Public Speaking Tips - How to get over fear of public speaking?

How to get over the fear of public speaking. If you're an expert in your field, and you should be as an entrepreneur, then public speaking will become a part of what you do. You want to be the face of your company. You want to be able to promote yourself properly, have people be able to spread your message. And so part of your responsibility is to be able to do great media interviews and be able to do presentations to spread your word. I got a great question from one of my readers, Sidell, who wrote in to say, "I need tips to get over my fear of public speaking and deliver a great presentation." I know it's scary. Anything you do for the first time is scary, especially when there's a group of people watching you and, you know, there's an opportunity to fail and suck and worry about how people are going to think about you. It's one thing to fail on your own where nobody can see, But failing in public where people can watch, that's scary. That adds a whole other level to things that makes it a lot harder to get into. But it is a skill that you can learn just like anything else, and you can become a lot more comfortable with it. I remember one of my presentations, one of my first kind of big presentations, I was flown to Brunei after I'd sold my software company to help teach their young entrepreneurs how to be successful as entrepreneurs. And I was shocked to find out that it was a huge room, there were 500 people there, I was up on a big stage and it was being broadcast nationally on their television station. I hadn't done that many presentations up to that point, so I was sweating bullets. I was really nervous. But what really helped me through that and through every presentation, it wasn't things like imagine people in their underwear, imagine you're talking to your family. I don't know, I read a lot of this stuff. None of that helped me. If that works for you, go for it. But for me, it didn't work. What helped me was number 1, remembering why I'm doing this. And this isn't just for speaking, this is for anything that makes you nervous. If you are going into a sales call, if you're hiring your first employee, whenever you start something new that you haven't done before, you're gonna be a little scared and nervous about it. But remember why you're doing it. So you're getting up on stage to do a presentation, why are you there? And it should be to help people, right? If it's not to help people, then you shouldn't be doing it. You're not gonna get a great result. Your goal going up on stage and doing that presentation is to help the audience realize something, to help them make a change in their lives for the better. So it's a noble goal. It's something that you're up there to help. You're not up there to pitch or to sell. And I've always found that helpful for me. Even— not so much now, but when I started my business, EvanCarmichael.com, I got nervous talking to big companies. You know, Microsoft will call me and say, "We want to work with you." And I get so nervous before the call. Like, "Oh, I got a call in an hour with Microsoft. What am I going to say? I don't want to look stupid. I want to showcase my expertise and know what I'm talking about. I hope I don't say the wrong thing." I got so nervous, I built up this whole thing in my head, this block. And I realized, like, these guys, I can help them. I know I can help them. This isn't something that I'm not sure if I can do or not. I know I can help them. I know I can help them get results, and so that calms me. And again, this works for me. I don't know if it works for you, but it works for me. So I think about my audience, and I know I can help them. Standing in front of this camera and speaking to you guys, it's a little less nerve-wracking than being on stage, but I do it more confidently because I know I can help, and that's my intention. It's not to sell you on my worksheets or my website or my business or anything. It's to help you, help answer this question. And so that can be a great goal going in. The second thing that I found really useful for me is practice. Just like any other skill you want to learn, you want to learn how to do something, you have to practice. And you start small. And sometimes the end goal may be, may be so big and maybe so unattainable because you don't know the steps to get there. You know, if you want to learn how to snowboard, you may look at some of the great snowboarders and they're doing all these tricks and flips and you can't even stand up on your board and you think, that's impossible, I'm never going to get there. If you look at speakers and you look at Tony Robbins or whoever your favorite speaker is and you see how great he is and you think, "I'm never going to be like that," and so you don't get started because you're too afraid. You can be great, but you have to start at the beginning. You start sucking. You start, but you start. And you start getting better. Each time you get better and better and better. And it may be at the beginning just doing it in front of a camera. Or just doing it in front of the mirror. I did so many presentations as my practice, just talking to myself in the mirror. That's what I did, and it helped. It gave me confidence that I'd gone through it a couple times, I knew what I was talking about, I got comfortable with the material more and more, where my jokes were going to be, all of that, and it made the presentation better. So talk to yourself in the mirror. Record some of your videos, and you're going to play them back and think they were terrible, and you're going to be your own worst critic. I still look back on my first YouTube videos and think Oh my God, these are so bad, I should remove them. They're really bad by my standards now. But people still like them and watch them, and it's fun to see the progression, so I keep them up. But record yourself, put it up. Start doing speaking at small events. So some of the first speaking gigs that I did were at the YMCA, were at my local city government. They had these workshops for entrepreneurs that I delivered. All of that helped, and there were small groups. You know, my first presentation, there were 3 people who showed up. 3 people. And then I had 5, and then I had 10, and then I had 20, and it started to grow. And as you start doing something and you achieve a little bit of success, you get some confidence. Like, if you can get to here, you thought getting here would be really hard, but you got there and you did it. Now you say, "Oh, I can do that. I'm okay doing that." And now you can push yourself to go here, and then here, and you slowly make your way up. And soon you're at the point where you couldn't imagine that you would get that far because you've gotten so much practice and you've gotten so much better and you enjoy it. So start, start small, start talking to yourself, start making videos, start putting them up, get your practice, do something every day. If your goal is to be a public speaker, do something every day to practice being a public speaker. And that could be going to an event and speaking, or it could be on your own, Recording yourself in your home, in your office. I used to get nervous recording myself when there were people around. The first step was me being nervous just in front of the camera. And I could say it great when I wasn't on camera, but then I got the camera and I started stuttering and I'm, you know, it's not making sense. But then I could get comfortable enough to do it on my own. But if somebody was in the room with me, I would panic. You know, I would stumble, I'd get nervous, I'd start sweating, and it wouldn't flow, it wouldn't come out. Now I can do that, and it's not a problem. But it just comes through practice. And each time you get a little better and a little better and a little better, like any other muscle. You build it up and you get stronger. So I know it's scary at the start. I know it can be overwhelming. I know there's a huge fear of making yourself look stupid and falling on your face in front of other people, right? That's a huge fear. But if you can remember why you're doing this, and it's a noble goal, and you want to help people, and, and this is something that you're set out to do, and you practice and practice and practice on your own in front of the camera, in front of small audiences, and you start to build it up, you'll get better and better and better, and you'll keep improving your quality, and you'll eventually get to be the person that you looked up to, if it was Tony Robbins or whoever it is, you can get to that level through practice. Believe. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It always makes me want to do more for you. If you have a comment about this video, a tip you have on how to be a good public speaker, or if you have another question for your business, leave it below. I'll make a video response. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.