TJ Walker says speech anxiety usually isn't about nerves but about boring your audience. The fix: pick a few clear ideas, skip data-dump slides, use stories and examples, and practice by recording yourself until you like what you see.
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Okay, maybe I've been too glib. In the past, people have said, tj, I feel nervous about public speaking. I'm scared, nervous. What can I do to feel better? My stock response has always been good. You should feel nervous. Chances are you're going to be like most speakers, which is really boring. You're going to bore your audience. They're going to check out and check their email and look at their phone. You should be nervous. I wish more people were nervous about speaking. Maybe they would do something. People are taken back a little. I don't mean to be unsympathetic. I am sympathetic to you. I was once nervous speaking. But we got to go deeper and really look at what's the reason for being nervous. Welcome to the T.J. walker Success Channel. This is the place where I help you become more successful by learning how to boost your communication skills, your competency and your confidence. Do you get nervous doing something you know you're great at? If you know your whole family loves your pot roast recipe and you've just made a pot roast, you know they're going to love it. Are you nervous when you put it on the table? Probably not. You're looking forward to them saying, this is fantastic. I love it. If you believe in paying success forward, then hit the share button. Now let's spread more confidence around the world. So the reason most of us are nervous is about speaking or presenting is we're not sure we prepared the right way. We are afraid that the audience will find us boring, uninteresting. Well, guess what? That's a very real possibility. Think of how many times you sit in meetings, conferences, conventions, and the speaker is in fact boring. And you do in fact pull out your cell phone, get caught up on email, texts, social media. So it's a very, very real problem. And a little self awareness should make us realize, well, if most of the speakers I see are boring in my industry, isn't there a chance people are saying that about me? Don't miss a beat on your journey to success. Tap the bell to receive notifications so you get constant updates for your own journey. So let's go to a real solution. The real solution isn't to meditate and visualize a standing ovation or visualize or fantasize about everyone sitting on the edge of their seat listening to us. The real solution is to be interesting, to have ideas that we convey when we're speaking in a way that's understandable and interesting and memorable. So how do you do that? The number one problem people have is they do a data dump. Fact, fact, fact, bullet point, number, number slide with lots of bullet points. You already know that puts you to sleep. You already know that's not effective. That's boring people. So you should know if you have a speech that way, you should in fact feel nervous and uncomfortable and anxious because you know you're going to fail. I want to set you up for success. So the way to do that is, is to have an interesting speech, to have a clear, clear sense of what is it I want this audience to do. What are at most the handful of ideas they're going to motivate the audience to do what I want or to help them in some way, and then to spend the rest of my time giving examples, case studies, stories, fleshing out these ideas to make them memorable. And then finally, practice this speech on video until you like it. Your thoughts matter. Please leave a comment below in the comment section. Or a question or a criticism, or a complaint or praise. If you've seen a video of yourself giving a speech, you think, wow, that's interesting. I'd watch that person. Guess what? When you walk into that speech, I don't care if the audience is 20 people, 202,000, 20,000, you won't be nervous anymore because you've already seen your success. Can I ask you a personal favor? I'm trying to help more people just like you all around the globe improve their personal communication skills and to be more successful. If you hit the subscribe button, not only will I be able to help you, but that'll send a message to others around the world that this is a place for them. So please, as a small favor, hit subscribe.
