MBA1290 Q&A Wednesday: I get asked to speak on stage but I hate it. What should I do?

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I often get asked to speak on stage, but I hate it. What should I do? I know speaking on stage gives me exposure and helps my business and brand and I'm an absolute mess leading up to the speech. Should I keep speaking on stage or just say this is not for me? Thanks Brandon for the question and I totally get it. Public speaking is not for everybody. It's not something that comes natural to everybody. Not everybody feels comfortable as soon as they get on stage, even after several times on stage. So what you're going through, what you're experiencing is totally normal. And some of us, when this happens, we beat ourselves up. We say to ourselves, I'm being ungrateful. You know, this is a great Opportunity. I should just suck it up and do it. But the whole process is so unenjoyable for you. So. So in today's lesson, I'm going to answer your question. Brendan, I'll talk to you about what you should do. My advice to you, the silver lining here is that you have options. You have a choice. You're in a pretty awesome position because people are asking you to speak on stage. That means you're valued and that you are important and people want to hear from you. But of course, you have to do what's best for you and, yes, what's best for your business. So we're going to export some options when it comes to public speaking. How to do it, if to do it at all, and more. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So Brenda asks, on today's Q and A Wednesday, I get asked to speak on stage a lot, but I absolutely hate it. What should I do? Brenda, first of all, what you outlined is true. You know, getting on stage is an opportunity. You get to help some people out, you get to build an audience, you get to build some trust and build some relationships. It's good for your brand. And on a personal side, speaking on stage helps you become a better communicator. Now, having said all that, not all of us thrive on stage. Love being on stage. Enjoy it. For a lot of people, maybe even most people, they're a nervous wreck, and it's a painful experience. It's something that they don't enjoy. They spend days worrying about it, feeling nervous, feeling really exhausted from all the feelings. And then even when they do get on stage, they don't feel so well about how they performed, and they're just happy it's over. And you're in this difficult position because you're getting asked to be on stage and you feel the urge to say no because you don't want to go through that kind of pain. Now, here's the truth. This is my honest advice to you. You have three options. Option number one is just to say, hey, I do not enjoy this. This is not something that brings me joy. This is not something that I have fun with. This is not something that I feel good about. And it wastes a lot of my time and energy leading up to it, and. And the travel and all that kind of stuff. And it's just not worth it for you. And you just decide, hey, I'm not gonna do public speaking anymore. So you're gonna concentrate your efforts somewhere else. Whether it's you know, doing videos where you're in the privacy of your home or your office, whether it's marketing in some other way, coaching one on one calls, doing interviews on podcasts or summits or whatever it is, you divert your energies elsewhere. You say, hey, this is not for me. And if I get asked in the future, I'm just gonna say no, just not my thing, you know, and you spend your energies elsewhere and maybe you can offer that person, hey, I could be on your podcast or you can interview me for your video show. That's something that I do. That's option number one. Option number two is you say, hey, this is great for my business. I want to get better at this. I don't want to feel horrible at this. I want to get over these fears and these humps or the hump of speaking in public. And you invest the time and the money to become a better public speaker. You probably see where I'm going here. You're committing to something. You got to make a commitment. Either it's a no or it's a yes. What's causing you a lot of anxiety is probably this in between stage you're in right now. You know you're doing it, but you don't like it, but you're not doing anything about that fact that you don't like it. So you either commit to say, hey, I'm going to become a public speaker and I'm going to get over this feeling of not liking it and not enjoying it. I'm going to get over the fears. I'm going to invest in some public speaking courses or get trained or get coached. And it's going to be your challenge. It's going to be your mountain. That's option number two. If you're interested in doing that, highly recommend heroic public speaking. Michael and Amy Port. I went through their training. I've been coached by them. Fantastic team, and they've helped people just like you. But there's a third option, and option number three is you don't say no to public speaking totally, but instead you ask for the format that best suits you, like a Q and A panel, a fireside chat. You got to dissect what makes you nervous. Is it just the mere idea of you being on stage or is it you preparing a speech and delivering the speech and remembering your lines and knowing you're standing on stage and your slides and all that kind of stuff? If all that stuff is what gives you the most anxiety, you can split the difference and say, hey, I still want to be on stage, I still want to capitalize on these opportunities that I'm being afforded and just say, hey, I'd love to do a Q and A session, I would love to do a panel discussion. I'd love to do a fireside chat where I get interviewed. I can give more value that way by answering questions from the audience. And that's your area of expertise. You could do that. And there are speakers that prefer to do that and ask to do that. If that makes you feel more comfortable, I would go with that option. Because, hey, you're not saying no to the opportunity. You're still giving value, you're still building relationships, you're still helping your business and brand, but you're not going through all the pain and agony. You're getting rid of 90% of what you hate about public speaking. Now that I laid out all three options, if you're still kind of undecided, which one can kind of resonates with you most, like, hey, I really want to do this, I want to commit to this, because you should commit to something because that's going to give you some peace of mind. My recommendation, if you don't know what to go with, I would try option three first and see how I feel. Go to a few conferences and do that as a speaker. Do some Q and A, do some panels instead of being the keynote. See how it feels. If it feels so much better, if you feel much more relaxed, if you go through that whole experience and say, hey, that was much better than I expected and I can do that again without hating the whole process, then there you go. And then later down the line, you may say, you know what, I do feel ready now to commit to become a better public speaker and take some lessons and get coached or not. But the point here is that you're making a commitment right now to choose a path instead of being in limbo, instead of being in turmoil with yourself. I also want to say that I know a lot of public speakers, people that do this for a living. They get paid, you know, 20, 30, $40,000 a speech. I know people that travel, you know, half the year, speaking, most of the year speaking. I'm in a mastermind group that has hundreds of public speakers in it. And I can probably name five people from that group that were totally natural and totally comfortable on stage from the first speech they gave. For the vast majority of everybody else. They had to work on it. They had to really work on it. I don't consider myself like a world class speaker, but I've gotten better over the years. I'd probably consider myself decent now, you know. But when I first got started, I was atrocious. I was a nervous wreck. I couldn't make a contact with the crowd. I was looking down. I was pacing like a caged lion on the stage. I'd look back at my PowerPoint slides, reading from them like an amateur. My speech would be filled with ums and ahs and it was just not pretty. I'm sharing this with you because I want to give some perspective for those who are listening and I want to kind of smash that myth that like, either you got it or you don't. Most people have to work at this to even just become decent on stage so that they're like professional so that they're, you know, asked back the next year at the conference, things like that. So to Brenda or for anybody who's listening, you have options, but you have to commit to one so you can actually see it through. So you can actually get the most out of each option. But if you're kind of teetering between options, you're really just exhausting yourself and not getting the most out of anything.

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To wrap up today's Q&A Wednesday's episode, Brenda 3 Options say no to public speaking point blank. Commit to becoming a great public speaker with some training and some coaching, some lessons. Or accept being a public speaker in the format that gives you the least amount of pain and anxiety. Q and A Fireside chat panels There's a lot of different ways to do this. Thank you so much for listening and thanks for your question. Brenda. If you have a question you want to ask, if you have a question right now in your head that you want to ask, that you want answers for, just email me@omar00mba.net thanks for listening. Make sure you hit subscribe on whatever you use to listen to podcasts, whether it's Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, Himalaya, Overcast, Tunein, we're on them all. By hitting subscribe, you make sure our next episode gets downloaded automatically to your device so that it's ready for you when you're ready to listen. All right, before I go, I want to leave you with this. Public speaking is one way to build your audience, to build your brand, to build relationships. There are other ways, you know. If you don't want to do it, it's totally fine. Doesn't make you less of a professional or anything like that. In fact, if you don't enjoy it, it's a lot of work. You know, you got to fly out, you got to take time off, you got to go to the conference for a few days. So if you don't enjoy being on stage, I can really see how it could just not be worth it for you. So just be okay with that. It's totally fine. You can concentrate your efforts on other ways to build your business. Thanks so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. Till then, take care.

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