When I talk about becoming a unique and sexy speaker, inevitably someone reminds me, "Well, you know people are more afraid of making a speech than they are of dying."
Time we laid that old chestnut to rest! People feel that way about lots of things. Some are deathly afraid of flying or bungee jumping or leaping from an airplane with a carefully packed parachute and a trained instructor strapped firmly to their back.
When you give a speech, you've got both feet on the ground. Usually. There's that story about the famous Rabbi Hillel, who was asked by a powerful king to tell him all about Judaism while standing on one foot or face death if he couldn't. This may be the only time in recorded history that a complete speech was given with one foot off the ground. Rabbi Hillel, it is said, faced the king, foot up in the air, and replied, "Do not unto your neighbor that which is
hateful unto you. All the rest is commentary."
Most of us thankfully will never have to literally give the speech of our life. When we stand in front of a crowd, we see a group of people a lot like us. As long as we know we'll live to speak another day, what are we afraid of?
What we fear is not visible out there in the audience. Rather it's an intangible in our head. For some of us, the thought of making a mistake is terrifying because not being perfect feels like a fate worse than death. It carries with it our vision of ourselves as worthwhile, capable, competent and important human beings. Something as simple as tripping over our tongue, misstating important data, forgetting a single point in a
sequence, or feeling like we're not living up to expectations seems like a tragedy. It can paralyze us in mid-sentence, bring out the shakes and shivers, dry up our throat and chase us off the stage forever. That’s a heavy price to pay for a momentary glitch!
So, what to do if any of these things happen?
Plan ahead! While rehearsing your speech, plan what you'll say or do if:
a. You trip over your tongue and your words come out garbled: Stop. Breathe. Smile. Say something simple like, "Let's try that again," or "What I meant to say is..." or any other phrase that feels comfortable to you. Repeat the garbled words correctly and continue with your speech. If you don't make a big deal out of it, no one else will, either.
b. You misstate some important data: If you realize immediately that you've said something incorrectly, stop, breathe, and correct the misstatement (see a. above). If you don't realize it until later in your speech, complete what you're saying, then stop, breathe, pause for a moment, and say something like, "Let's go back to (subject) again for a moment. I'd like to revisit a point I made earlier." Or "Let's go back to (subject) for a moment, I'd like
to clarify an important point." Then make the correction simply and matter-of-factly. The less heat you bring to the moment, the less the audience will remember it or make an issue of it.
c. You forget something in a sequence of information: When you realize what you've left out, finish what you're doing, then stop, breathe, and (like b. above) say, "Let's go back to (subject) for a moment. I'd like to add an important point." Your audience will think you planned it that way. If you don't admit you forgot, they’ll never know.
Little glitches often make us feel like we're not living up to expectations. Correcting them removes the feeling of incompetence and replaces it with a burst of confidence. It's easy to think on our feet when we remember that the audience doesn’t know we didn’t say it the way we planned. It’ll be our little secret.
