Dr. Aziz shares five ways to calm presentation nerves: rehearse moderately, focus on your purpose before you speak, look at engaged audience members, use repetition to desensitize anxiety, and prepare emotionally through somatic tracking and imagery.
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If you have a presentation coming up that you're nervous about or you need to get better at presenting in general, you have to watch this video all the way through. I'm going to share five key tips with you to become better at presenting. And here's the thing. Most of the advice out there on presenting is not that useful if you're really afraid of presenting, because it's not addressing the underlying cause of that fear, which is a form of social anxiety. Most people don't think of that. They don't talk about themselves having social anxiety when it comes to presenting, but that's exactly what it is. That's my specialty. I'm Dr. Aziz. I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence, and I've helped thousands of people break free from social anxiety. And presenting is hands down the number one place where everybody feels social anxiety to some degree. And you can overcome this. You can shift this. I want to share how in this video, but you got to take these steps. So I'm excited for you. Ready? Here we go. Number one is probably the advice you heard everywhere on the Internet, which is rehearsal. You got to come up with what you're going to say and practice it. Practice in the mirror, practice in your car. Tell yourself, give it to a presentation to your friends and your family. And look, rehearsal is a useful tip. That's why it's tip number one. A little bit of rehearsal goes a long way. In fact, I've seen that people. The biggest mistake with rehearsal. Rehearsal is that people over rehearse and they confuse the rehearsal for the actual presentation. And then when they go to give the presentation, one of two things happens. This might have happened to you. Number one, you actually don't remember everything you rehearsed. You know, the spotlights on people looking at you. Now I'm nervous and we freak out because too much rehearsal and reliance on rehearsal is your only form of preparing means now you think the presentation is the delivery of your rehearsal. And so if you go off the rails or someone asks a question you didn't prepare for, you just got to jump out the window. There's no solution. Right? So we freak out. Or number two, the biggest other problem with rehearsal is that it just sounds really dry and canned. And it's the most disengaging. Sounds like you're reading some paragraph of text that maybe ChatGPT wrote for you and that doesn't actually engage your audience and help people want to connect with you, buy from you, follow your ideas or whatever the goal of your presentation Is So here's the key with rehearsal. A little bit goes a long way. Rehearse, go through the outline. You start, say the first couple sentences of your talk. Get a general idea. But realize this rehearsal is about getting warmed up. Rehearsal is about getting familiar with the material. It's not about being able to deliver a perfect speech. Tip number two for giving an awesome presentation and feeling confident while you do it is to get into the right state. This is a term that you might have heard from NLP or Tony Robbins, who's the king of nlp. Which is the right emotional and mental state. What is the right emotional mental state? Well, I'll tell you what the wrong one is, which is what most people go into presentations with, which is something this. Oh, God, oh God, oh God. I hope this doesn't go terrible. Oh, God. Right. What is that state? Fear, dread, concern, self absorption. These do not lead to a compelling presentation. So what is the right state? Well, the first thing people say, get in state. Does that mean jump up and down? That could help you. That could shift your physical energy. In fact, that's a useful tool. But often state is not just about your physical energy. It's about where you're focusing. What is the meaning you're making of this situation? So what is the purpose of your presentation? That's a key question to ask yourself. To get in the right state. What is the purpose of this? And if your purpose is I got to get through it, you got to do better than that. You're not going to have much energy for that. Or I just got to better not mess up. Okay, that's also low energy. Or I got to get them to like me or I got to get them to buy this thing. They may sell. Aziz, that's the point. It's the seals. Now you might say, aziz, that's the point is a sales presentation. I got to get them to buy from me. Yeah, but ultimately what's the point? Right? What's the point for the buyer? Or if it's a B2B, the company that's going to buy it's going to sell it to their consumer. Like, what is the ultimate purpose of this? You want to connect with something bigger than I hope I don't get in trouble and people don't like me. That's not. There's like you're going to be in a fear protective state. No matter how much you jump up and down, if that's your focus. So why do I want to give the presentation? Am I here to connect? Am I Here to influence. Why? What's the impact of that? Before I'm going to teach with an audience, before I record a video like this, I focus on you. I really think about the person I'm talking to and what is the effect that I want to have in their life. And I really imagine it. I'll take a purse specific person from my audience and imagine them being more free and confident and all the ripple effect of that in their life. And all of a sudden, boom, your anxiety just disappears because now you're focused outside of yourself on a larger impact. So why are you giving the presentation? Keep asking yourself and focusing on things until you feel more energized, more inspired, less self absorbed, less self protective, less scared. Tip number three. Oh, and then after that, if you want to jump up and down, pound your chest, say yes, that's fine too. Just don't do it right before the meeting in the conference room or on the zoom. Maybe if it's a virtual meeting or something before you sign on, jump up and down like a maniac. Put on a favorite song. That could be helpful. That can energize your physical body. But the key thing here is the focus. Okay, tip number three, this is another component of focus, but that's during the presentation. Who do you focus on? Now? The number one mistake that people made, and I made this for years, is when you're giving the presentation, you focus on who. The person who looks the most disinterested or disliking or upset with you. Right. I remember the very first time I gave a presentation. Well, the very first time I had a panic attack. But later on when I started to, I knew I wanted to give more presentations, would sign up for them, I'd volunteer, which is getting ahead to tip number four. But I would look for opportunities. I would give the presentations. And guess who I would focus on? I would focus on the guy in the back on his cell phone who looked like he didn't want to be there. And then I'd be like, oh, this is going terribly wrong. Oh, no. Right. And that is, we're going to sink your presentation. So who do you focus on when you're giving the presentation? Focus on the people that are the most engaged with you. Focus 90% of your energy on the people that are the most engaged with you. Person who's nodding, the person who's taking notes, the person who's there with you, connected with you. And then occasionally you don't ignore people, but occasionally look at them. The guy on his cell phone like Look, I'm not afraid. I'm talking to you too, guy on your cell phone. And now I'm going to bring my energy back to the people who are really here with me. Because otherwise you're just going to start to get in your head, you're going to spiral, you're going to spin out and just don't focus energy on that person. You don't need to get everyone there to like you. That's not your purpose. Remember what is your purpose? Connect to that ground in that and you're going to have way more power and confidence to actually influence the people that are open to you while you're talking. So focus on those people. Tip number four is the mother of which is repetition. This comes back to good old fashioned behaviorism and gradual exposure, which is you keep doing the thing that you're scared of. And over time your nervous system realizes one key insight, which is, I did not die. I didn't die. And so that's what I started doing. I remember the first presentation I had. I literally had a panic attack in front of a group of about 80 people. I was a computer science student back at UC Santa Barbara and I gave up there. I'd never hear a presentation in my life. I went to a very small high school. There's not that many people there. I mean, I did some stuff in front of my class, but it was like 20 kids. Now I'm in this room of 80 people. I'm gonna give a presentation on a project that I've been doing with my three computer science buddies. I was the first one. I was okay talking to them. They're like, oh, you know your stuff. You should, you know, lead us off in the talk. And I said, okay guys. And I got out there into the group. It was like an auditorium style seating and I was looking at the people and I had my notes and I wasn't even that nervous ahead of the presentation. I don't even know to be afraid yet. And then I got in that situation, I looked at the group of people and I felt, oh no, there's a lot of people here. They're all looking at me. I started to breathe and the only problem is I only breathed in and I didn't breathe out. I just had this total anxiety, overwhelmed, started to sweat out of my armpits, like I'm freaking out. And then my buddies Mo and Phil, like looking over at me, it's like, I don't think he's gonna do anything. And so Mo walked in, he's like, all right, we're gonna start talking. And I just kind of receded into the background for the whole presentation. Just lost my shit. It was terrible. So after that. Well, actually, a number of. When I decided I was going to take control of my confidence, I realized I need confidence not just to approach and to date and social confidence. I want to be comfortable in front of a group of any size. And so I started to go to places to look for opportunities to speak up. And there is nobody who becomes confident public speaking or presenting without doing a lot of repetition. Nobody. Every single person that you think is just unnatural has done this dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. Might say, thousands. I don't got that kind of time, Aziz. Look, you don't have to do thousands to be more confident at this. But it's this energy shift. And you say, I'm going to seek this out versus, oh, God, I hope they don't call on me. That's how most people are. So what does this look like? This means when you're in work meetings on zoom or in person, you speak up more and say, well, that's. I'm not scared in that environment. Good. Do it more, because the more you do it there, you might be a little nervous there. So good. That's a light level. Wait to start lifting to build that gradual exposure muscle. Then you go to places that are a little more intimidating. Then you have. Look for new and unique opportunities. Every time I've been at a friend's wedding and they've asked me to share, I said, yes, absolutely, I'll give a toast in front of everybody for you. Why? Because it's looking for those opportunities. And it's sad because a lot of people I know are at someone they loves wedding or anniversary or something, and they want to share, and they have all this sentiment in their heart, and they can't even share it because they're afraid of presenting in front of all these people. So not only is this going to give you more confidence, it's going to open up your life in new and exciting ways, too. Tip number five, which is the real secret to preparation that nobody's talking about, when everyone says preparation, they just mean tip number one, which is rehearsal, which we already talked about some of the pitfalls with. Right. So what is the real secret to presenting and preparing for that presentation so you can give it with confidence? It is actually to prepare yourself emotionally, not just the word, because if the emotion is flowing, you're going to give a great presentation and you're going to look Good doing it. So what does that mean? It means before the presentation, whenever you start thinking about maybe it's two weeks ahead, if you're really nervous, maybe it's a month ahead, maybe it's two days before. I want you to actually imagine yourself. You can sit down and close your eyes as you do this. Imagine yourself giving the presentation online, in person. It doesn't. And then you're going to notice something. You're either going to feel excited, relaxed, confident, or something other than that. Maybe dread, maybe tight, maybe anticipation, maybe panic. I don't know. It doesn't matter what you feel. What you want to do is you want to actually bring your full attention to the feeling. The feeling in your body is called the peace process. I teach it. If you go to my site, not knifebook.com and enter your email there, there's a whole guided audio about how to do this. But you basically are going to see sit with that feeling. It's a somatic tracking technique. You're going to sit with that feeling and not try to resist it, not try to fight it, not try to get rid of it, not try to think your way out of it, not to analyze where, analyze where it came from from 25 years ago. No, this moment. You're just going to be with the feeling. And when you do that, it actually discharges the tension energy and creates a fight flight to parasympathetic response. So instead of being oh God, oh God, oh God, it's I'm okay, and now in your mind and you're in your psyche, presenting is okay. And that kind of preparation, if you do that and get more and you get into states of calm beforehand, it will change everything for you. So I highly encourage that you practice that. So these tips will help you transform your experience of presenting. I want to hear about it. And if you really want to take this further and you want to build that muscle of confidence, the best way to do that. I know, is through my program, Confidence University, which is four courses that will guide you to core confidence, social confidence, dating, relationship confidence, career confidence, including presenting. So you can show up as the most bold, powerful, confident version of you. Go to my website, drazeez.com-raziz.com and just click on products there you can learn all about Confidence University and please share down in the comments below what you're finding most valuable until we speak again and have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
