Why bullet points are killing your presentation success
Presenting on difficult topics
How does your nervous energy show up when you are speaking?
Adrenaline is a wonderful thing because it gives us so much energy.
But sometimes this energy can come out negatively when we're speaking.
You may well have experienced that speaker who walks a mile during the course of their speech because they can't control what is going on with their feet.
Or the presenter who sways from side to side consistently, making you feel slightly seasick.
Or even someone who is pitching to you and when they get to their most important point, they lose complete control of their hands and their fingers.
All of these things combine to distract you, the audience, from the speaker's key message. They influence the speaker's ability to succeed.
Want to watch this article as a video?
If you think you have any of these nervous ticks when you are speaking, the best thing you can do is to film yourself speaking and you'll quickly see what is going on. Then you can make a conscious choice to redirect this energy positively.
You could use that energy that you have when you're on the stage to do some planned movement across the stage or around the room to appear as a really powerful, confident speaker.
Or maybe add in some big arm gestures and movements to make all of your audience feel included within the pitch, presentation or speech that you're delivering.
Or even plan your storytelling with actions and gestures and movements to help build characters and lessons and ideas within that story, into the minds of your audience.
Ultimately, if you know that you are being impacted by adrenaline and all of this excess energy in a negative way, then the one question you need to stop and ask yourself (yes, I know, I always finish with a question that you can ask yourself!) before you deliver your next big presentation is simply;
How can I redirect this gift of adrenaline in a positive way that will help me to achieve my speaking objectives?
Want to watch this article as a video?
All of our recent blog posts are recorded as videos too. Click the video to watch this blog post narrated by Rich Watts, public speaking expert and 2x national public speaking champion.
To watch all our public speaking tips videos, visit the Rich Public Speaking Youtube channel here.
