[:en]You for sure will have to stand in front of an audience in a near future. I know, you hate that! Not everyone gets excited having many eyes staring at oneself.
You may have heard that some studies say that the worst fear people have is to speak in front of an audience. You may even have that fear. Why are you scared? What is the worst that could happen? You saying something stupid?
So what?
I am teasing you, no one wants to look stupid in front of an audience.
Now think about this: less than 7% of the power of your message is about the words you say. The 93% left are about how your body moves and how your voice sounds!
You can be 7% stupid but have to be 93% credible.
The 93% have to be great! If you are negatively stressed it will show, the audience’s brains will notice. And you don’t want that. How can you move from negatively to positively stressed?
Here is a personal example. When some friends see the recordings of some of my keynotes I gave (like here), they are convinced someone is telling me what to say through an earphone. Funny!
In fact, I spend countless hours rehearsing! As my first saxophone teacher used to tell me:
“Practice makes perfect”
And you have to practice like crazy! A 25 minutes’ keynote, like the example I gave, requires hours of rehearsal. Rehearse and rehearse, till you know it by heart! I do the same for a 3 days long workshop! A partner of mine worked 6 months on his 17 minutes TEDx talk!
But why is that, why should you do that? The brain loves “automatic” and hates “to think”. It is all about energy saving. If you get your whole talk/keynote/presentation/interview stored and managed by the lower brain parts, it will run fast and smooth.
Tell me, do you think about all what you have to do to drive your car? No! You are in “automatic” mode. This leaves energy to handle the unforeseen. You don’t want the Neocortex (upper part) to be driving the car, way to slow (200 times!).
When your, let’s say, keynote is in “automatic” you can react to any unforeseen situation (beamer going off, PowerPoint crashing, someone talking, demo effect, etc.).
Practice, practice and practice! It isn’t just about the text but mainly about your movements, your posture, your energy.
Don’t accept an average version of yourself, go for the “great you”!
Once, during a workshop I coached, there was a nice lady in one of the groups. She made it very clear: “I will not present!” (use the German tone here, as it was in Germany), “Never”. Well she went against her fears and rehearsed till it was flawless. Her presentation was great! She enjoyed it!
If she could do it, you can![:]