At some point, hundreds of presentations later, I must ask; when will I, and many others, stop being nervous about public speeches?
Like a pack of gum that we all share a piece from, public speaking stresses me out. Ironically, I’ve done it my whole life at a reasonably high level; interclass school debates, general speaking, and now in my fledgling media career, I have faced the nerves of speaking in front of a crowd. Many of the people I speak to feel the same way; the dreaded jitters, the shaky voice, the pit in the stomach that feels like it wants to break free. Nerves unlike anything you could ever imagine.
And that is where the paradox comes in.
There’s this beautiful irony that comes from being a speaker versus a part of the audience. As a speaker, you feel as though you are the attraction, and perhaps for just a moment you are, but there is this rather wide paradox of forgetfulness once you are a subject of the audience.
Can you remember a public speaking assignment where you were nervous? I’m sure you could re-call to a degree what you spoke about, but I almost guarantee you can’t remember anyone else’s speech. There’s 30 people in a classroom, all of them must speak once, but you only remember your own. I call this the equilibrium– a presentation either has to be challenging that it’s memorable or engaging that it’s memorable.
Maybe you remember that one person who was THE public speaker at your school who just owned the room the second they got up there, or maybe you remember the time your mate drunkenly fell over on the way up to present a speech at your 21st. Either way, they’ve broken the equilibrium; they’ve snapped the audience out of the lull of a presentation, and created an association to their speech
That’s when public speaking becomes fun - when you can break it.
Now ideally, breaking the equilibrium in a good way is ideal. You don’t want to turn up to a client pitch in pyjamas and start cracking jokes just to be different. The key is understanding the goal of the presentation and what you would want to hear if you were the listener. Do I need to hear facts relayed clearly? Can this be a more light-hearted presentation? Am I trying to persuade the audience to align with a message? Breaking the equilibrium can look very different across speeches, hence understanding the moment is perhaps more important than the speech itself. I have always felt so long as you believe what you’re saying, the rest will solve itself.
If there’s anything you can walk away from this blog post with, remember that most people won’t remember the intricacies of your speeches. They won’t remember whether you fumbled on a word, or even if you had a voice crack, chances are they’ve done the same before or fear themselves doing it. See it like a performance; they’re there to see you perform, they wouldn’t be blasé if they were up there instead of you! Whether you opt to escape the paradox or not, remember we’re all scared for when it’s our turn to be up there anyway.