How to prevent your first public appearance from becoming your last

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Tips and exercises to help you work through your mistakes, become more confident, and properly prepare for your next performance.

The screen went out, the audience was empty, the event for which you have been preparing for so long is over. And in my head I thought: "He stumbled, stood still, spoke softly, kept the microphone away from his face, did not speak to the audience."

Do you know this torture after the show? It seems that he did everything wrong. And also friends with their "show the video". You cannot look at it yourself, much less show it to someone.

Today we will talk about how to make sure that the first unsuccessful performance does not become the last.

Tip 1. Think good

The famous tennis player Karel Kazhelug played rugby all his childhood. And his older brother Jan Kazhelug was known for his achievements in tennis. The brothers often played against each other. Once Karel won the match against Jan, although no one had succeeded before.

After the game, the tennis player brother analyzed what he had done wrong. Whereas Karel was surprised to understand what he did to beat a professional player. They continued to play, Karel began to beat his brother more and more often. It got to the point that Jan gave up tennis, and Karel became a professional tennis player, a media person of the 1920s in America.

When we think bad, we collect mistakes.

After the performance, it is imperative to analyze the positive moments: when the audience raised their eyes, laughed, asked questions. And build your next speech around these positive aspects.

In All Joseph Murphy's Lessons In One Book. Control the power of your subconscious.”Authors Tim Goodman and Alexander Bronstein talk about how to stop seeing the bad and focus on the good.

Exercise 1

One of the laws of our subconscious is such that the positive qualities that we like in people are in ourselves, only they are not yet developed. Find someone whose performances you enjoy. What qualities and actions attract you? Does he speak confidently? Communicating and joking with the audience? Or maybe his answers to questions are striking with humor and sparkling?

Try these qualities on yourself. Introduce yourself in front of an audience. You are the protagonist!

When in reality you find yourself in front of the audience, remember your visual image. Replay the thoughts and emotions you received. Each time, the image in life and the image in the head will come closer to each other.

My visual image and example is business coach Radislav Gandapas. His manner of communicating with the audience, examples and stories, and more recently - more and more informal actions. For example, at the PIR 2017 festival, during his speech “Secrets of the physical form of a business coach,” Radislav, together with the participants, did morning exercises, dashingly setting the pace with the coach's whistle.

Exercise 2

The subconscious mind never argues, it only fulfills your thoughts and orders. The thoughts you focus on are the instructions. The subconscious mind does not distinguish whether these actions will harm or benefit you. But we can control our thoughts.

Introduce the next talk in great detail. You smile, the audience applauds, your respected speaker shakes hands. Try to think through this moment as much as possible. Fight off negative thoughts like Karel Kazhelug's tennis balls.

Exercise # 3

Take a look at your mistakes from the other side: “I stumbled, but made the audience laugh”, “I forgot to open the slide, but no one noticed a grammatical mistake”, “I forgot the words, but everyone thought it was a special pause to attract attention.” You will feel that your mood has improved. The subconscious mind is in a positive mood.

Tip 2. Analyze the misses with a cool head

The famous marketer Igor Mann has a daddy called Mai Ashipki. For 25 years, Igor has been collecting all his mistakes into it. And even devoted an entire chapter to mistakes in the book Marketing 100%.

There is no need to be afraid of mistakes, without them it is impossible to learn. Your case is not the only one, hundreds and hundreds of novice speakers faced these errors before you.

We take a sheet of paper, a pencil and begin to write out the mistakes on the paper. Without analysis and reflection. Have you written? Now we put this sheet aside until the morning.

We woke up - we take the list and start working with it. Not with a performance, but with individual errors. Examples of working on bugs:

Mistake 1. During the speech, the microphone sat down

Technical verification should be on your side. Make a technical background checklist and use before each performance:

• checking the batteries in the microphone and clicker;
• the presence of the necessary wires, extension cords;
• USB flash drive with presentation in PDF format;
• light and sound check.

Mistake 2. Didn't meet the timing

As you prepare, share your presentation from start to finish. The time of the story should be less than the allotted 20%. That is, if the organizers have allocated 10 minutes for you, the actual performance should not be more than 8 minutes. This will create a backlog of time.

Mistake 3. Forgot words, was silent for too long

The pause is a very important tool. It gives weight to your words. Famed speaker and book author Seth Godin advises keeping quiet for at least 10 seconds. We take this into account and next time we calmly recall the words at the moment when people in the hall raise their eyes to you in anticipation of valuable information.

Mistake 4. Apologized to the audience for poor preparation or lack of confidence

Gruzdev called himself get in the body. He called himself an orator - speak up. Think carefully about your speech. There should be no excuses or excuses in it.

Mistake 5. I could not answer a question from the audience

And now, in a calm atmosphere, can you answer this question? If yes, then next time do not rush to answer, take a break.

Take a critical look at your speech, imagine yourself in the audience's shoes, what questions they might ask. Come up with a format for answering uncomfortable questions. For example, you might ask your opponent to chat with you during a break.

So work through every mistake. Make checklists, memos, lists so that you will be fully armed during the next performance.

Tip 3. Practice

A positive attitude has taken place, the mistakes have been sorted out. Now let's go through the list and add touches for future development. This could be a book, a course, or a private lesson. As a result, you should have a plan for dealing with errors. Here are examples of books by topic.

Working with diction and voice

• “Speak beautifully and confidently. Voice and speech production”, Evgenia Shestakova.
• “I want to speak beautifully!”, Natalia Rom.

Techniques for performances

• TED Presentations by Carmine Gallo.
• “Eclipse everyone! Shine on stage, in the office, in life”, Michael Port.

Storytelling

• Anatomy of a History by John Truby.
• Understanding the Comic by Scott McCloud.
• The Million Dollar Story by Robert McKee.

Presentation creation

• "Presentation Mastery", Alexey Kapterev.
• Slide: ology, Nancy Duarte.
• Zen Presentation by Garr Reynolds.

Don't stop practicing, settle for all possible performances.

What if the performances are not as frequent as you would like? Then all kinds of public speaking clubs, acting courses, theaters of improvisation will help you.

Where can you perform for free

• Meetings of the international club Toastmasters are held in Moscow and St. Petersburg once every two weeks. The entrance fee is symbolic. Working languages: English, German, Spanish, French and Russian. Choose a club based on your language preference. Here the word is given to everyone.
• The Business Insight online school invites novice coaches, speakers, and entrepreneurs to speak. The presentation is carried out in the form of a webinar. You declare the topic, talk about yourself. The organizers provide technical preparation for the webinar.

The most important thing after any performance is to maintain a positive attitude. And then the first step onto the stage will never be the last.