How to fall in love with public speaking
As a professional, it’s in your best interest to fall in love with public speaking.
Unless you have a job requiring zero human interaction, your ability to confidently deliver an organized and compelling message to others will influence your career potential and the size and power of your professional network.
Sure, you don’t have to love public speaking to be good at it, but those who love it tend to be better at it and attract more opportunities because of the joy they exude while doing it.
Most professionals I work with have a love-hate relationship with public speaking.
They do it because they want to increase their impact and leverage their hard-earned knowledge and experience, not because it’s a favorite pastime.
While thinking on this topic, I was also reading Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun by ski racer Bode Miller.
Three quotes stood out to me:
“I was in Salt Lake City to have fun and to win, which is my attitude in every race I run.”
“Professional sports today are too much about the players and not enough about the game.”
“Act from conviction, never from fear, and know the difference in yourself. That’s basic.”
How fitting.
If you met someone who claimed to “love” public speaking, they’d share similar viewpoints:
“Sharing myself and my work with others is fun, and I like to compete to exceed expectations.”
“Public speaking has nothing to do with me and everything to do with sharing a message I believe will improve my listeners’ personal/professional lives.”
“My message is so important to me that my anxieties about public speaking are irrelevant.”
One reason Bode Miller has excelled in ski racing is that he’s found the balance between competition and joy.
If you can find that balance, you can learn to love public speaking.
START HERE 👇
1/ Focus less on what your listeners think of you and more on what your message means to your listeners
The next time you feel fear or anxiety before speaking in front of others, notice your thoughts. They probably sound something like…
“I’m afraid I’ll forget what I want to say.”
“I don’t like being the center of attention.”
“I’m nervous I’ll mess up.”
“What if they think I’m stupid / this is a stupid idea?”
“I’m the least experienced person in this meeting. They’re not going to listen to me.”
Did you notice the common theme?
Public speaking anxiety is self-focused. It draws your attention inward to your experience as the speaker.
People who love public speaking don’t notice this anxiety because they’re too busy worrying about the impact of their message and the experience they’re creating for their listeners:
“How exactly will this help my listeners know more, do better, or feel better about themselves and their work?”
“Will my audience be comfortable in these seats?”
“Will my listeners be able to follow along as I walk them through this data?”
“What questions might they have about my recommendation?”
“Will the people in the back be able to read what’s on this slide?”
“What do I need to do to make everyone comfortable enough to ask questions?”
If you want to love public speaking, become obsessed with your listeners’ experience.
This quote from The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker (great book) sums it up perfectly:
I want to convince you to assume your proper powers as a host. That doesn’t mean that there’s one way to host or one kind of power to exert over your gathering. But I do believe that hosting is inevitably an exercise of power. The hosts I guide often feel tempted to abdicate that power, and feel that by doing so they are letting their guests be free. But this abdication often fails their guests rather than serves them. The chill approach to hosting is all too often about hosts attempting to wriggle out of the burden of hosting. In gatherings, once your guests have chosen to come into your kingdom, they want to be governed—gently, respectfully, and well. When you fail to govern, you may be elevating how you want them to perceive you over how you want the gathering to go for them. Often, chill is you caring about you masquerading as you caring about them.
When you speak to others, focus on the impact of your message and the experience your listeners are having while receiving it. If you do that, you won’t even notice how much you don’t like public speaking.
2/ Don’t identify as a “public speaker”
How you identify with certain activities influences your feelings and behaviors.
Seth Godin explained this perfectly in his blog The lifeguard hack:
Who am I to walk up to someone at a party and introduce myself?
Who are you to start a new project?
Who are they to give a talk on the main stage?
Don’t raise your hand–someone else might have a better question. Don’t ship that work, it’s not ready…
There are endless excuses, comparisons and reasons to hold back.
Unless…
Unless you’re on lifeguard duty and someone is drowning. In that situation, even if you’re not the best lifeguard in the world, and even if the water isn’t the perfect temperature, and even if you don’t quite remember how to do the latest version of the cross-chest carry… you jump in the water.
Because it’s not for you. It’s for them.
Generosity unlocks doors inside of us.
A (good) lifeguard will save someone who’s drowning, even if they’re doubtful or afraid, because it’s an expected behavior of the “lifeguard” identity.
Here’s how I think about this in terms of public speaking…
If I want to deliver a compelling message in the most genuine and confident way, I need to figure out what identity empowers me to do that.
For me personally, it’s the “teacher” identity.
When I get myself in the headspace of “teaching” something to others, I feel calm, confident, and competent.
So, when I’m feeling nervous before public speaking, I’ll say to myself out loud: “I’m here to teach. I’m here to teach. I’m here to teach.”
Just because I’m technically public speaking doesn’t mean I have to identify as a “public speaker.”
I’m a “teacher” who does public speaking.
What are you?
“I’m a “coach” who does public speaking.”
“I’m a “educator” who does public speaking.”
“I’m a “facilitator” who does public speaking.”
“I’m an “athlete” who does public speaking.”
3/ Treat public speaking as your professional sport
If you’re a career professional, public speaking is your sport. You practice it daily and compete in it occasionally.
Public speaking is your outlet for showcasing your knowledge and skills in the same way sports are an outlet for athletes to showcase their athletic smarts and abilities.
Treating public speaking as your sport will also put you in the mindset that it’s something you can get better at with practice — which is true.
Yes, some of us are more naturally inclined toward public speaking, but all of us can improve with practice.
What’s that quote…
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. - Tim Notke
I think of public speaking skills on a spectrum of effectiveness.
Even though we all start at different places on the spectrum, each of us can reach maximum effectiveness regardless of where we start.
COMPETE to get better at public speaking.
In Closing
I’ll leave you with this quote from John Steinbeck’s book East of Eden:
“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
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Thanks for reading!
Jenny
"Focus less on what your listeners think of you and more on what your message means to your listeners"
This^^
Great article!