TJ Walker coaches on beating presentation anxiety. Simplify to one sentence about what you want your audience to do, support it with 3-5 points on a single sheet, record two practice runs and watch them once, then prep note cards in 15 minutes so you can actually relax before you present.
Questions this video answers
June 25, 2017
About 15 minutes
Record and practice once, review, then practice again (two recorded runs)
Chapters
Help. How do I get out of giving this presentation tomorrow? That's something everybody has felt from time to time. Now, I have to confess, I haven't felt that in a long time, but I'm sure at some point in junior high school, I did. Everyone feels that at some point. So if you feel that, it's completely normal. But I have to tell you, there is no getting out. Now, you might not literally give the presentation. You might jump in front of a car to say you're in a hospital. You might develop an illness or tell people you've developed an illness, but you're giving a presentation nonetheless. And the presentation might be someone standing up and saying, well, you know, TJ was supposed to be here today, but he's called in sick. That's a presentation. People are going to remember nothing about me or that I'm someone who isn't reliable or can't be depended upon. So that's communicating a real message. What I want you to do is to refocus your thoughts on how can you give this presentation in the least stressful way and in a way that helps your career and helps whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. The way to do that is to simplify the process. I want you not to have some deck of 89 slides with 142 bullet points on each one. I really want you to start with just a simple sheet of paper, or if you want to just look at a blank screen on your cell phone or your iPad, that's fine, too. Just write down one sentence, answer the question, what is it you want this audience to do after hearing you speak? Just write down that one sentence. And then I want you to come up with three or four or at most, five ideas, messages that you think will increase the odds that they will actually do what you want. And just have that on a simple sheet of paper. And then here's the part you're not going to want to do, but you also don't want to give the speech. Life is about making choices, sometimes of things you have several choices you don't want to do. This is one you're not going to want to do, but it's going to help you for tomorrow. I want you to stand up and just talk. Glance down at your outline of the five points and record it on video. Practice it once. Focus on what you like, and there might not be too much. Then focus on just one thing you don't like that you could change. I want you to practice the speech one more time and look at it and just reinforce the things you like. That's it. So if the speech is only three minutes and you took a few minutes to come up with your outline, you practice it. Once, you watched it, you practiced it again, watched it. You can do the whole thing in 15 minutes. Now look, you were going to spend all evening long trying to come up with ideas, excuses, worrying, losing sleep. You were going to spend the next six hours on this speech worrying about it. What I'm suggesting is let's just spend 15 minutes dealing with it, preparing it, and then the rest of the evening, relax, go watch House of Cards, go out and play catch with one of your kids, go for relax and get a good night's sleep. If you do what I asked, it will go fine. I'm TJ Walker. I help people speak their best. Because how you present your ideas is often the number one factor in your success. If you'd like to become a better speaker, then I've got several options for you. I have online public speaking and media training courses where you can learn from anywhere at any time. Starting right now. I've got monthly public workshops in in New York City for presentation skills and media training. Anyone can come. They're relatively inexpensive and I have private one on one trainings or group trainings that can happen anywhere in the world. If you're interested, give me a call or check out the website.
