I’ve never been able to relate to traditional public speaking advice. I’m sure techniques like power poses, pep talks in the mirror, and imagining the audience naked work for some, but I haven’t found those tricks helpful. So I’ve written this blog post as a brief guide for us quiet, contemplative types who have had to learn to take up space. If you’re one of the people that men explain things to, this advice is for you. I won’t tell you to smile, or stand a certain way, or ask insincere questions in exchange for insincere “engagement”. Instead, my approach is based in the idea that the only way past is through.
I’ve taught classes and workshops, presented at conferences, and lectured in giant lecture halls, but it wasn’t until last year that I really started to enjoy public speaking – in large part due to an unexpected paradigm shift. When I started telling stories at Confabulation (a live storytelling event) I began to reassess my approach to public speaking. Telling a story at a live storytelling event is varsity-level public speaking. You’re alone on stage. There’s no lectern to clutch. And you don’t have notes to rely on. You speak for about 10 minutes, from memory, often about pretty personal moments from your life. The first time was terrifying! But each subsequent Confabulation got a little easier, and now I experience the anxiety of public speaking as a tingle of adrenaline rather than a wave of dread. In the last couple years I’ve performed four times at Confabulation and here’s what I’ve learned from repeatedly forcing myself out of my comfort zone…
1. Centre care
When you write your talk (or story or whatever content you’re going to present) you’re focused on crafting engaging, thoughtful, valuable content. But when you’re on stage, the craft part is done. The content is there. Your authority is already established in the strength of your words. Your role is no longer to be commanding, it’s to connect with the audience. The best way to do this, in my experience, is to embrace an ethos of care. This is the paradigm shift that (finally!) cracked the code for me.
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being in the audience while a speaker bombed you know how excruciatingly uncomfortable that is. It may seem counterintuitive, but it works for me to think “I’m gonna do whatever I can to ensure the audience feels comfortable.” Focusing on helping the audience relax and enjoy the experience also keeps me from fixating on the worst-case-scenario.
I had an epiphany moment a few years ago when I was watching a very talented storyteller and stand-up comic named Ryan Bangma. He was onstage, mid-story, when a line elicited an unexpected response from the audience. Because he was in-the-moment and connecting with the audience, he was able to address the unexpected reaction and reassure us before seamlessly moving on with his story. It was warm, conversational and organic. We’ve probably all witnessed moments like this, when watching masterful performers. In this case it made me realize that good public speakers are not overconfident men, or people with naturally resonant voices, they’re caretakers. So rather than thinking in terms of performance, think in terms of caring for the audience. By focusing your energies on the audience, rather than trying to pretend them away, you can almost forget about the performance aspect of public speaking and stay present in-the-moment with your audience.
2. Practice like a choir kid
In choral music, especially in long or technically difficult passages, each singer marks on their sheet music where they’ll breath. This is to ensure that the breaths are staggered, which is especially important during long, sustained notes or melismatic phrases. The audience shouldn’t notice the ensemble breathing, but they will if the entire soprano section takes a breath all at once. Similarly, in public speaking, the audience should not be aware of your breathing, but they will be aware of your breathing if you’re so anxious that you rattle off everything as quickly as possible and find yourself short of breath partway through.
To keep yourself from racing through your talk, print out what you are going to say, then take a red pen and draw a big diagonal slash through each period and at least some of the commas. Those big red slashes are your cue to look up from your paper and take a deep breath before starting the next sentence or part of a sentence. It’s also a good idea to highlight a few keywords to indicate the really important spots where you want to be sure to look around the audience and pause to let them sit with an idea or poignant moment.
Even if you’re preparing for a public speaking gig where you won’t get to have notes on stage, the practice is still valuable. If you do it enough, you’ll find that making your breathing a conscious, intentional ritual as you prepare for your talk will help ease your nerves when you’re actually speaking in front of a crowd.
3. Just a buncha fun guys
And finally, my last bit of advice: the quickest way to lose your audience is to steamroll over their responses. But it’s hard to engage with (and respond to) people on an individual level when you’re speaking to a large group. Instead, try thinking of the audience not as a room full of people, but as a single organism — or as a big bunch of critters that function like a single organism. This is my most unorthodox advice, but it works!
Experiencing the audience as a singular blob will help you stay clued in to the mood of the room, without fixating on the one sullen grump lurking in the back. It’s the mental equivalent of staring at a magic eye poster. If you soften your focus a bit, the single, collective whole emerges and the individuals fade into the background. If you do spot a grump and feel your heart start to race, seeing them as just one small part of a larger whole can help you momentarily forget that they’re a critical human with a fully-developed frontal lobe.
In sum, ignoring your fear or trying to imagine the audience away doesn’t work. And being a good speaker has nothing to do with over-designed PowerPoint decks, fancy clothing, or whether you wander or stand still. Being good at public speaking simply requires prioritizing care, ritual and curiosity. Public speaking will never be my favourite thing. I still wouldn’t choose it over puppies or ice cream, but with this approach I’ve been able to experience public speaking as an ordinary part of my life rather than an event to dread and overcome.