A short instructional YouTube talk by T.J. Walker about managing fear of making mistakes while presenting. Walker argues that audiences rarely remember small verbal mistakes — they remember the speaker's reaction — and advises adopting a conversational delivery, accepting mistakes, and rehearsing on video until you can confidently replicate a good performance. The clip ends with practical CTAs (subscribe/share/comment).
Chapters
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. So how do you manage your fear of making a mistake while you're giving a presentation? Because you may have practiced, rehearsed, have a good script, but then you stand up, you speak, and all of a sudden you're thinking, oh, this is the part I always mess up. And the sheer fact that you're thinking about messing up is going to increase the odds that you actually make a mistake. Plus, there's the problem that if you're thinking about that mistake you're trying to avoid, it's taking you out of the moment. It's going to make you seem a little artificial. It's going to seem like you're not actually here in the present with us. You're going to seem like you're thinking about, oh, here's this curve around the bend. I'm going, and I don't want to mess up and fall off the cliff. It's going to take you out of the moment of the presentation. 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. Great presentations, great speeches don't seem like big prepared speeches. It just seems like one person's having a conversation with you in the audience. It doesn't matter if there's only two people there, 20, 200 or 2,000 great speakers make you feel like they're just having a conversation with you right now. So how do you get to that point so that you're not thinking about, oh, I could fall off a cliff at any moment. I might stammer, I might forget this word, I might mispronounce this word. There are all sorts of mistakes that you could fixate on that will mess you up. You've got to realize nobody cares about your mistakes. Nobody's going to notice your mistakes. Most of the time, the real problem with mistakes is not the mistake. It's not that you said a word a little bit wrong or you made a simple grammar mistake or that you started a sentence, didn't finish, and went back in another direction. Most of the time, your audience doesn't remember that. What they remember is sorry, oops, apology. They remember your reaction to your mistakes. That's what people remember. Because quite often, that is the most emotional moment in your entire presentation. If you believe in paying success forward, then hit the share button. Now let's spread more confidence around the world. So the key is not to suddenly be perfect. It's not to suddenly figure out a magical way of never making mistakes. The key is to realize it's okay to make a mistake. And I'm just going to keep on going. And I'm going to keep on acting like I am comfortable, confident, relaxed. I'm going to keep on focusing on delivering interesting and useful information to my audience. And I'm not going to second guess myself. I'm not going to be a critic in that. You can't be a great Broadway show and be the critic of that show at the same time. If you're the actor on stage, you have to be in that moment delivering your best performance. Your thoughts matter. Please leave a comment below in the comment section. Or a question or a criticism or a complaint or praise. Now, the difference when it comes to speaking and presenting is you don't have to memorize anything. There's no play right there. There's no director who's going to get angry if you say the words a little differently. So there's a much lower threshold for success. There's much less pressure. Realize that. Embrace that, because it does make it much easier. Now, the ultimate way of not obsessing over mistakes when you're in a presentation is to rehearse. But to rehearse the right way. A lot of people rehearse simply by reading the speech out loud or silently, or reading it in a mirror or practicing on video and watching it once saying, okay, I'm now comfortable with the material. No, none of those things are actually going to reduce your nervousness and help you to stop obsessing over mistakes when you're in the middle of the presentation. The number one thing that's going to help you stop obsessing over mistakes is for you to actually have the confidence of knowing not only you can give a great speech, but you've already done it. And where you've done it is in your rehearsal. So the key is to practice your presentation as many times as it takes until you can see on video yourself. Giving a really good presentation doesn't mean it's perfect, doesn't mean it's completely devoid of mistakes. But you get to the point where you realize, wow, that's pretty good. That's good. If I can be that good, I'm going to be the best speaker at this venue next week or tomorrow. Whenever you're giving your speech, the other thing it does is when you're watching a video of yourself, sometimes you realize, oh, that was the part I was really nervous and upset. I'd used the wrong word. Now that I'm looking at sounds perfectly fine. It wasn't exactly the word I was planning on using, but it made perfect sense. No one would even notice. I barely noticed. I'm obsessively trying to critique myself. So that's what reduces your nerves. That's what gives you legitimate confidence, is you've done the work, practicing rehearsing on video until you like what you see. I can say, well, teacher, I don't ever like what I see. I'm not saying you have to love your waistline or your hairline or anything like that. I need you to compare yourself to other speakers in your industry, in your field, people you're competing with. You got to get to the point where you think, wow, that person's interesting. That person seems comfortable and confident. That person's delivering interesting, memorable ideas because very few speakers ever do that. If you get to the point where you do that, that's going to fill you with confidence. Now you're no longer obsessed with, oh, my gosh, I could make a mistake. Now what you're going to be obsessed with is, wow, I love speaking. How can I get another speaking gig? How can I speak to more audiences? That's when you know you're no longer worried about making mistakes in your presentation. 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.
