Public speaking fear caused by trying too hard

The fear of public speaking can be brought on by trying to be too clever. Only recently I was at a meeting where someone had to speak for 20 minutes. He had clearly prepared his material to try and "make a speech". He had several props that he thought connected his message to his audience. The problem was that these props were difficult to manage easily, plus the speaker spent a great deal of time organising them, fussing with them throughout the talk and trying to get the audience to pay attention to them.

The speaker clearly thought his props were a great idea. His audience, however, had different ideas and thought his fumbling efforts were rather weak. Indeed, talking to people afterwards I discovered that the analogy the chap was trying to make with his props was seen as rather weak and "childish".

No doubt the speaker prepared well; no doubt he thought his ideas were excellent. The problem was the audience disagreed. Trying to hard to be different or original can take your "eye off the ball" for your talk. What the audience wants is to be able to listen to you and understand you. That means simply chatting to them.

If you try to inject "cleverness" of any kind into your talk you will end up being more nervous as you attempt to manage the props, the jokes and the other devices you have used to connect everything together. By being straightforward you will avoid such nonsense and will be more confident as a result.

Labels: causes, confidence