(applause)
(upbeat music)
- I've been getting a lot a questions on public speaking
and how to become a better speaker.
And maybe you're a little bit nervous.
And maybe you have a upcoming meeting,
or conference, or seminar, or something,
or a presentation where you need
to present in front of a group of people.
So how do you not get nervous speaking
in front of a large group of audience.
Now back then when I just first learn about public speaking
and I joined toast masters.
I was nervous as fuck, okay.
Even speaking to a group of like 10 people,
I would have sweaty palms,
and my heart would be like (beating),
Like I was so nervous.
And I don't know why.
But it turns out because I still
had a lot of these memories of when I first came to Canada.
When I couldn't speak a word of English
and getting laugh at, right?
Getting criticized and that just destroy my confidence.
And now being speaking in front of people,
have you ever felt this way
where you are speaking in front of people
it just feel very naked, right?
You feel like very uncomfortable.
You're so afraid of being judged.
So how do you overcome that?
I wanna give you three very powerful strategies
today in my Bently on exactly how do you do that.
Number one chances are if you are nervous speaking
to a group of people it's because of lack of practice.
Lack of preparation.
So let's say if you know you gonna do a presentation
or speech for 15 minutes and if all,
in front of people, and all you
put into it is one hour of practice.
You're gonna get nervous.
Because you don't know if you're fully ready
or if you need to just, like say at a wedding,
or something, or sometimes just stand up somewhere
where you need to do something on the spot,
where it's totally unprepared,
of course you get nervous cause you're like,
what am I gonna say,
how am I gonna say it?
I'm not so sure.
It's all of lack of preparation.
So if you have the opportunity,
if you know that you're gonna be presenting
a month from now, two months from now, three weeks from now
if you over prepare so that 15 minutes of speech,
if you spend five hours, 10 hours preparing,
practicing in front of mirror, record yourself,
watch yourself, it's way better than just spend an hour.
So when you over prepare you know.
Okay I know exactly what I'm gonna say.
I know exactly how I'm gonna say it.
I rehearse many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.
Guess what then you into less nervous.
So that nervousness comes from lack of preparation.
So tip number one is over prepare.
You believe if you think you need an hour preparation
just times that by three.
Times that by four.
Over prepare so when you're on stage,
boom you're ready to go.
Because I believe stage time is wealth time.
Stage time is wealth time.
You need to cherish that opportunity being on stage.
I cannot tell you how many doors opened for me.
How many powerful relationships
that I be able to develop because
I cherish those opportunities.
And I was on stage
and someone somewhere saw me on stage
and they later on came up to me and talked to me.
And that opens up so many doors.
So stage time is wealth time.
I don't care if it's one minute on stage,
10 minutes on stage, 10 hours on stage,
you got to give your 100%.
Number two, I used to get nervous
when I walk up to the stage
when all I could focus on is me.
I was so concerned about what people think.
What do I, do I sound professional?
(deep breath)
Would they understand my accent?
Make sure I cover every point I wanna cover.
Am I telling the story perfectly?
Do I sound smart?
Do I look good?
Whenever you are in front of an audience
and you focus on yourself, me, me, me, me, me, me, me,
how people perceive you,
you will get nervous.
Because you are afraid of being judged.
When I shift the focus from do I sound smart?
Do I look good?
Do I sound good?
When I just forget all that shit
and throw that out the window
and I 100% focus on my audience.
How could I change their life?
How can I impact them?
How can I make sure they walk away with value?
(snaps) The minute I do that.
Not focusing on myself, but focusing on them,
the nervousness disappears.
It's gone very, very simple.
Because it's all about them.
It's is my hand in my pocket?
I am not standing in the right space?
Am I walking back and forth?
Am I doing the right gesture?
Forget all the shit.
When you forget all that shit you can connect.
And when you connect with the audience you're not nervous.
Because all your care, it's about them.
You don't care about how you look anymore.
You don't care about if you sound so smart.
No, you just focus on them.
No more nervousness, very powerful.
Third thing, is everything is energy.
So when I'm speaking, since I'm making it about them
how do I create energy?
I always want to create what I call a participation energy.
Participation energy.
Meaning I want them to participate.
So imagine if I'm on stage
and I'm just talking and talking and talking and talking
and lecturing, right, and preaching about certain concepts.
Well its easy to get nervous because
you're always worried about if I'm saying the right thing.
But if I have a participation energy going on,
a learning energy, a fun energy going on,
example, I would always ask them,
hey how many of you believe in this?
How many agree with that?
How many ever experienced this?
I get them to put up their hand.
I get them to yell back the answer.
I get them to fill in the blank.
I get them to discussion, talking among each other.
When I create that kinda safe energy,
celebration energy, learning energy, guess what?
You get less nervous.
Cause you're not worried about am I saying the right word
every single time at the right space?
You're like I don't care.
I was just doing my event, Closers in Black,
for my Inner Circle students,
a thousand students from all over the world.
It was day three and was following my agenda, right?
These are the PowerPoint.
This is what I'm gonna teach.
Halfway into the PowerPoint there was
a particular student of mine and he needs some help.
So I have two choices.
I could either say, you know what let me follow my agenda.
Let me just kinda keep that going
and finish my PowerPoint, my agenda.
Or, what did I do?
I say you know what, guys, I just stopped.
I said I have this agenda,
I could go though a PowerPoint
but that's not what we need at the moment.
So I throw away my agenda,
I said to my student, Dave, I said come up.
I helped him right there on the sage
in front of a thousand people
to create a breakthrough experience for him.
Now not many speakers to do that.
Because they're so afraid.
I need to stick to every minute of my agenda
versus you know what that's not what we need.
That's not what the group needs at the moment.
I throw that out, this is what you need,
being present, being connected with the audience.
And I say that's what we gonna do.
Now not many people can do that.
It's actually very nerve wracking
if you think about it because as a speaker
now you're jumping off the,
playing without a parachute, right?
You don't know what gonna happen.
You know, you don't know if it's gonna work.
I believe it's gonna work, right?
I believe in what we can do as an audience.
There's a higher level.
Then to me you're no longer just a speaker.
You're more a facilitator.
And a facilitator you want to crate certain outcome.
You want to create a certain emotions.
You want to help them achieve a certain goal,
your audience achieve a certain goal.
When you focus on that, you don't get nervous.
Because even if you don't do it perfectly,
but it's all about them.
When make it all about them, you're not nervous.
So knowing everything is energy,
have that celebration energy,
over prepare,
over, over, over prepare
every single time.
And then make it all about them.
Don't make it about you.
And try that out.
And see if next time when you present
in front of group do you get less nervous.
Until next time, I'll see you in my Bently