Why? Physiologically, we have two different systems: the go system and the stop system. Instead of saying “I am calm,” people gave more compelling speeches when they said “I am excited.” The same was true when people were anxious before singing Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin, saying “I’m excited” led to more accurate karaoke performance on than saying “I’m calm.” When independent raters evaluated the speeches, people who tried to relax ended up giving speeches that lacked persuasiveness and confidence. More than 90% of people said the best strategy was to calm down. Anxiety alert: they would be videotaped and evaluated by a committee.
In clever research, Harvard professor Alison Wood Brooks asked people to give a public speech on what would make them good colleagues. Here are the five steps that have been most helpful in reducing my anxiety: I still get nervous occasionally, but public speaking is now one of my favorite activities. In the past year and a half, I’ve given over 100 keynote speeches and hundreds of presentations, and things have changed dramatically.
No matter how much I practiced, for the three days leading up to the speech, I could hardly breathe.ĭuring the speech, nothing went terribly wrong. For weeks beforehand, I had nightmares about forgetting my lines, waking up in a cold sweat. I was terrified: as a student, my heart used to race at the mere thought of raising my hand in class. Several years ago, I was invited to give my first public speech, and I made the mistake of saying yes.
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