Ep 220 Other reasons for Stage Fright August 7, 2016

Questions from Maura. What is the biggest cause of stage fright? The biggest cause is fear of being awful, fear of being boring. So in that sense, it's not irrational to have stage fright before giving a speech, a presentation, whether it's to a bunch of insurance executives, financial executives, it's actually legitimate fear. Because most of us, when we watch other speakers, they're really boring. So if we get fearful, if we have stage fright, it's because we're thinking, I might be as bad as that last guy or that last woman. So it's completely legitimate. Now, there are evolutionary biologists who believe that human beings are hardwired to have stage fright as a self preservation mode. Because in the jungle, if you're away from the herd, you're much more vulnerable to, to be eaten and attacked by a lion, a tiger or a bear. There's safety in numbers. So when you're standing up and everyone else can see you and you're not a part of any herd, your body's telling you, run, adrenaline is coming, get out of here. That's why there's sweat coming out of our hands, out of our feet, to get more traction when we run away. Unfortunately, if you're giving a report on finances or numbers or accounting, that feeling doesn't really help you get any better in the presentation. So that's the number one cause. Fear of looking stupid, fear of not answering a question that someone. All completely normal fears people have. Can it happen in front of groups of all sizes? Well, certainly for many people in my own practice, they say, T.J. i'm completely comfortable speaking to 500 people. In my industry, it's when I have to speak to five people. I work with my own bosses, my own managers, my own board of directors. That's what makes me nervous. It's anything that takes you out of your comfort zone. The most common thing is for people to say, TJ I'm comfortable in small groups. I get nervous in front of large crowds, and it's all relative. Some people say, I'm very comfortable sitting speaking to three people, but if I have to stand and speak to 10 people, then I get nervous. I once had a client tell me, TJ I'm very comfortable speaking to small groups, but I get nervous speaking in front of large groups. And I said, that's completely normal. And he said, yeah, T.J. i'm very comfortable speaking to small groups of 5,000 people or fewer, but I get nervous speaking to large groups of 100,000. He was a leader in a very populous democracy. So the Standards are different, but the basic issue is the same. We tell ourselves we're comfortable with this, we're used to this, this is normal, so I can just talk. But this group is somehow different because it's larger, therefore it's scarier. Therefore I have to change things. And unfortunately, that's where people often go in the wrong direction. They change themselves to make themselves worse. What are some of the best ways to overcome stage fright? Well, there are a lot of bad ways out there. Looking at people, imagining people in their underwear, imagining them naked. Depending on your audience, that's either too exciting or too disgusting. It will distract you from speaking. Meditation, not particularly helpful, I find for most people. Visualizing a standing ovation. Again, if you're boring, it doesn't really matter. If you're visualizing a standing ovation, everyone is asleep. There's one thing and one thing only that I have found consistently helps people get over stage fright, and that is to actually practice their speech on video. Look at it, keep doing it until they can look at it and be happy with the style and substance. If you can, look at a video of your own speech and say, wow, that's interesting. If I can deliver a speech half as well as that person, I'll be the star of the conference or the show or the meeting or the workshop. Guess what? At that point, it becomes virtually impossible to have stage fright. Because stage fright is also based on fear of the unknown. If you've seen how you're delivering it, then there's no more unknown. You actually know how you're coming across. You know you're coming across your best. You know that you're interesting and memorable, so it solves those problems. So that is far and away the best thing. Most people are too lazy to do it. Most people will waste time and they'll stay up till two in the morning rewriting bullet points on a slide. But they won't actually do the easiest, simplest thing, which is pull out your cell phone, speak to it and watch it. I don't want to look at myself. I don't want to hear my voice. Too bad. If you want to get over stage fright, if you actually want to be good, number one way to get over stage fright. The number one way to actually be a good speaker. Practice on video until you like what you see. Everyone always forgets that last part. They think, oh, if I practice on video, maybe look at it once, then I've done what I need to do. No, that could just discourage you. That doesn't help much at all. It only helps if you then take the information you see and figure out, what do you like, what do you not like? And keep changing it until you like what you see. What are some of the best ways to win the audience over? What works? Number one way to win over an audience. Be interesting. Give them information that's interesting and useful to them. Don't come out and say, my, my, my, my, what I did. Tell me tell you about me. Let me tell you about my company. I'm be here today. Good morning, blah, blah, blah. And don't give people a boring data dump. It's really easy to win over an audience because audiences around the world have been abused by boring data dumps, by awful slides that no one can see that are tedious and way too long. So that's the easiest way to win over an audience. Just deliver information that's really interesting, relevant and memorable to them. Of course, the easiest way of all doing that is telling a story that's relevant to your audience, that people can visualize. That's the easiest thing to make your messages remember. Tell interesting, relevant stories. You don't have to tell a joke. What often doesn't work is if you give some sort of canned, phony joke that people have heard before because they get the sense that, okay, I better open a speech with a joke and I'll make them laugh and loosen them up, okay, I said that joke. Aren't you laughing? I'm dying out here. That's what doesn't work. It's fine to use humor, but make sure it's authentic. Make sure it's real. Make sure it doesn't seem canned or phony, or that you're sort of demanding that people laugh. People don't like to be told what to do, whether it's a child in your family or an audience. What are the common mistakes you see presenters make when it comes to speaking to groups, especially if they're nervous in doing so? Number one mistake, way too many data points, way too many facts, numbers, figures. In testing audiences all over the world, what I found is people just don't remember more than a handful of ideas, literally five ideas from the best speaker they've seen in years, maybe ever. It's more common to remember three or two or one idea or nothing. So the biggest mistake most people have is they communicate way too many data points, or they try to. They say too many, they cover too many. They do it in an abstract way. They don't give examples, they don't give case studies, they don't tell stories, and because of it, it's all instantly remembered. With slides, the problem isn't too many slides. The problem isn't too many bullet points. The problem is the very theory they have of slides of using that as their teleprompter. If you want to have a teleprompter, if you want to have notes, just use a good old fashioned piece of paper for your notes. If you're giving a speech, put your notes on the PowerPoint slide that you project. What techniques can presenters use on an ongoing basis to continue to enhance their speaking skills and eliminate stage fright? As I mentioned earlier, the number one way is just practice every speech on video and don't ever give a speech until you've actually seen it on video and you like it and you love it and you love the style and the substance. The other way is get feedback. Get focus group research on your speech. Now before you say, well, tj, that sounds expensive and time consuming. No, it's not. It costs nothing. What I mean by that is anytime you give a speech and it's more than 10 people in the audience, someone's likely to come up and say, oh, good speech today. Most people just say thanks. Don't just say thanks, say thanks. Tell me, what do you remember, what stood out? And then listen. Because if they just said, well, everything was great, you were really professional, then you know you were horrible, nothing stuck. You're listening for examples, stories, messages that came through to figure out what worked. Quite often you'll give a story as an answer to a question during the Q and A session. That's what people will remember. Now, the next time you have to speak on that topic, don't wait for the Q and A to come up. Use that story that you mentioned in the question in the last speech. Build that right into the beginning of your speech the next time you speak on that topic. That's how great speakers constantly get better and better and better. Well, thanks for the questions. As always. Any questions you have, happy to answer them.