message is carried by your connection with people (for example over eye-contact) and your enthusiasm for the subject, rather than intellectualizing. There are many artists, politicians and activists that are too smart for their own good. Their talk is so laden with abstract conceptualization that nobody bothers to listen. Too much intellectualizing and complexity may prove that you are very smart, but it will often not do much for audiences, unless that audience has a way above-average attention-span. Reducing intellectualization, difficulty and complexity means simplifying your speech, having your message be remembered by using pictures, examples and multiple contexts. If you are inspired yourself, you can inspire the audience. Improving these various skills is merely a matter of practice and studying those already good at public speaking.

Moving up from the level of fear and boredom you one day reach the level of joy and confidence and you look forward to public speaking rather than shying away from it.  Rather than causing stress, Q&A; Sessions with audiences then cause Elation.