Public Speaking - Fall In Love With Your Message

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Margaret was petrified of speaking in public. She couldn’t even get herself to raise her hand to ask a question when attending a workshop. It was that bad. An elegant English woman with a ton of smarts, she appeared to have it all together, yet this fear of public speaking was tormenting her.

To make matters worse, she was the director of a non-profit organization that worked to save elephants in Africa from being poached, and she needed to give presentations to attract possible donors. Her ability to speak in public was crucial to the survival of her organization. And the survival of the elephants.

Today, Margaret speaks with incredible ease and joy when she gives her presentation on the elephants of Africa. Oh, sure, she gets a little nervous and jittery before she goes on, but her paralyzing terror is gone.

How did she do it? I’ll tell you.

Instead of focusing on her terror, Margaret focuses on her intense love for these elephants. She puts all her concern about whether she’ll do a good job on the backburner and allows herself to feel her love and devotion, her purpose in speaking in the first place. By doing this, she moves out of her fear and into her passion.

What Can We Learn From Margaret?

1. Fall in Love with Your Message

If you are feeling nervous and scared about speaking in public, can you fall in love with your message? This may prove challenging if you’re giving a business presentation for work or you’ve been asked to speak on something you could care less about. But chances are that you are speaking about something that means something to you.

Let yourself focus on the love or appreciation you feel for this subject. Let yourself feel that love or passion or appreciation. Soak in the energy of that feeling. If the heebie-jeebies start to attack, remember what you love and bring yourself back into that energy.

2. Focus on Your Purpose, Not Yourself

So much of our fear of speaking in public centers around whether we will be liked, whether we will win the approval and respect of our audience, whether we will get through it without messing up. It’s this fearful focus on “me, me, me” that drives us nuts!

Get your focus off of you and onto your purpose for speaking in the first place. Is your purpose to impress people or to give them information that is valuable? Is your purpose to get through unscathed or is it to express something that has meaning to you? Try taking yourself out of the equation and put your purpose forefront in your mind and heart.

3. Find Something To Care About

If you are in the unfortunate position where you need to speak about something you could care less about, find something, anything, to appreciate about either your subject or the occasion. Find one thing (there’s got to be at least one!) that you enjoy or appreciate and let yourself bask in that feeling of appreciation. I know, it’s a stretch, but if you can tune into what you love, you may find that giving your presentation will be so much more enjoyable for you AND your audience.

Like Margaret, you can move out of your fear and into a passionate ease by focusing on what has heart and meaning for you.

If you’d like more tips on how to be completely confident any time you are expressing yourself in any way, sign up for my free monthly e-zine, Becoming Fearless here: http://www.unconditionalconfidence.com

You can also learn the three power tools for feeling confident and creating a magnetic connection in all your communications with the “Engage Your Audience” CD

Nancy Tierney liberates entrepreneurs from their fear of public speaking and moves them into a new experience of speaking with confidence, clarity and their own kind of charisma. You can discover more on how to speak or perform with complete confidence by going to: http://www.unconditionalconfidence.com

Tags: confident public speaking, fear of public speaking, Nancy Tierney, public speaking tip, speaking anxiety

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