Speeches Are Performances, Not Papers, Learn the Difference

Today on Ultimize Discover, you're getting a short practical sample from the Ultimize universe. Use this on its own, take one idea and apply it today, or go deeper at ultimize.com. Ultimize is the world's largest personal development podcast, audiobook, and online learning network. Ultimize. Most advice about fear or nervousness about public speaking starts with your feelings. Relax, breathe, visualize success. But let me ask you something. If you are terrified about walking naked through Times Square, would you want a therapist telling you to feel calm, or would you rather have clothes? Because the real problem wouldn't be anxiety. The real problem would be that you're not prepared. You're not dressed. Public speaking works the same way. Most people fear speaking because of two very simple uncertainties. First, they don't know how they actually come across when they speak. Second, they're afraid they might be boring, awkward, or embarrassing in front of others. This podcast is built around a simple idea: fear disappears when uncertainty disappears. And today, removing that uncertainty is easier than ever. All you need is something you already carry in your pocket. A camera, your phone. In this short limited series podcast, I'll show you the simple method professionals use to eliminate speaking fear: practicing on video, watching yourself improve, and gathering real feedback. No therapy, not that there's anything wrong with that, you can get that elsewhere. No breathing exercises, just practical preparation That Builds Confidence Logically. This entire series is designed to be binged in one setting. In about 90 minutes, you'll learn a simple system to prepare for speeches, presentations, and talks with real confidence. And the final episode is a short 3-minute reset you can listen to every time before you have to speak or present. It's your own personal confidence insurance policy. So if you've ever been afraid of public speaking, or if you simply want to present your ideas more clearly and confidently, this podcast is for you. You're now entering Fear of Public Speaking: A Practical Cure, powered by Ultimize, the world's largest personal development podcasting network. I'm your host, TJ Walker. Let's get started. Here's one of the biggest mistakes people make when preparing a speech or presentation. They think of the speech as this big document, something that exists on paper, something that exists on a screen, something that must be written perfectly before it's delivered. And when people approach speaking that way, something almost always happens. They become terrified because if the speech exists mainly as a document, then the speaker begins obsessing over the words. Is the wording perfect? Is the grammar right? Is this sentence clever enough? Is that paragraph strong enough? Before long, the entire process becomes stressful. The speaker stares at a screen trying to create the perfect script, but the problem is simple: a speech is not a document. A speech is you talking. It's a performance of sorts. Think about a musician preparing for a concert. Do they write out the lyrics and then simply read them for the first time on stage? Of course not. They rehearse. Think about an actor preparing for a play. Do they memorize the script once and then hope everything works out? No, they rehearse over and over again. The difference is you don't have to memorize. That puts a lot of pressure on you. You just have to be familiar with the key concepts. Many speakers make themselves nervous because they spend hours writing slides, they rewrite paragraphs, they polish bullet points, but they rarely practice the actual speaking, the talking part. So when the moment comes to present, everything feels unfamiliar. Their voice kind of feels shaky, their pacing feels strange, their gestures feel awkward, and suddenly the fear kicks in. But imagine a completely different approach. Instead of writing the perfect speech first, you start by speaking immediately. You outline a few ideas, then You talk, you record yourself, you watch the recording, then you improve it. You speak again, you record again, you watch again. Suddenly the speech begins to feel natural, not because the words are perfect, but because the performance is improving. And the good news is you're not performing like some big actor on Broadway. You're just talking like you, because it's you talking. This is a similar process to what musicians, actors, and comedians use, but it's so much easier. You're not memorizing a script, and it works extremely well for business presentations too. Let me give you a simple example. Imagine you need to give a presentation at work next week. Most people would start by opening a slide deck and writing a lot of text. They might spend hours adjusting fonts, bullet points, and wording. But they still have no idea how the presentation will actually sound when spoken. Now imagine a different process. Instead of writing everything, you create a simple outline, maybe 3 points you want to make. Then you take out your phone. You record yourself explaining those points for a couple of minutes. You watch the video. Maybe the first version feels rough. That's normal. But you immediately notice things. Maybe one explanation was unclear. Maybe you repeated a phrase too many times. Maybe you rushed through an important point. Now try it again. Second recording, already a little better most of the time. You tighten up a sentence, you give another example, you slow down slightly. Third recording, even a little better. Now the speech begins to feel comfortable. Because you've already said it several times. By the time the real presentation arrives, it's no longer new and alien to you. You've already delivered it many times. This is one of the biggest secrets of confidence speakers. They don't wait until the audience arrives to perform the speech for the first time. They've already performed it multiple times on video, which means the stage is no longer a place of uncertainty. It's just Another repetition. Now here's something interesting that happens when you practice on video. You begin to notice that the spoken version of your ideas is often different from the written version. Written language tends to be longer. The sentences are longer, more formal, more complicated. You don't want that. Spoken language is usually simpler, shorter sentences, more conversational. More stories, more examples. And when you watch yourself speak, you naturally start moving toward that more natural style. That's a good thing. Your speech becomes easier for the audience to understand, which means the audience becomes more engaged, which means you become more confident. Confidence grows from evidence. Evidence that your message works. Evidence that your delivery works. Evidence that your audience responds. Now you might be thinking something important. What if I watch myself on video and I don't like what I see? That's actually one of the best things that can happen because now you know exactly what you can fix. Maybe you're speaking too quickly. That's easy to change. Maybe you say "um" a lot. That's easy to improve with practice. Maybe your explanation needs to be clearer. That's easy to adjust. The important thing is that video removes the mystery. You're no longer guessing about how you come across, you can see it. And once you can see it, improvement becomes very fast. Now let me emphasize something important. The first few recordings do not need to be perfect. You're not showing it to anyone else, it's just for you. They're simply part of the rehearsal process. Actors don't expect their first rehearsal to be flawless. Musicians don't expect their first practice session to sound like a concert. Practice can be messy. That's normal. But each repetition brings improvement, and each improvement reduces fear. Before we finish this episode, I want to reinforce the simple habit we introduced earlier. Whenever you prepare for a speech, a presentation, a talk, or an important meeting, do this: Outline your main points. Record yourself speaking for a few minutes. Watch the video. Improve something and focus on things you can improve. Everyone can look at a video and see something they don't like. I can look at my face and head and think, "Wow, where'd my hair go? Are my eyes too beady? Do people not like my teeth?" I can't fix those things., but I realize nobody else really cares about that. As long as I'm saying something interesting and useful to other people, they'll love me. As long as they don't look scared or nervous, they'll feel comfortable with me and they will focus on my message. So think about that when you're watching yourself on video, then do it again. Repeat the process. This simple cycle—speak, record, watch, improve—will do more to eliminate speaking fear than almost any psychological technique because it replaces uncertainty with evidence. In the next episode, we're going to look at something that causes enormous anxiety for many speakers. It's the fear of boring the audience. And guess what? It's a legitimate fear because most speakers are boring. I'm going to show you why that fear is actually helpful and how to use it to dramatically improve your presentations. Many people say they're afraid of public speaking, but if you dig a little deeper, you'll often discover that the real fear is something slightly different. The fear is not just speaking. The fear is making a bad impression. And in many cases, the worst possible impression a speaker can make is very simple: being boring. And let's face it, that happens pretty often. Think about how many presentations you've listened to in your life. Meetings, lectures, conference talks, training sessions, sales pitches. Most people can immediately remember at least a few presentations that were painfully boring. Let's not kid ourselves, most presentations are boring. The speaker read every word on the slide, or the teacher droned on and on. The voice stayed in the same dull tone. The message wandered around without a clear point. Minutes felt like hours. The audience checked their phones. People stared at the ceiling. Some quietly wished the speaker would just stop. Everyone listening to this podcast has experienced that situation, although ideally not during this podcast. And because we've all experienced it, something interesting happens when we imagine ourselves speaking. We think, what if I'm that speaker? What if the people tune me out? What if they regret inviting me to speak or present? What if they're secretly wishing I'd hurry up and finish? That fear can feel intense, but here's the important thing to understand: that fear is actually useful. Because the fact that you're worried about boring people already tells us something positive. It means you care about the audience, and caring about the audience is one of the most important qualities of of good speakers and great speakers. The problem is that many people handle that fear in the wrong way. Instead of improving the speech itself, they focus on calming their nerves. They try breathing exercises, they try meditation, they take beta blockers, they drink alcohol, they try positive affirmations. Those things might help a little, sometimes make it worse. But they don't address the real issue. The real issue is simple. Is the speech interesting? Are you interesting? Are you delivering value to your audience? That question is surprisingly easy to answer. You already know what boring looks like. You've seen it a million times. So when you watch video of yourself speaking, ask a simple question: If I were in the audience, would I want to listen to this person or watch this person? If the answer is yes, that's fantastic. If the answer is no, well, that's actually good news too, because now you know exactly what to improve. You might shorten something, you might put in more examples, you might tell stories, you might remove unnecessary details, you might include really clear personal examples. You might speak more directly to the audience's problem. Every small improvement makes the presentation stronger, and every improvement makes your confidence grow. Now let's talk about something else that helps speakers avoid being boring: clarity. Many speakers accidentally become boring because their message is unclear. It's abstract. They jump between ideas. They include too many boring details. They wander through a long explanation before reaching the point. They data dump. That's the worst. The audience becomes confused, and when people are confused, they lose interest. A great presentation usually does something much simpler. It focuses on just a few clear ideas, often just 3, 3 points the audience can easily remember, 3 ideas that support one main message. This kind of clarity helps the audience stay engaged. It also helps the speaker feel more comfortable because instead of trying to remember a long script and a million different points, you simply remember a handful of key ideas. Another powerful way to avoid boring your audience is to include examples. I've never once heard an audience leaving a conference or a speaker saying, "Wow, I hated the way that last speaker gave us so many interesting, relevant examples." It's never happened. People rarely remember abstract statements, but they remember stories. They remember situations. They remember images. For example, earlier we talked about the idea that preparation removes fear. That's an abstract statement, but the moment we talk about walking naked through Times Square and the embarrassment you might fear about that, the idea becomes memorable. You immediately understand the point. Preparation is the clothing of public speaking. Without preparation, the speaker feels exposed. With preparation, the speaker feels protected. Examples like that make ideas stick, and when ideas stick, audiences stay engaged. Now, here's another important point: you don't have to be a comedian to be interesting. Many people assume that good speakers must be extremely funny or charismatic. That's not true. What audiences actually appreciate most is something simpler: clarity, something interesting, some energy, and respect for their time. If you explain your ideas clearly, if you speak with some energy, if you avoid wasting the audience's time, most audiences will be very happy to listen. In fact, they'll love you., and the only reliable way to reach that level is through practice. When you rehearse on video, you begin to notice the moments where the speech slows down. If you're thinking, "Hmm, kind of bored now," guess what? Your audience is too. You notice the places where the explanation becomes confusing. You notice where you need to add a story or example. Each improvement strengthens the presentation. And once again, something important happens. Your fear shrinks because the speech itself is getting better. Before we finish this episode, I want you to try another small exercise. Take the short video you recorded earlier. Watch it again. Now imagine you're sitting in the audience. Ask yourself 3 questions. First, was the message clear? Second, was the explanation interesting enough to hold attention? Third, was anything unnecessary or too long? You might already see a few simple improvements. That's perfect. Record the talk again. Try those improvements. You'll probably notice that the second or third version already feels stronger. This is exactly how good speakers improve. They don't rely on inspiration, they rely on iteration. They do it again and again and again. Speak, Record, watch, improve, repeat. In the next episode, we're going to explore something that will make the entire process even easier. A very simple structure for building presentations so they're clear, memorable, and easy to deliver. By the way, quick question for you. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to consume content and how hard it is to actually do anything with it? I mean, you can listen to 100 episodes, read 10 books, and your habits are exactly the same. That's the gap most people never close. So if you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, I want to actually improve, go to ultimize.com. We've got free courses there for you, either on communication skills or building better habits, and it's designed to get you to actually use what you're learning, not just hear it once. No cost, no catch, just go to ultimize.com and start. Ultimize.