How to Get over Your Fear of Public Speaking

At some point in your business career, you’re going to need to start presenting and selling to crowds. You’re going to need to learn how to influence groups of people.

Most importantly, you will need to communicate the value of what you’re offering in such a way that at the end, the crowd is pulling out their credit cards ready to buy.

It’s one of the most powerful skills you can possess as an entrepreneur, and it’s what separates the top earners from the masses. But for a lot of people, just the thought of speaking to an audience (let alone selling) terrifies them.


And you know what? I get it.

See, in high school and college, when the teacher said “Class, we’re going to do an oral assignment,” my heart immediately started pounding from anxiety. I was the guy who’d mysteriously be sick on the day it was due, unable to make it to class. Some years later, I got into internet marketing (late 2008) and I remember going to a live event in the suburbs of Perth with about 100 other strangers.

There were five different speakers who got up on stage and pitched their direct sales business, which I’d been looking at joining for a few weeks. I left that event feeling completely deflated: “If this is what it takes to be successful in this industry—getting up on stage and delivering live sales presentations—,” I thought, “then I have absolutely no hope!”

For years after I started my business, I avoided delivering live sales presentations at all costs. You couldn’t even get me to do a webinar, even though I’d be able to hide behind my computer.

Eventually, the loss in potential income that this avoidance was causing me began to outweigh my fear. So I forced myself to start doing public sales presentations. No matter how uncomfortable I felt, I’d consciously put myself in a position where I had no other choice but to deliver the presentation.

Since then, I’ve sold tens of millions of dollars worth of programs through public presentations.

Chances are that you will also need to sell to a live audience at some point. Here are the four most important lessons I’ve learned, which may help make it easier for you:
Don’t Write and Memorize a Script

What’s everyone’s greatest fear about speaking in front of others? It’s that when they get up there, they’ll forget what to say, that their brain will freeze and they’ll mumble and stumble and otherwise look like a fool.

So what do most people do? They write a script. If you write it down and memorize it, then you won’t have to be quick on your feet and your speech will become some sort of reflex or muscle memory. It’ll be as easy as hitting play on your iPod. Or so goes the theory.

I don’t recommend this approach for anyone because when you memorize a speech, your presentation ends up sounding stiff and rehearsed. It’s less likely to connect with your audience, which means you’re also less likely to make sales.
Use the “Table of Contents” Method

Think of your presentation as being a story you tell your audience. But instead of writing and memorizing an entire story, your notes will be more like a story’s table of contents—a couple of lines to remind you of what the entire “chapter” is about, so you don’t have to memorize a lot of material.

So, think of all the points you want to cover and then create a PowerPoint with just a line or two of notes on each slide.

Then, start practicing but instead of just reading off the slides, you should elaborate on each point and then fill in the talk off the top of your head. The first time around, you’ll find yourself starting and stopping, with a bunch of awkward pauses and do-overs. Don’t worry, take a break and go back to it. Try a few sessions throughout the day and let the ideas and different turns of phrases percolate a bit.

By the end of the day, you’ll find that you’ve more or less memorized the speech, but in a much more organic way than if you had memorized it word for word. It won’t necessarily be exactly the same each time you make the presentation, but that’s okay. You’ll know how to transition between each slide and you’ll give a more natural, authentic and truly live presentation.
Learn to Let Go

Whenever I feel uncomfortable about an upcoming talk, it’s often because there’s a particular point in it or a slide with something on it that I don’t feel 100% on board with. It may also be something that I’m trying to get a certain reaction from the crowd with. Sometimes it’s just the phrasing of something. For instance, a friend who listens to your talk may zero in on something they think the audience will misunderstand (though you know that only a fraction of the audience will likely be affected).

What should you do with these thoughts about how your talk will be interpreted? Forget ’em. Let go of the minutiae and share what you have. It’s about how you say it and not necessarily what you say. So don’t let the actual phrasing stress you out.
PowerPoint Doesn’t Give the Presentation

It may be a tempting “security blanket” to fill your PowerPoint slides with content and then read it word for word to your audience.

That will only be slightly less exciting for your audience as hearing a memorized speech. It’s annoying and also implies that they are not smart enough to read the slides for themselves.

Don’t do it.

Instead, put a little bit of info on each slide and make the font size large. Then focus on your delivery and engage your crowd directly.

Source

5 Bulletproof Ways to Deal With Haters

Haters. They come in all shapes and sizes, with vocabularies that range from the grunting of cave-dwellers to the bombastic spewing of wanna-be intelligentsia’s.

No matter what form they take, dealing with them can be frustrating and demoralizing. And no matter what you do, what you create, or where you work, they are out there.

5 Bulletproof Ways to Deal With Haters

There’s no way to avoid them, so the best thing to do is be prepared to deal with haters. Luckily, there’s plenty of ways to help you do this for anybody who’s struggling. It’s easy to let haters get to you…

Here are five steps that will help you become completely bulletproof to haters:


1. Determine if the Person Really is a ‘Hater’

Repeat after me: Not everyone who disagrees with you is a hater. To properly deal with a hater, you first need to know whether someone is actually a hater or whether they are simply disagreeing with you.

Perceiving every uncomfortable comment as ‘hate’ makes for a miserable existence, especially if you’re trying to share something online. Being overly sensitive to feedback and criticism will also prevent you from ever improving yourself or your work.

People who challenge your thinking, who engage in debate, who recommend improvements to your content, or who offer an opposing point of view are often friends in disguise (even if they are a bit abrasive).

These people can help you expand, improve, and hone your ideas or your art. The ideas and discussions they generate can be even more useful to you than the approval and compliments of your dedicated fans.

Haters, on the other hand, offer you nothing of value. They don’t give suggestions, nor do they explain their opinion in any useful way. They aren’t interested in conversation, engagement, or discussion. That is the key difference between a hater and a critic.

Comments like “You are a complete waste of space” or “Yeah, this is total crap,” or“How cute, you’re pretending that you have something to say!” are completely unhelpful. But if the comment is useless or is only meant to make you feel bad, than you can be fairly certain that you are dealing with a hater.

Ask yourself if there is something in there that you could learn from, or a new viewpoint you could consider. Don’t be swayed by verbosity or cutesy emoticons. Some haters disguise themselves with huge words, long-winded rants, or smiley emoticons.

Focus on an objective evaluation of the actual meaning of their comment or statement. If it contains nothing but bile, or if the person refuses to engage in any kind of productive discussion with you, then you know you are dealing with a hater.


2. Remind Yourself that Haters Are Not Your Target Audience


When you put yourself out there, you will be seen by your target audience, your expanded audience, and people who aren’t part of your audience at all.

Your job is not to appeal to everyone, or even to most people. it’s to appeal to those who are (or might be) interested in what you have to share. That is your audience.

Haters never were and will never be part of your target or expanded audience, because they aren’t interested in seeing or even considering your work or ideas. When members of your audience dislike something you put out, they’ll engage in more meaningful criticism or disagreement.

These are the people you should pay attention to and make improvements for. Haters, on the other hand, only provide useless, pointless snark. Don’t try to appeal to them, because you’ll never be able to.


3. Give the Hater a Hearty Mental Send-off

It’s impossible to pretend that haters or their comments don’t exist.

Their comments scream out to us, drawing our attention like a moth to a flame. No amount of covering your ears and saying “la la la, I can’t hear you!” will make them disappear. And trying to do so takes a huge amount of emotional energy and willpower.

A better tactic is to let yourself feel that momentary blaze of anger, then square your shoulders, look directly at the hater or their comment, and give them a strong and simple mental send-off.

Don’t overthink this send-off – it shouldn’t be a long rebuttal or elaborate come-back.

Keep it simple: a firmly extended middle finger or hearty “well f*@% you too” (done physically and out loud if you are at the computer or mentally if you are dealing with someone in person) treats a hater’s comments with the degree of eloquence and attention they deserve.

If you aren’t a fan of cussing, whatever simple mental send-off you prefer. What you do doesn’t matter, as long as the send-off is simple and firm.

Standing or sitting upright, squaring your shoulders, and confronting the person or comment by looking at it directly gives you a little hit of testosterone. Which will boost your feeling of power and confidence.

The send-off itself gives you an emotional release. This combination will help you push aside the hater and move on with a bit more ease. This process might feel hollow or insincere at first, but keep using it – as with most things, you’ll improve with practice.

And a very important thing to note: once you’ve given the hater a mental send-off, don’t pay any more attention to them. Don’t return or re-read their comments and don’t give them any more of your time.


4. Immediately Move on to the Next Comment or Productive Activity

Switching your focus to something positive or productive helps you avoid wallowing in your own anger or misery.

Once you’ve given your hater a mental send-off, redirect your attention to other comments, other questions, or other follow-up activities. Our brains have evolved to pay attention to negative input, a phenomenon known as negativity bias.

It’s important that you pull your attention away from the negative stimulus quickly, as forward momentum becomes more difficult the longer your pity-party goes on for.

But trying to ‘move on’ by just telling yourself to ignore a hater isn’t enough – you need to take positive action. What you want is a rush of dopamine, which is exactly what you’ll get by doing something positive or productive.

Responding to helpful comments, engaging with someone genuinely interested in discussion, or applying someone’s recommendations will give you a hit of dopamine, which helps you to overcome self-doubt or procrastination (dopamine-reducing feelings that can be brought on by a hater’s negativity).

Get a bit of dopamine flowing, and you’ll be able to bask in the glow of accomplishment or feel the excitement of growth and development.


5. Put Yourself out there Again… and Again… and Again

A big part of effectively dealing with haters is being willing to continue sharing your ideas, your content, or your art regardless what the haters say.

Building up a body of work and putting it out there helps you develop a thicker skin and more resilience to any nastiness you inevitably encounter. The more you share with others, the lower the stakes will be on any one piece of work.

This helps spread around the risk of rejection; if one of your posts or videos attracts a disproportionate amount of hate, so what?

Those three other posts or videos you put out earlier attracted some attention and some great comments, and you are fixing that weird lighting and backdrop in your next video.

A couple of nasty comments on one post means a lot less when you have 200 other posts out there for people to read.

Continuing to create and share also dissuades haters from repeatedly coming at you. They lose interest in their attempts at bullying when you continue to share your work and ideas despite their comments.

Trying to tear down a persistent optimist is dull work, and nothing demonstrates how few craps someone gives about a hater than the fact that they continue to share their ideas.


Summary

Here’s a short recap on the 5 bulletproof ways to deal with haters:
Determine if the person really is a ‘hater’
Remind yourself that haters are not your target audience
Give the hater a hearty mental send-off
Immediately move on to the next comment or productive activity
Put yourself out there again… and again… and again

These steps work best when done together, in order. It doesn’t take long, and regular practice and repetition are key. Over time, you will build up resilience to haters and never let their garbage distract you from your work.

How do you deal with haters? Leave a comment below.

Source