Public speaking nightmare

You’re preparing to give a presentation to a group of your peers. As the time draws closer you notice your heart is beating twice as fast and your palms are getting sweaty. Your mind is plagued by thoughts of how this is going to go wrong. You tell yourself that your colleagues don’t even care what you're about to say, they’ll be bored of you after the first 30 seconds and all be playing with their phones by the time you reach your conclusion.

A polite round of applause welcomes you to the front of the room. You feel a small bead of sweat trickle down from your brow and you stutter in your first sentence. A polite cough echoes around the eerily silent room. The computer has frozen and isn’t moving onto the next slide. Make a joke about it? Pretend like you don’t need the power point you worked so hard on? People shuffle in their seats, growing impatient as the temperamental soul that is technology brings your whole presentation to a halt.

Panic overwhelms you. You’ve lost sight of where you were and frantically look through your notes that now seem like a language unknown. You start to rush your words, desperate for the ordeal to be over. You care no longer whether your presentation makes sense or conveys the point you intended. You conclude your message half heartedly and the same polite applause accompanies you back to your chair. You sink back, wishing you would fall straight through the chair, the floor and into a place where presentations were not a part of your job.

Any of that sound familiar?

Dale Carnegie work with thousands of individuals who have felt the same worries, anxieties and doubt over their public speaking as you do and seek to develop those skills to ensure they no longer need panic when in front of a crowd. We can work with you to make sure you engage your audience, use positive tone and body language and provide you with confidence that once you’ve finished your presentation, you can sit down knowing the message you wanted to put across, has been received.

We will be running a complimentary preview to one of our Presentations development programmes (High Impact Presentations) on Thursday 10th May. For more information give us a call on 0207 379 4323.

Brett Mills

The difference between confidence and nerves.

As I am coming up to the half way point of the Dale Carnegie course I thought I could use this blog to maybe describe one of the key breakthroughs I have made so far. The course is designed to develop a variety of skills and mentalities which in turn will be beneficial in your relationships with others, enable you to project confidence and maintain a positive attitude in all situations.

I have recognised through the presentations I have made on the course and speaking to others partaking that we all get nervous. Whether its presentations or something entirely different, I don’t know anyone who does not get nervous at some point. I use to think that by being constantly nervous I was somebody who suffered from a lack of confidence but would often be given good feedback in the areas I thought I was not confident in.

I have come to realise that nerves are more related to the significance of an event and confidence is linked to our preparation for it. If I have to give a presentation on a particular subject and I’m not prepared, then I will be nervous and have no confidence in myself to carry out the presentation. If I have prepared for the presentation then I have total confidence in my ability to deliver a good presentation but it does not stop me from feeling nerves.

I have learned to welcome the feeling of nerves in any scenario in life as for me it underlines it is something of importance. If I don’t feel confident about my ability to get through it, then I need to find what’s missing in order to rectify it.

I would encourage you to embrace nerves as a means of motivation. Next time you have a presentation and you feel nervous…good, it means that what you are doing is important to you! Next time you have a presentation and you don’t feel confident…work out what is missing, change it and give yourself the confidence that you have all the tools to give the presentation of your life.

Brett Mills