The Simple Public Speaking Preparation System (Step-by-Step) - Episode 6

Ultimize. By now you've heard several key ideas repeated throughout this podcast. Public speaking fear usually comes from uncertainty. Uncertainty about how you come across, uncertainty about whether your message will work, and the fastest way to remove that uncertainty is through practice, especially video practice, not looking at a mirror. Let me be clear, that's one of the worst pieces of advice out there. If you practice a speech in front of a mirror, Before you know it, you're going to be fixating on the fact of, "Oh, is my nose a little crooked? Is my hairline not what it once was?" I do not recommend practicing in front of a mirror. These days you've got a video camera, so please, please use it. In this episode, I want to bring together all of the ideas into one simple preparation system you can use anytime you need to speak. Whether you're giving a presentation at work, explaining an idea in a meeting, speaking at a conference, or even recording a video. The system is simple, practical, and repeatable. Before I do that, I do want to point out one other really important concept. So many people I work with in private training feel like they're alone. They are unique in their fear of public speaking. They think everyone else in the world is really confident and authoritative and got all their stuff together and that they are uniquely insecure, fearful of speaking. I'm here to tell you, I've worked with famous senators, presidents in other countries, prime ministers, billionaires. Guess what? Little secret. They're all nervous about speaking. Deep down, they all think, I'm not really very good, I'm an imposter. But they get over it. They learn skills. No one's born a great writer. You learn how to be a great writer. No one is born being a great speaker. You learn how to be a great speaker, which is why it's so good you've been spending time with me in this podcast. Okay, step 1 is clarify your message. Before you start speaking, ask yourself a basic question: What's the main idea I want people to remember that will have them take the actions I want? Not 10 ideas, not a long list, but what's the one thing I want them to do, and what are the 3, 4, 5 messages that are most likely to motivate them? To do that thing I want them to do. You've got to support the message with just a handful of points. Usually 3 to 5 messages works very well. When you have just a handful of messages or fewer, it's easy for you to remember it. It's also easier for your audience to follow you and for them to remember. Once you have the structure, an opening idea, and your main points should just flow. You're ready for step 2. Step 2 is speak immediately. Do not wait until you have written the perfect script. Don't be one of these people saying, "Oh, I love to rehearse, TJ, but I'm going to just tweak this deck one more time." And before you know it, it's 3:00 AM. The speech is due in 5 hours and you haven't rehearsed once because you're continuing to tweak the bullet points on a slide deck. If you do that, You deserve to be nervous because you haven't prepared. You've got to start speaking quickly. Don't wait until you're up in front of the audience and that's the first time you've ever spoken the words out loud. You've got to start speaking right away. You've got to practice. Take out your phone, record yourself explaining the idea for 2 or 3 minutes. Don't worry if the first version feels rough. It's a rough draft. It's supposed to be rough. The rough draft of great novels, of great movies, usually look like garbage because it's the rough draft. It's the first draft. It went through numerous changes, edits, and iterations. Exactly the same thing with presentations. The goal is not perfection. The goal is to start the performance process. And let's not get hung up on the word performance because that sounds scary. It sounds like you're this big Broadway star. All I mean by performance is you're talking. You're not sitting there typing. You're not sitting there reading. You're talking to people. Think of what musicians and actors do. Now, it's different just speaking, but still, great musicians, great actors, they rehearse. They rehearse often. Doesn't matter if they've been in show business for 50 years. They rehearse. If it's good enough for major celebrities and superstar singing performers, it's good enough for you. And again, the standards are much lower. You don't have to hit that perfect key or be really funny like a stand-up comedian. All you have to do is say something interesting or useful to your audience, and they'll typically love you. You'll typically stand out as the most interesting and confident speaker they heard all day. So the next step is you've got to watch the video. This is where something powerful happens. You see yourself the way the audience will see you. You notice things that are impossible to detect when you're speaking. Maybe your explanation is clearer than you expected. Maybe one section feels too long. Maybe one's too short. People come to me all the time and say, TJ, teach me to be concise. I want to be concise. So they stand up, they speak for 2 minutes, They sit down, they were concise, nobody remembers anything they said. Remember, your goal is not to be concise. Your goal is to be memorable, interesting, and useful. So focus on that rather than being concise. Maybe you speak faster than you realize. This is a very common problem when people are a little nervous. Without realizing it, you start speaking faster than normal and your volume can go way down, which can make you sound scared and nervous. So that's a huge, huge benefit from practicing on video because quite often it's obvious when you watch your own video, you're speaking too quickly and you're speaking too softly. Those are very easy problems to solve. Speak a little slower, Put in some more pauses and speak a little louder. That's why this information is so useful when you watch yourself on video, because once you see it, improvement becomes easy. Step 4 is improve something small. You don't have to change everything at once. If you see that you're speaking too quickly and too softly, the next take, just speak a little slower, pause more. Don't even worry about the volume until the next take. Just make one improvement, perhaps shortening a sentence, adding an example, adding a story, clarifying a point, slow down slightly. Small improvements add up quickly. Then move to step 5. Step 5 is repeat the process. Record the talk again. Watch the new version. Improve another small detail. Each repetition strengthens the presentation. And each improvement reduces uncertainty. Sometimes just 3 or 4 repetitions can dramatically improve a talk. Now, there's one additional step that can make your preparation even stronger. Step 6 is get feedback. Share your practice video with a few people you trust. Ask them these simple questions: What do you remember? What is it you think I want you to do? What stories and examples that I said do you remember? What part was most interesting? Their feedback helps you refine the presentation even further. And when you know that other people understand your message, your confidence increases. Now, let me give you the single most important tip. If you take away nothing else from this entire podcast series, I do want you to take this down, maybe even write it down. The 100% surefire way of getting rid of nerves, getting rid of tension, getting rid of fear for a speech isn't just to practice on video and look at it and to do it again on video and look at it and tweak it. That's not the secret. The secret is to keep doing it as many times as it takes until you can look at the video and say, wow, 'Wish I could speak half as well as that guy or that woman. I'd be the star of the show.' And you're pointing to a video of yourself. By the time you've done that, it becomes virtually impossible to be nervous about your speech. Now, by the time you deliver the real presentation, something important has changed. You're no longer giving the speech for the first time. You've already delivered it a bunch of times. Again, there's no magic times. For some people, one practice is enough. For others, you may have to do it 30 times. Guess what? Your audience doesn't care. Just do it as many times as it takes until you love what you see. You've already delivered it several times on video. You've already improved it. You've already tested it. The audience is simply seeing the next version. That change in perspective removes a huge amount of pressure. Instead of worrying about how the speech will go, you know how it goes. You have evidence. Evidence that your ideas make sense. Evidence that your explanations work. Evidence that the presentation is clear. And confidence grows naturally from the evidence. Let's review the preparation system one more time. First, clarify the main message and your key points. Second, Record yourself speaking right away. Third, watch the video. Fourth, improve something small. Fifth, repeat the process several times. In fact, as many times as it takes until you love the style and substance you see on that video. Sixth, get feedback from a few trusted people. This simple system transforms the way most people prepare for speaking. Instead of hoping everything works out on the day of the presentation, you already know it works. Preparation replaces uncertainty, and when uncertainty disappears, fear fades, anxiety dissipates, nervousness melts away. In the next and final episode of this series, we'll create something extremely useful: a short reset you can listen to anytime before you speak. a 3-minute reminder of the key ideas from this podcast. Something that can become your personal confidence insurance policy before presentations, speeches, or important meetings. You know, there's one thing I always find interesting. People will listen to a podcast like this, get ideas, maybe even feel a little motivated, and then just move on with their day. Nothing actually changes. And I get it. Information alone doesn't do it. Repetition does. That's actually why we built Ultimize. So if you're getting any value from this, just go to ultimize.com. That's spelled U-L-T-A-M-I-Z-E dot com. There's a free course waiting for you there. You can start with communication skills, but the whole idea is simple. Don't just hear something once, actually build it into your life. Again, it's free. Go to ultimize.com.