How to Overcoming Stage Fright

Dean
July 16, 2015

Public Speaking

How to overcome stage fright? Most of us feel some degree of nervousness and intimidation when preparing to speak or present in front of a group. And if you are filled with feelings of dread and panic when you are to be the center of attention, maybe you suffer from a form of a social anxiety disorder known as social phobia. But don’t fret it is highly common and we will discuss overcoming stage-fright in 10 easy steps.

The fear of public speaking, commonly called stage fright, has been known to cause havoc in many people’s lives. People have left jobs, lost promotions, and missed out on life ambitions because of the fear of public speaking. And nowadays with the Startup scene – the Pitch is center stage and can be the thing that steers your success or failure. Even seasoned professional presenters need to learn how to overcome stage-fright because many have been known to suffer in silent terror.

Public speaking is said to be the biggest fear leading over flying, financial ruin, sickness, and even death; by adults.

Steps to Overcome Stage Fright

Learning to improve your speaking or performance skills is easier than you think. The answer is in the notion of how you think. What you think about yourself, the audience, and your level in understanding of what your presenting. This is mainly what determines the outcome of your presentation.

One of the keys to any good presentation and how to overcome stage fright is to know your material! In addition, you must address any negative perceptions, beliefs, thoughts, images, and predictions related to public speaking or performing. And it’s especially helpful to go within and uncover deeper fears related to being seen and heard by others, being the center of attention, or not doing and being in a perfect way.

Learning to accept yourself and not feeling that you have to prove yourself to others is often at the center of this fear. By the way, letting go of trying to be perfect is a good idea, because there is no way to be perfect. Perfection can not be achieved. Strive to be great by doing great and that means preparation and being yourself. This will help in life, presentation and business development.

You need to learn skills to reduce and manage your fear and anxiety. Sometimes medication or natural products are okay, but only as an aid and sparingly. If you choose to use medication or natural remedies see your physician and find the appropriate treatment. It’s beneficial to learn cognitive-behavioral methods. Try, however, to not avoid fearful situations. Avoiding unwanted situations may give you immediate relief, but it will continue to reinforce your fear in the long run.

Being brave will in the end build self-confidence. Take steps to be brave or take courageous actions and walk through situations you may be afraid of. Bravery and being courageous is an action, while confidence is an emotional and mental state. You need to take action in order to reinforce the mental and emotional states of being.

If you are willing to learn new skills, stop avoiding your fears and manage them, you will develop a stronger self-esteem and confidence by trusting yourself. This in turn will hp you to overcome stage fright. In fact, by facing your fear, it will become possible to overcome performance anxiety and find comfort and actually enjoy expressing yourself in front of others.

10 tips to reduce stage fright:

Deliver Value. Focus your attention on the value you are presenting to the audience. Take the focus off yourself and simply think about sharing information with them.
Stop the negative or dreadful What If thoughts about what might go wrong. Instead, think about what can go right: they like the presentation, what good the information share will do…
Don’t beat yourself up before you even gave yourself a chance.
Practice mind calming and relaxation methods, such as deep breathing, relaxation exercises, yoga, and meditation. Do a quick breathing exercise before you present.
Find a friendly and inviting face in the audience. Especially, if they have a familiar look and start your presentation by speaking to them from the stage.
Visualize your success: Always focus on your ability to handle questions, the audience, or any challenging situation. See the audience enjoying and interested in your presentation.
Prepare your material in advance. Read it aloud to hear your voice. Know it but don’t memorize it.
Make a connection with the audience: Scan with your eyes, smile and greet them. They are just people, not lions ready to attack.
Don’t slouch! Stand, or sit in a self-assured, confident posture – you are in control. Shoulders back, back straight, head up and breathe.
Let perfection go, it’s impossible to attain. It’s enough knowing that it is OK to make mistakes. Be natural, be yourself.

Communicate for Success

Dean
July 16, 2015

The Key to Success is Communication

The Key to Success is Communication because Good communication is essential for success in life, work, and relationships. Without effective communication, a message can be misunderstood to the point of frustration or even error.

Communication is the way individuals exchange information. Through Communication we attempt to clearly and accurately convey our thoughts, intentions, and objectives.

Communication is successful only when both parties understand the same idea, conclusion, and intention of the subject communicated. In today’s world of technology and information, it is essential to have good communication skills. How often has an email or text needed to be clarified due to poor communications? There are many ways to show how the key to success is communication.

4 Keys to Communicate Successfully:

1. Know what you’re going to say and why: If you aren’t clear, it won’t be clear. Take a moment before conveying a message and be clear about the purpose and intent. Know your audience. Consider any barriers such as cultural differences or situational circumstances (gender, age, or economic biases). Furthermore, ask yourself what the outcome is that you want to achieve and the impression you want to leave.

2. How do you speak it? It’s not always what you say, but how you say it that matters. Connect, making eye contact. When you look in peoples eye’s it inspires trust and confidence. Notice your body language. Your posture and other body movements can say much more than words can. By standing with arms relaxed at your side it offers you approachable and open to hearing what others have to say. If your arms are crossed and shoulders hunched, it suggests disinterest or unwillingness communicate, and basically says you’re cutting them off. Good posture and an approachable stance can help even the most difficult communication situation.

3. Active Listening: Communication is a two-way street. After you’ve said what you wanted; stop, listen, and look for feedback or clues of comprehension. While the person is speaking avoid the impulse to cut them off or be impatiently listening for the end so that you can speak again. Give them your full attention.

4. Reach understanding, agreement, or agree to disagree: Once you have spoken your piece and have heard the feedback, notice if you have reached a common ground, solved a problem, or clarified your position? If the purpose was to teach or instruct, have you accomplished that? Good communication means equal effort to understand and be understood. Make sure that your message has been received well and that any questions or concerns have been alleviated. You can even agree to disagree. Additionally, there is no guarantee that your communication efforts will be meet with total compliance and agreement. So, as long as you understand each other, are cordial and respectful, you can still have a successful exchange.

Communicate Successfully

- To better command the respect of good communication, expand your vocabulary by reading and writing more. Look up words you’re not familiar with. The better you can express yourself, the better you’re able to communicate.

- Practice your listening skills. Practice listening without speaking or replying at all. If you must reply, do so sparingly.

- Learn to understand and appreciate opposing points of view by being open-minded and making an effort to see things from other perspectives. It will, in turn, gain you more cooperation, respect, and understanding.

- Do Not communicate when emotionally charged. You increase the potential of saying thing something inappropriate or regrettable.

Communication must be HOT: Honest, Open and Two-Way. ~ Dan Oswald

When you take the time to hone good communication skills you open yourself up to better relationships, more career opportunities, and increased self-confidence. Furthermore, you attain a high level of mutual understanding and cooperation while successfully attaining your goals.

All new skills take time to refine, however, with practice you can develop excellent communication skills.

Good Virtual Presentation Skills

Dean
July 6, 2015

Techniques to help produce better video calling

In today’s digital age and people working from home, more and more people use Skype, Teams, Zoom… all sorts of virtual meeting calls, rooms, and chats. Therefore, you need excellent virtual presentation skills. But have you ever noticed it’s difficult to hear or see the other participants? Have you ever gotten uncomfortable adjusting yourself because the other person’s camera angle is high or too low? Or have your eyes gotten tired because the light is to dark or bright? These are just some of the nuances that make for bad video calling and can cost you a business deal, achieving a goal in a project, losing a sale, lose followers in social media video tapings…

For most people, the thought of recording on video or having to be seen through a lens tends to give them the heebie-jeebies. As an ex-performer both stage and camera I understand the heart-pumping fear of having to stare into that lens. I eventually wrote a book, PITCHERSIZE, to help young entrepreneurs in the Startup community. This was to help them with stage presence to be able to better Pitch their business.

There have been many times I dreaded being on a video call with somebody because of their bad video practices. Most people don’t even realize it matters. So, I’m here to tell you it does. Don’t let bad camera, lighting, and mic usage be the death of your business. In addition, you can always enroll in a video mastery class such as this free camera Confidence Mini-course.

5 easy steps to improve your on-camera presence

1. HAVE GOOD POSTURE

To have excellent virtual presentation skills starts with posture. You might not think it matters but it does. Even though people can only see a portion of your upper body, we see more than you’d think. It’s easy to notice if somebody is slouching or leaning over. When you position the camera correctly and position your posture to be in an attentive manner you appear more trustworthy, charismatic, and available. It also will help you breathe a lot easier, which is something people often forget to do if they’re nervous. Better posture just makes you feel better and it instills confidence.

Roll your shoulders back and focus on not slouching. This shows authority and confidence.
Move that head around. Let it sway naturally when you speak. This is much easier when the camera is eye level.
Don’t cross your arms and keep them in front of you. If the camera is at a 3/4 shot you’ll have room to use your hands when talking just as you would naturally when standing.
Keep your back straight.

2. Camera framing matters

Camera angle:

You will be speaking to an audience of one or more. Someone will be watching. The best way to connect to a viewer is to speak as if you are talking directly to them. So be yourself! That said, when you speak to people you don’t usually look up or down to dramatically at them. So, why do so many people do this when on video calls? The camera should be positioned at eye level and with a 3/4 shot visibility.

Most computers do not raise the lid to have the camera at anyone’s eye level, even 17′ ones. Although, if you are short in the torso and have a 17′ it might work out. Mostly, not. So, you may need to raise your computer. Prop your computer on books, a box or a desk stand to get the camera at eye level. And if you have a desktop computer on top of a monitor, then angle it down slightly. And if you have a really high monitor and you are on the shorter side, prop yourself up. You can sit on books or anything that will get the camera at eye level.

The point is to give your audience a better visual of you and put you all on the same level. This makes for much better viewing visually and characteristically. You don’t want to be looked down on no more then you want them to feel they have to look up at you. Even if you are the leader, authority isn’t based on physically looking up at someone, it’s in someone’s character or not.

Camera distance:

In addition, you don’t want the camera too close or too far from your frame. You want the camera to be far enough away that you can use your arms when talking, but not too lose that we count the veins in your eyeballs.

Often it is the case that people will sit too far wile they are viewing someone speaks, but lean forward and sit too close when they are speaking. Keeping the camera at the best distance and angle will ensure a more positive presentation experience for both the viewer and the presenter.

3. There is a dress code

For excellent virtual presentation skills, this may seem silly, and you might even try to get around dressing up for a ten-minute video call. For sure many have put on a dress shirt but sat in their underwear while on a video call. You can see your bottom, right?

However, your dress image represents your attitude and demeanor. And that people can see through what obstacles you think you are putting up. So, it is important and valuable to dress as if you would actually visit that person and have a meeting or be in their class.

Unfortunately, people do judge people and the idea that first impressions count is spot on. If you are meeting someone for the first time on video meeting and they show up like they just got out of bed, I’m sure you’d think they didn’t care much about that meeting. How likely are you to do or would want to do business with somebody that doesn’t show they care even in the simplest manors?

4. Sound and light

For the love of good meetings, please check your sound, and if you use a mic make sure it works. People in any form of video or camera presentation, meeting, or call will forgive bad video over bad sound any day.

It is very straining to look at a video when you can barely see the image. Just the same it is overly stimulating when the image is too bright. Natural lighting is best whenever possible and should be from the front of the camera toward the face. The best would be all-around lighting and isn’t directed from one place or another. Such as large ceiling lighting. in any case, make the best efforts to have a balanced visual with good lighting. You can add a lamp, angle one away or open a window.

5. Background

One last but not least of the basic good camera techniques you should consider. What’s in your background?

I have seen hanging laundry, cluttered bookcases, passing people, television shows playing, kids playing video games… These are just a few of the distractions I’ve encountered while having a video meeting. This is, to say the least, distracting.

The best background is white. A white wall, sheet, screen image from green screen technique… I have hung a white bed sheet before getting a nice white background. However, if you choose this route, iron it first, please! We don’t need to see your wrinkly bed sheets. Do your best to make a clean plain background. It is less distracting and keeps our focus on you the speaker.

In conclusion:

This is how to gain good virtual presentation skills. It isn’t difficult to have excellent virtual video presentation techniques and skills. It might take a little effort, but worth it. And it’s much easier to suggest to others how to improve their video appearance if you have a good video appearance.

If you want to learn more about developing your Presentation skills on or off-camera check out PITCHERSIZE – Working Out The Perfect Pitch. A book on using Presence, Professionalism and Pizzazz to build Audience appealing presentations.