Newsflash : Public Speaking is no longer an excuse to picture your colleagues in their underwear!
Imagine you are minutes away from going on stage for an event organized by your department’s Vice President. You have practiced hard for a very important speech, but the thought of making a mistake is nearly paralyzing you. While trying to figure out what you wrote on your increasingly shaking cue cards, you luckily remember an old advice you heard: “When you have to speak in public, picture your audience in their underwear”.
You glance through the curtain that is separating the backstage from the spotlight and notice your boss on the first row. What would he be wearing…? To loosen the mood, you picture him in bright yellow Spongebob Squarepants boxer shorts. You suppress a smirk on your face and give yourself a mental pat on the shoulder for not picturing him in a way too tight string… a mental picture that you now can’t erase anymore! You panic and try to think of something else, but you obviously can’t force yourself to unthink something. The result? You are now more stressed than before, have lost your focus and are mentally scarred for life…
We might have slightly exaggerated the conclusion in the above example, but our message is clear: don’t go for the underwear trick, because it is not only not particularly classy, but also pure nonsense.
No worries though, there are some things you can do that won’t get you on the speed dial list of the Ethics & Compliance department. In this post, we’ll focus on one domain, with others to come in subsequent blogs.
First of all, you will have to accept that there will be a certain level of stress involved, and that is perfectly normal. Public speaking is consistently in the top 3 of biggest fears, no matter which survey outcome you check. To make things worse, a feeling of stress right before going on stage will most likely never fully go away. An extreme testimony to this is Corey Tailor, the singer of nu-metal phenomenon Slipknot: after more than 20 years in the band and successfully playing headline shows all over the world, Corey still regularly has stress-induced unplanned reunions with his evening dinner right before going on stage. Luckily it doesn’t stop him from (literally) putting the stage on fire a few minutes later!
This is because it is possible to learn to channelize the stress and use it in your advantage. You can see public speaking stress as a wave coming in your direction while you are lying on your surfboard in the ocean: whether you like it or not, the wave is there and it’s coming for you. You can try to resist it and get dragged into the deep, or you literally go with the flow and end up with an epic ride. You can paddle as much as you want on your own, but on top of the wave is where the magic happens.
So when you feel that the adrenaline starts pumping through your body before taking the stage, don’t try to fight is, but welcome it as a bit of extra kerosene to get you to new heights. Caution is however required: even though we’re in general strong believers of the saying “more is more”, unfortunately it does not really apply here: when you get too stressed, it will negatively impact your performance₍₁₎. Effects range from talking too fast and getting a very dry throat all the way to sheer panic attacks.
To keep public speaking stress levels under control, we have two recommendations for you in this post. The first one is simple: focus on your breathing. Go for very conscious, deep breaths as a natural soothing mechanism. Apart from physical benefits like a lowered heartrate, focusing on your breathing helps you to also mentally relax.
Secondly, train yourself in performing under stressful situations. Like with any skill, training will help you to recognize pitfalls and create automatisms. When you are driving a car, you also want to fully focus on the road and not consciously need to think about each gearshift, mirror check,… . For this, we at Tilt - Improv Based Learning have created an innovative pressure cooker setup! Because let’s face it, if improvising has taught you how to perform without any form of preparation and with unexpected inputs being thrown your way, imagine how much more at ease you will feel when you actually get the opportunity to prepare and are in control of what is happening!
Curious how we’re getting you ready for the performance of your life and want to learn how to ride the waves? Get in contact with us at info@tiltlearning.com or snoop around on the website at www.tiltlearning.com!
More about Public Speaking in upcoming posts!
₍₁₎ The Yerkes-Dodson law stipulates certain levels of stress improve your performance, but after a cutoff point, your performance starts to drop off again. In a future post, we will zoom further in on handling stress.
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