It’s Only Natural to Get Nervous
By Poornima Vijayashanker Last week was a pretty big week for me. My alma mater, Duke, won its 5th NCAA championships, whoohoo!! (Yeah, I’m …
By Poornima Vijayashanker
Last week was a pretty big week for me. My alma mater, Duke, won its 5th NCAA championships, whoohoo!! (Yeah, I’m currently wearing my hoodie…) And out of the blue, I was invited to sit in on an internal keynote a Fortune 500 CPO delivered to his staff.
The purpose of the keynote was to encourage people to start speaking in public. So I was really surprised when the first words out of the CPO’s mouth were that he gets nervous before every presentation!
I was thinking to myself, “This CPO must give presentations all the time to his employees, shareholders, and the general public. If he gets nervous before every presentation, how does he not crack under pressure?”
We’ve all heard it before: public speaking is the number 1 fear.
But why?
Reason #1: We are wired to avoid open spaces.
Standing in an open space, such as a stage, goes against our biological instincts. As humans we are used to hiding from predators and finding shelter to secure ourselves. When we are in the wide open, we are vulnerable.
Getting on stage triggers that instinct, which is why it’s only natural to get nervous.
Reason #2: There’s a possibility that you might fail.
When you present, there’s a chance that people may reject your ideas, the crowd’s response may disappoint you, or you might just embarrass yourself.
And you end up feeling like you’ve failed.
Instead of facing our fear and possibly failing, it’s easier to come up with excuses like:
“Oh I’m just not a social butterfly.”
“I’m really busy, and just don’t have the time to create a presentation highlighting my work.”
Or my personal favorite that I hear from the most brilliant people I know: “I don’t have anything to say.”
But then something strange happens, and you might have experienced one of these situations…
… you get passed up for a promotion.
… someone else says the very thing you had been thinking, and gets recognized for it!
That’s when you realize all your countless hours of of hard work have gone unnoticed, and you beat yourself up for keeping quiet.
Suddenly you have this immense urge to say something, but you realize it’s too late. The moment has passed.
So what do you do? Maybe you just slouch back into your chair and tell yourself, “Ugh, it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Yeah, you could do that.
Or you could transform your fear into courage. Your silence into a voice.
Contrary to what you might think, getting over the fear of public speaking isn’t about waking up one morning, sucking it up, and delivering a speech to an unknown audience.
It’s about delivering a practiced message based on your expertise.
The CPO went on to share that he refuses to do a presentation if he hasn’t prepared for it and isn’t familiar with the message.
In fact, there are times when his CEO will text him the night before, say there’s been a change of plans, and insist that he present the next day. But the CPO will stand his ground and say no, because he hasn’t had time to practice, and doesn’t have the expertise on the topic yet.
He knows can’t just wing a presentation in front of thousands of people. There’s a lot on the line: his reputation and his company’s!
He needs time to practice. Practice is the process that helps him gain confidence.
But he doesn’t just run through his presentation a bunch of times, he practices with purpose.
He’ll find a safe environment by rounding up his immediate staff then bounce talking points off of them. He’ll brainstorm types of questions that the audience might ask. And finally, he’ll boil it all down to the key messages he wants to convey and practice them in front of his staff.
What he’s really doing is getting feedback from peers, anticipating the audience’s concerns, and incorporating his expertise into the final message.
I know what you’re thinking: “Poornima, I’m not a freakin’ CPO of a Fortune 500 company!”
Yeah I know. I’m not either 😉
Yet you and I still have excellent advice and scintillating stories from our professional and personal past, and there are colleagues who would benefit from them. To become a fantastic public speaker like the CPO, the first step is to select a topic that you’re an expert in and that people want to hear about. It’s easier than you might think.
So let me leave you with one method to help you extract your expertise to form a presentation topic, and a super simple test to help you gauge if others will find it interesting.
The Inventory Method
If you’re wondering how to pick a topic that will appeal to your audience, start by taking stock of a project you completed 6-12 months ago, and ask yourself these 5 questions:
- What problem were you solving, or what was the reason for the project? What were your goals?
- What were your contributions to the project?
- What challenges did you face? Was there something you got stuck on, or that your team was stuck on? What hurdles did you jump over? Did you create a new process?
- What did you learn, and how did you go about learning it? When you were faced with learning about a new technology, programming language, market segment, or career skill, how did you get started? Did you take a class? What books, websites or other resources did you find helpful?
- What advice do you have for people who might be faced with a similar project? What do you wish you had known before you started? What would you do differently if you had to do it all over again? What are your cautionary tales?
The Talk Topic Test
You’re testing for things that resonate with other people. The topics for my talks often come from conversations I’ve had. When I share a story or my experience with someone else and their eyes light up, I know I have a topic that might be interesting to others.
So take the responses to your questions from above and share them with your friends and co-workers. Pay attention to what causes their eyes to light up, the common questions and concerns they bring up, and then figure out if that meshes with your particular experience and expertise.
I realize that you won’t get over your fear in one post, which is why I’m going to encourage you to sign up to get a peek for my upcoming Confident Communicator Course. I only teach this course once a year. Registration is open now through Friday February 10, 2017 and the course will begin Monday February 13, 2017. Sign up here to get the sneak peek and sample lessons.
