TJ Walker says presentation anxiety stems from a boring or unprepared speech, not just nerves. Fix the speech first: make it engaging and practice it on video until you like it. For the physical stuff, arrive early, drink ice water, dress cool, and let your hands move naturally instead of gripping things.
What do you do if you're so worried that your audience can see you shaking or sweating and it's the middle of your presentation, that's only going to make things worse. Now you're going to be more nervous, which means you're probably going to sweat more and shake even more. How can you disguise that? Well, let's go deeper. The answer can't simply be get antiperspirant and cover your whole face and every inch of your body. Let's try to figure out what's actually making you so nervous in the first place. It's probably you're nervous about the fact that you're not going to be very good. You might bore your audience. They might find you uninteresting. They may pull out a cell phone and start reading their email rather than listening to you. Is that an irrational fear? Well, not really, because let's face it, most speakers, most presenters are bored. Most people go through a laundry list of facts or bullet points or something that isn't interesting to people. So if you want to address the problem, let's go deeper and actually solve the real problem. The problem is you have not prepared an interesting speech that you know is going to be good. I guarantee you your sweating will go way, way down if you do this one thing. Prepare a presentation, practice it on video, and look at it until you actually like what you see. I've asked my clients to do that for years, and their first response other than saying, I don't want to do that, their first response after watching a video of themselves give a speech is, my God, tj, I'm really boring. I wouldn't want to watch that. What do you think? And then I have to say, you know what? You seem like a pretty smart person if you think that speech is really boring. Guess what it is. The answer is not to build more confidence. I don't care if I'm boring. I'm going to look confident and not perspire. That's not the answer. The answer is throw your speech away and come up with something interesting and useful to your audience that's going to make them want to pay attention, listen to you, maybe ask a question, engage you. If you know you're really interesting to your audience, it becomes very difficult to be nervous, which means it's very difficult to start sweating, which means your hands are probably not going to do this. Think about it. You're getting together with a friend tonight for dinner. A good friend, maybe your best friend from high school or college. Something has happened about someone you both know and you know the story you're going to tell is going to make your friend laugh. Be happy. Get excited. Are you going to be nervous? Don't think so. You're nervous telling them this story. No, you're going to be excited because you already know you've got a message that is interesting and relevant to that audience. Do the exact same thing with any presentation you're giving. Now, there are some things you can do if you know you just are a sweater. Someone who heavily perspires. For starters, get there early when you're rushing to an event. Even on a cool day, it's just easy to become overheated. So that's a tip. Another tip. Don't just have water nearby. Have ice water. Have actual ice in the water. Next, dress appropriately. Make sure you do not have heavy winter clothes or heavy winter suit or jacket, even in wintertime. Because if you're in a room that is a regular temperature and you're already feeling overheated, you'll get hotter faster. Now, I'm not suggesting you show up in T shirt, shorts or bathing suit, but just think about wearing clothes that are a little cooler. Next, make sure you have a handkerchief or a napkin or something that if you do start to perspire, you can dry yourself. Put it down. Here's the key. Don't say, oh my gosh, I'm so nervous I've got to pat myself down. That is not going to help. That's going to make you more nervous. It's going to call attention to itself. If you pat yourself down once when you're sweating and you never comment on it, chances are no one will notice. Now, second issue of what do you if your hands are shaking? People ask me all the time, say, T.J. can I hold a pen because my hands shake? No, but TJ It'll make me more comfortable if I hold a pen. Guess what? I don't care about you. Now, I don't mean to sound harsh. It's not that I don't care about you, but I care about your audience more. I care about their perception of you. If you're giving a speech and you're holding a pen, it looks like. If you're holding it this way, it looks like you could jab somebody's eyes out. Well, you don't want to do that. If you're holding it this way, it looks like you think you're about to say something so profound you got to write it down to quote yourself. When you're holding a pen, it destroys your Natural hand movement, it destroys your gestures. The thing to do that will make your hands look most comfortable and for you to look confident is for you to move your hands. Shaking hands become more noticeable. And if you're thinking, oh, I'm supposed to be professional and not move my hands, the second you hold your hands, you look nervous, you look uncomfortable. So if you do all of a sudden start shaking, then it jumps out at people. It grabs their attention. You don't want that. The thing to do with your hands when you're giving a speech or presentation is to do what you do all day long when you speak and are comfortable, and that is your hands move. There's a huge myth out there that professional people are supposed to stand with their hands like this or on a lectern or not move their hands. Wrong. Comfortable, confident people everywhere, in every culture and I've worked in 45 countries, their hands move when they speak. When your hands are moving, even if they are shaking a little, it's not noticeable because the little shakes are within the context of greater movement. How do you get to the point of knowing whether your hand movement is natural? You practice speaking on video until you like what you see. And if you really want to take it up a notch, you practice to the point where you can send someone a video of you and ask them to watch it without the sound on and have them tell you what they think you want them to say. Looks fine, didn't notice anything weird. If you're doing this or this or this or this, they're going to notice that you seem uncomfortable. So the secret to hand movement is move your hands. You can't do that without keeping your hands free. That means don't hold notes. That means don't hold pens. It means don't hold electric or lean on a table you want your hands to move. So those are some tips on how to look more comfortable, sound more comfortable, even if you are feeling nervous.
You're Not Being Judged on Your Work Yet: What New Hires Are Really Evaluated On
