How to overcome the fear of public speaking and create speeches

Public Speaking is a Powerful Tool for Building a Personal Brand, Growing a Business, and Reaching a Larger Audience. But How Does One Overcome The Fear of Public Speaking? It Starts with Knowing Your Why and Your Core Values.

About Perdita Andrews

Perdita is a speaking coach in Paris, France who is on a mission to help people overcome the fear of public speaking. Throughout her life, she has been on both sides of the spotlight. Both sides of the camera and microphone. Perdita’s educational background, professional experience, and personal circumstances put her in the unique position of knowing exactly how others feel because she has stood in their shoes.

Her mission is to help others overcome the fear of public speaking and help them tell their stories. Perdita can relate to the struggles of fear because she has experienced it. Her higher education helped her master the art of speaking, performing, and writing. Her professional career gave her practical and highly necessary expertise in those same three areas. Today, she thinks of them as the foundation of her own “Triple Threat” program.

Perdita has been helping her clients succeed and captivate their audiences since 2013. Many of them have launched their dream businesses, booked new clients, and conquered the arena of speaking at international industry conferences.

Her passion is helping women find their voice and speak with more impact so they can have their message heard as far and as wide as their heart desires.

Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

When people are in the position of public speaking, they often think they must be someone else. This can trigger fear.

Something that can help with overcoming the fear of public speaking, is realizing that you are an expert. Speak about something you are an expert at and passionate about.

It’s important to ask questions and get curious as to why the fear is occurring. Is there fear making you feel like you have to be someone you are not, is the fear paralyzing you, is the fear making you nauseous, is the fear making you be overconfident and inauthentic?

Questions Perdita Asks Her Clients to Help Them Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking

What is the thing you are most afraid of?

Then, ask what is the worst thing that could happen.

Lastly, ask yourself what is your why? This will help you connect with your purpose.

Once you know your purpose, you can speak about it. Your why is the foundation of your talk.

How Do You Decide Your Key Message for Public Speaking?

There can be more than one key message. Perdita loves to bring together the audio and visual components of branding for creating a powerful talk or speech.

Your overall core message is linked to your core values. Having a deep connection with your values is important when crafting any message. Identify the key purpose of your talk. What journey do you want the talk to take once you release it into the world?

Imagine the message has a journey. Each message you create must have your values at the core.

When you have created a journey for your message, it will come out easily.

Robyn compared identifying your core values for a talk to knowing where your values, visions, and passions overlap to identify your purpose.

When you craft your message with your purpose in mind, you’ll feel confident with the creation and the delivery.

If you are feeling uncertain about your message or your talk, come back to your values, passions, why, and purpose.

Think about it, I am on a mission to______ (fill in the blank) and this will help boost your confidence.

Your talk could be the answer that someone is waiting for.

We all have so much to share, and it can really change other people’s lives.

While You Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking, You Have to Think About What Goes into a Good Speech?

The beginning of a very good speech is to know your why. If you don’t know why you are speaking, you won’t be able to deliver a powerful message.

Everyone’s blocks are different. Fear blocks and message blocks are different for everyone. The key is to be authentic. The only real formula is that you speak in a way that feels good to you. There isn’t one to create a painting, and there isn’t one way to craft a speech. For example, you can move the conclusion to the beginning.

One key for crafting a speech is to prioritize using bullet points.

Focus on how your energy wants to deliver your message. For example, if you talk with your hands, you will be able to deliver a speech better, if you deliver it the way that you feel natural.

There are a few very formal situations where you want to be very efficient with using ums, likes, ahhs, etc. But for the most part, you can put yourself in the audience and think about how you would feel if someone on the stage speaking said um, like, or ah. What really matters is that the purpose comes from what you are saying.

When you are speaking, you want to ensure that you are not wasting the audience’s time. As you craft your message, think about speaking to one person, that one person sitting in the audience shaking their head at you in agreement with what you are saying. Focusing on that one person can help decrease anxiety by shifting the focus to them and not yourself.

There is a lot of power in a genuine desire to help. Coming from a place of service will help you be able to effectively deliver your message.

Speaking is so Important

Even if you aren’t speaking on a stage, it is important to own all these tips for creating videos for your business. When creating videos (learn more about video) and webinars within your business, you are using your voice and need to be able to deliver your message authentically and genuinely to build relationships.

Speaking is a form of marketing, and a powerful one. If speaking alone is very intimidating, interview other people. Build your platform in the way that is most comfortable to you.

The more comfortable we feel, the more we will want to show up.

Preparing for a Speech Will Help You Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking

If you have a speaking engagement coming up, practice. Practice on video, record yourself, and adjust or edit accordingly. Watching and listening to videos of yourself speaking will help you master your presentation style and delivery.

Perdita says that preparing is key. There is an amazing amount of power in preparation. It’s important to memorize and practice until you can do it in your sleep. That means that you will be at ease with the delivery. Memorizing will help confidence go from a 2 to a 10.