How to improve your public speaking: 5 things that are holding you back

I will never forget a unique case in which the CEO of a large company in Croatia asked me to bring my television crew a teleprompter, or so-called blesimeter, to an arranged TV interview (lasting only a few minutes). It is a device that is mounted on a camera, and the text that the speaker is speaking is printed on the screen. It did not end up the way he expected.

Teleprompters are primarily used by TV presenters in the studio while they are conducting the news or announcing various program content in the show, by presidents or prime ministers of countries in longer public addresses, and today, increasingly, by influencers on YouTube or Instagram channels. No one uses a teleprompter for a TV interview. "Unfortunately, I cannot comply with that request," I told the CEO's associate. He politely replied, "then he will have to find a different way." The CEO then ordered his subordinates to get him a teleprompter, so that he could speak the answers to the questions with surgically precise words. He did not allow sub-questions, and asked for the questions in advance. These were his conditions for agreeing to the interview. He was extremely rare to see in the media at the time.

Before the filming, I warned him and his team that the chosen solution in this form of conversation would look pretty bad, but they were persistent. As expected, given that he has no experience in using a "blasimeter" (nor is that device intended for that), this CEO's appearance in front of the camera left the impression of an unnatural, unconvincing and stiff man. He uttered his sentences with the charisma of a talking machine, and it was clear that he was reading them from somewhere. Completely inappropriate for the level of leadership, work and responsibility in the company he heads. Only then did it become clear to me why he avoided appearances. He was terrible, and he was trying to hide it in a completely wrong way.

The problem was obviously a combination of several factors: in addition to not preparing, he also abstained from the media in principle. With this approach, camera anxiety easily eats away at a person because each of these rare media appearances represents great stress for him. In addition, his closest associates were afraid to suggest that he practice public speaking more intensively. Even worse - they may have flattered him that he was good at it. In a decade and a half of TV journalism and coaching, I have seen all kinds of speakers and heard various excuses that supposedly prevented them from performing better on stage or in front of the camera. Most often, these were circumstances that these people could have influenced, if they had tried hard enough. I have identified 5 key obstacles on the way to improving your public speaking. So, let's get started...

5 ways to improve public speaking

1. THE PARADOX OF PRACTICE: YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO PRACTICE, BUT YOU DON'T PRACTICE

If you prepare well and then practice a presentation, speech or statement several times, you will probably make solid progress, without anyone's help. However, experience shows me that without professional guidance, most people practice their speeches little or not at all - and they don't improve. You wouldn't believe how many people say out loud the words they prepared for their performance on stage (in front of a live audience) for the first time.

It's like thinking you'll swim well without having practiced in the water, but relying on a swimming manual you've read. Don't be surprised if you start drowning after your first few strokes. It's unrealistic to expect that you'll be good if you don't practice your performance several times. The coach's role is to study your presentation pros and cons, tailor your approach to your needs, and then "force" you to practice it. Yes, that includes a series of videos, and I know you all "love" watching yourself and your mistakes on video. OK, there are books and websites that can help, but that brings us to the next problem.

2. YOU'RE CONFUSED BY A TON OF INFO

Start or end your performance this way or that, where to put your hands, how to stand, when to walk, who to look at? The amount of advice on the Internet is enormous, most of it very general, and a lot of it is also incorrect. Several times clients have told me that they read somewhere that when speaking in front of an audience in a hall, the gaze should be directed half a meter above the heads of the audience, in order to create the impression that the speaker is looking at everyone a little.

In practice, this advice is deeply wrong and leads to the speaker staring into space and not making any connection with the audience. Some have watched too much The Wolf of Wall Street and tried to copy the aggressive energy of Leonardo DiCaprio from that film, thinking that this would make them more convincing. It turned out forced, staged and created the opposite effect. The biggest drawback of all this is that none of the advice is tailored to you. You need to be authentic in your performance. This primarily means not trying to copy someone completely different from you.

3. DISHARTNESS OR FLATTERING BY THE ENVIRONMENT

Colleagues and family will rarely tell you honestly what they think about your performance. Not out of malice, but out of politeness. Most people are kind and will say that you were great, no matter what it actually looked like. People who ask for feedback are actually looking for affirmation. This means that honest criticism carries the risk of offense, so people around them stick to compliments. More precisely, they flatter us without realizing that they are actually harming us.

This is sometimes done by PR professionals in companies, not wanting to resent a boss like the one at the beginning of the story, because they risk being fired from their job. If you decide to hire a professional, it means that you want and need to hear the truth. A coach should build on your strengths, recognize your weaknesses, and enable you to use your presentation potential.

4. SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

How many times have you thought this: “I just don’t like public speaking, I’ve tried a few times, I’m not talented at it, and I can’t improve”? Such a self-destructive attitude is also a completely wrong way of thinking that inevitably leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Avoid this negative loop! Just because you are not skilled at speaking in front of others today, does not mean that you cannot be better tomorrow.

Do not discourage yourself based on one bad experience, and thus deny yourself the opportunity to improve: Your current level of public speaking skills is not "set in stone" and does not define you forever: Change your attitude, realize the potential for improvement and step on the path on which you will, without a doubt, become a better speaker.

5. THE PARADOX OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

It is interesting that the fear of public speaking is not always an indicator of a lack of self-confidence. The correlation is weak. Self-confidence in some area of ​​life or work does not necessarily mean self-confidence in public speaking. I have repeatedly seen self-confident people who think they will dominate a presentation, interview or lecture, but then lose themselves. This is just proof that public speaking is a skill, which, like any other - requires specific preparation. Regardless of self-confidence in other domains of life and work. The mentioned president of the board from this blog is exactly one of the examples of the disproportionality I am talking about here. He still avoids performances. And it didn't have to be like that.

The power to improve your public speaking skills is primarily within you: more practice, less flattery, and you're halfway to success. The rest is up to a professional trainer who can speed up and make the journey easier.

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