Public Speaking Courses

• Posture: Position your feet underneath your shoulders and stand up straight. This will support your diaphragm, which plays a massive role in vocal production.
• Body Language: Your body language (including facial expression) says much about what you think and feel in the moment. What message do you want to convey? People will believe more in your body language than in your words.
• Voice: Your voice is multifaceted. It uses pace, pitch, pause, and projection. Communicate clearly and concisely and get straight to the point. 
• Eye contact: Eye contact creates connection and engagement. Maintain a visual connection with the audience, or they will mentally drift off.
• Message: Whoever invited you to speak feels you have something valuable to share with the audience. Have one key takeaway message and three supporting arguments.

Interesting question. When you were a baby, you couldn't talk. You communicated by smiling or crying and hoped your loved ones could decode it. You didn't know how to ride a bicycle or read and write. You didn't understand numbers or how and why it went dark and light every day. You didn't understand the concept of today, tomorrow, or yesterday. You didn't understand the rules of football, cricket, or how to drive a car. You learnt all these things by trial and error, repetition, and a healthy desire to show that you're just as capable as everybody else. We learn life skills so we're not left behind.

We don't mind if we make mistakes when we're alone and society isn't judging. But with public speaking, there's no hiding place. The word 'public' is quite intimidating. We have an ego and self-esteem, and we dread the thought of diminishing ourselves in front of friends, family, and colleagues. Some call it 'social quicksand'. Psychologically, we retreat; avoidance seems like the best strategy. That's fine, but see it more as a tactical withdrawal, because in the 21st century, there's no hiding place. Every job requires you to be an excellent communicator, both written and verbal. So don’t delay your journey to excellence.

We suffer anxiety where and when we feel we can't control the outcomes. Asking somebody on a date, exams, job interviews, and competitive sports create anxiety. You become anxious because you care about the outcome. But life is a contact sport. You must be in it to win it. You can tactically withdraw for a while, but you know it's only a question of time before the grim reaper returns.

The symptoms are quite unpleasant and differ from person to person. What follows can also be seen as a panic attack. In a fraction of a second, a part of your brain called the Amygdala sends a signal through your Vagus nerve (part of the central nervous system), and adrenaline is released from your adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys. This triggers a range of physiological manifestations in your body. Firstly, an increased heartbeat. It might feel like you're out of sync with your breathing and can't catch your breath. Some people think that they're going to die, which is a good reason to avoid such situations. Secondly, clammy hands and profuse sweating. Your body warms up, and it cools itself by sweating. Some folks go red or purple. Thirdly, tightness and dryness in the throat. The physiological reactions switch off your salivary gland, which is pivotal in the digestive process. Fourthly, we call the sensation butterflies, but you're experiencing waves of blood and oxygen evacuating from the digestive system to your arms and legs. I repeat - this all happens in a fraction of a second. Some people think they're ill and wonder what happened. What happened was a brilliantly effective evolutionary reaction called a survival mechanism. We go into greater detail on our courses.

The best way to manage it is by deep breathing techniques. You might feel a bit wobbly, so the first thing to do is to find support. It could be a wall or leaning against a car, or if you’re indoors, take a chair. Breathe in through the nose for five seconds, hold your breath for five seconds and slowly exhale in a controlled manner for eight seconds. This sends a signal to your parasympathetic nervous system to slow the heart down. Resuming control of your heartbeat is the goal and top priority. Similarly, you can try the exaggerated sigh. Breathe in through the nose for five seconds, hold your breath for five seconds and in one large breath exhale forcefully while flicking out your arms. This exercise resets your nervous system and returns your breathing to a normal state.

Firstly, we’re chatting and talking all day to our friends, family, and colleagues. We do it effortlessly and spontaneously. It’s dynamic and these conversations don’t require notes or rehearsal, and they can jump tangentially from one subject to another, often without returning to the original subject matter.

Alternatively, speech making has a purpose, it’s timebound and it’s delivered for and on behalf of an audience. Without an audience, you don’t need a speaker. It’s that simple. So, the speech is always about providing relevant information and value to them. I know why it’s easy for inexperienced speakers to imagine that the speech is all about the speaker. But it isn’t, the speaker is the delivery mechanism. The more you focus on the needs of the audience, the less it feels that it’s about you. That alone reduces anxiety.

This is the easiest of answers. Public speaking is a subjective skill which begs the question, what are your success criteria for perfection? There are some great scientific minds in the world, and nobody has been able to define those criteria. Getting the rest of the speaking world to agree them would be the next sticking point. Effectively, you’re setting yourself up for failure. There are many subjective disciplines: politics, economics, marketing, branding, cooking – any discipline that requires judging like gymnastics, high diving, martial arts, boxing. You can have objective criteria, but objectivity is purely subjective. Judges all see the same thing in the same moment and score if differently. Therefore, if your goal is perfection, you’re trying to achieve the impossible dream, and you’ll come up short every time. Every minor idiosyncrasy could dismantle what was otherwise an excellent delivery. If you aim to be the best that you can be, there’s every chance of success and you have every reason to be proud of your achievements.

Ask any excellent speaker the secret of their success and they’ll tell you it’s because they practice regularly. By practicing what works, you become more consistent at improved outcomes. Like all skills, public speaking can be broken down into techniques (see question 1). The secret is to execute the correct technique at the correct time, and those two things only combine with regular practice.

Barack Obama is a great speaker, and he worked hard on his communication skills as President of the US. Don’t forget he had the support of his seventy strong Whitehouse communication team. For the other 99.999% of us, we’re lone wolves and need to back our judgment. Trial and error can take some time, but it works. As you progress, your self-belief kicks in, as does your confidence.

If you need help, it’s best to work with somebody who has experienced the best and worst of the public speaking world. In my first book entitled, The Fear Doctor, I describe myself as a ‘recovering speaker’. I had a panic attack in front of the Board of the Co-Op in Manchester in 1984, which, let’s say, was a huge setback, but I was determined not to allow my anxiety to negatively impact my professional life. A few years later, I became a trainer, and I have since founded a speakers’ club, become Area and District President, and participated as a member of the National Assembly. I was a national speech finalist, I’ve spoken at many international conferences, and founded the College of Public Speaking in 2006. Since then, my speaking opportunities have sent me to China, Kurdistan, Bangladesh, and across Europe. Not to mention pursuing a relentless stream of relevant CPD accreditations. I am currently contracted to several corporate companies offering training and consultancy. They seem happy with the impact I have on their staff.

That’s easy, click on the link and it will take you to the Fear of Public Speaking page