For others who have problems with going too fast see this post http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/delivery/dont-slow-down-effective-presenter/

Olivia

While it’s important to be passionate and excited about what you are delivering, it’s also important to remember to have breaks/pauses in your speech. Pause and stress the important points to give your audience time to soak in and think about what you are saying. As a result, your speech will be so much more effective and enjoyable.

Thanks for your contribution. Being out of the comfort zone can be a great motivator. But preparation doesn’t always help overcome fear. You can be incredibly prepared for an event and still be nervous.

Olivia

This technique of using fear as a motivator can be adopted in any field. Today many people who have lost jobs have used fear as an ally, by pursuing a business they have always considered or training for a new career. Real estate expert Carlton Sheets speaks of how he started his successful coaching business while out of his usual ‘comfort zone’. The cliche’ “Necessity is the mother of invention” definitely has merit.

Fear of anything can be crippling. The only way to overcome fear is to meet the fear face to face. Preparation truly arms us with the the confidence needed to be triumphant over our fears.

Cheers

Darren Fleming
Australia’s Public Speaking Coach

Like your mother told you when you started bouncing around the house – why don’t you use all that energy to take out the trash?

Every now and then, I run into Problem #1, or the problem attached to your third point. When you approach your presentation as if you’ve seen and done it all before, you’re shortchanging the people who have spent their time, energy, and oftentimes money, to hear what you have to say.

At the same time, if you have too much adrenaline fueling that passion… well, things can get a bit messy, hectic, and rushed. Learning to throttle your energy is one of those things a speaker can devote oodles of time to.

Thanks for the article!

Many moons ago, I had to speak at an IBM venue near Brussels. A flight traffic controllers’ strike meant that we were diverted to another airport and, after a frantic taxi drive, I ended up walking into the lecture theatre one minute late as I was taking my coat off. To my surprise, after all that stress, it went very well.

A few weeks later I had to do the same gig at the same venue and decided to get to Brussels the night before, allowing plenty of time to arrive early. The travel plans went very smoothly, and this, I thought, would be a doddle – after all, it had gone down well last time to a very similar audience. But it didn’t this time, it was one of the poorest performances I’d ever given and it was entirely my fault for being too laid back and relaxed about it.

That’s why I always teach that, however many times you may have given the same presentation, you have to remember that the next one is always another first time.

I think of the two types of fear in this way:

1. Natural fear. As you say – speaking is and should be scary. Courage and channeling it in the ways I’ve suggested it are what is needed.
2. Self- induced fear. This is the nervousness you get because of unuseful self-talk. Saying to yourself things like “I must not make a mistake”, “The audience mustn’t see I’m nervous” etc. You can reduce this fear by managing those thoughts. See this article for more on this http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/nervousness/thinking-sins-public-speaking/.

Olivia

I think of nervousness in two ways. (Maybe that’s my way of interpreting the fear, as you suggest.)

The way we commonly think of it comes down to stage fright, a sort of performance anxiety that jolts us with a surge of adrenaline. Your suggestions for dealing with it — both here and elsewhere — are exactly right.

And, I think, there’s also something else going on, something that isn’t just performance anxiety. It has more to do with making ourselves vulnerable. When we stake out a position that isn’t commonly accepted or conventional, when we say what we believe and value without hiding behind highfaluting words and phrases or presentation pyrotechnics, we’re taking a risk. Speaking is and should be scary. There are no techniques to transform this kind of fear. The only antidote is courage.

Chris