Fear of Speaking in Public? The answer is in the body
Everybody in their career will present, pitch, be on camera or give a speech at some point. Public speaking is a skill that can not be overlooked anymore, as investor Warren Buffet said, it is the skill that raises your value by 50%.
Still, public speaking is nerve-wracking and numerous opportunities are declined because of the fear of it. The fear of being ridiculed, of forgetting your words, of putting people to sleep, of not being as good as you would like it to be, the fear of deceiving people and so on. These fears have caused the emergence of movements such as Upfront to help people break through their fears and speak out.
Like a physical training, public speaking requires attention and practice. The more you do it, the more you learn about your mistakes, pitfalls, and you are able to refine your style, change style, evolve and know your strengths. But speaking opportunities do not come every day, so where do you start? What are the basics of starting preparing for a speech or a presentation? How do you keep practising so your public speaking muscle does not deflate?
For us at Metaspeech, the answer is in the Body. Our bodies are a highly intelligent tool we’ve been leaving out of business for too long. Here are questions you can ask yourself and actions you can take in order to start breaking your fear of public speaking (and if fear of speaking is not part of you lingo then the points below will help you deepen your skill).

How do I make you feel?
During a presentation, the impact of the non-verbal message is much stronger than your words because it is what an audience remember the most and the longest. Do the test, ask yourself, what do you remember of a talk you saw few months ago? Is it the exact sentences the person said or is it how you felt in their presence? Mirror neurons, are the neurons who help us to feel what other people feel, and it is no different when on stage.
Take action: An audience will feel what you feel so instead of focusing on the anxiety rushing through your body before speaking, focus on How do I want them to feel? Then embody that feeling, if you want them to be excited, then find what excitement is for you, if you want them to feel calm and focused, dig into what is that for you.
Listen to your intuition
The body is intimately involved in all our thought processes, understanding, emotions and decision making. Take intuition, for example, also known as gut feeling. We literally have a “brain in our gut” — research has shown that this mind-gut connection is not just metaphorical. Our brain and gut are connected by an extensive network of neurons and a highway of chemicals and hormones that constantly provide feedback. 70% of the time we make decision from our intellect and forget what our other brain, the gut, is telling us.
Take action: If you are stuck or need a push to prepare your next talk or pitch, here are questions you can ask yourself: –What am I eager to share? –What do I truly want to talk about? –What does my gut tells me is the right thing to do and/or to say for this particular speech?
Fake it till you make it, hack yourself.
A technique you can try is to hack the messages sent to your brain. The rest of your body sends messages to your powerful brain and we can alter these messages by doing simple things.
Take action:
•Smile for about a second, it will change the perception you have about the situation you are in and change the perception people have around you. [The Facial Feedback Hypothesis]
•Adopt an upright posture. For this exercise focus on having an aligned posture, without any tension and an open chest. Study by Professor Erik Peper at San Francisco State University found that slouching can produce feelings of depression that can be reversed by walking upright. [Peper, Erik, and I-Mei Lin. “Increase or Decrease Depression: How Body Postures Influence Your Energy Level.” Biofeedback 40.3 (2012): 125–30. Web]

Imperfection is Key for Audience engagement
One exercise you can do to fight your fears is the Worse Case Scenario system Tim Ferris implemented. [Read more on The worst that could happen]
Take action:
- List your worst case scenario.
- Imagine it is happening, you are in the situation.
- Now listen to things you can do to make up for it. Try to come up with solutions that are actions as much as possible. When in panic mode, the amount of adrenaline rushing through your body stops you from thinking clearly therefore actions becomes more doable than thinking.
- Organise your solutions in order of importance.
The Pratfall Effect is a fascinating study by Elliot Aronson, on how people get more or less attracted to someone. Aronson showed that mistakes made by someone respected will create more attractiveness from the people around that person. Who would have known that making mistakes would create interest from the crowd? [Aronson, E., Willerman, B., & Floyd, J. (1966). The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness. Psychonomic Science.}
Immerse Yourself.
Michael Phelps won his latest Olympic Medal because he managed to swim without seeing. His goggles started filling up with water during the race. But Phelps had been training his mind since he was a child and visualising the perfect race every night before going to bed. For years! He says this helped him to be prepared for anything, so when the goggles were filling up his body knew exactly what to do and he kept swimming to a win. The visualisation techniques enabled Phelps not to panic during what could be one of his worst case scenario.
Take action: Take moments during your preparation time to sit down, breathe, close your eyes and go through your talk. Even if you don’t know yet what you are going to say, visualise yourself talking to an audience. Once on stage or in the meeting, the situation will feel a bit more familiar.
Bring it all together & Set your intention
So you did the leg work of deciding the tone of your speech by thinking about how you are going to make your audience feel. You then listened to yourself, and refined what you wanted to say. You can now repeat to yourself what you are eager to share while jumping or breathing calmly. Visualise yourself giving the talk, regain energy with a simple yet active posture, and render your fears.
The last but not least of the action you can take is to set an intention. Having an intention will give you a purpose and everything you will do and say will fall into place according to it.
Take action: Ask yourself ‘What do I want to achieve?’ and write your intention at the top of your notes starting by ‘I will…’ Be kind to yourself and pick an achievable intention.

Public speaking requires practice, actually a lot of it, tailored techniques that work for you and a certain determination. But you are not determined to be a bad speaker, start today implementing small steps and see the differences, the tiny changes that occurs. Do not wait to be on stage to practice the skill that will help you share your thoughts, connect and engage with others.
If you liked this article, share it with someone you think could benefit from it and if you want to know more about Metaspeech work, contact us hello@metaspeech.com
