The Secret Sauce to Speaker Confidence*

*You have to feel more, not less…

There are lots of reasons why we turn to presentations coaches and trainers. We want to boost our self-confidence, silence our 'inner critic', or try to master the inevitable rush of fear brought on by remembering the big scary speech that’s looming.

Essentially, though, most of us long for a presentations ‘fix’. We think we can take a magic pill to make us feel in control of what is a stressful process. This pill will make us strong and distanced from the feelings (fear, shame, guilt, anxiety, panic) that threaten to derail us. This pill will make us great speakers.

Noodle the Pug from TikTok. Noodle predicts whether today is a Bones Day or a No-Bones Day, determining whether you celebrate or self-care. @jongraz

There are lots of reasons why we turn to presentations coaches and trainers. We want to boost our self-confidence, silence our 'inner critic', or try to master the inevitable rush of fear brought on by remembering the big scary speech that’s looming.

Essentially, though, most of us long for a presentations ‘fix’. We think we can take a magic pill to make us feel in control of what is a stressful process. This pill will make us strong and distanced from the feelings (fear, shame, guilt, anxiety, panic) that threaten to derail us. This pill will make us great speakers.

Noodle the Pug from TikTok. Noodle predicts whether today is a Bones Day or a No-Bones Day, determining whether you celebrate or self-care. @jongraz

That would be so clean-cut, wouldn't it? A frictionless fix that makes all the anxiety go away. Frustratingly, though, we have a bigger hill to climb. The 'fix' lies hidden in the practice. Doing the reps. Being the other side of a dozen-plus experiences so that positive techniques are embedded kinaesthetically and have the chance to become habits.

The reasons for wanting to upskill – such as confidence and control – are valid. They’re excellent drivers to attaining success. But the 'fix' is never (as many students would love) simply about getting the other side of a ‘hack’ such as voice projection, better slide management or a cool opening gambit.

The secret to better public speaking, ultimately, is self-awareness and self-forgiveness. It's being prepared to be more vulnerable. It's about being worse before you become better – and being okay with that. It's about having a healthier relationship with failure.

The magic pill of perfect presentations, it turns out, is a not-so-magic pill called ‘the three P’s’: practise, practise, practise.

However – and this is the tricky part – we assume that the bridge from the dark swamp of feelings of inadequacy over to the glorious sunlit lands of a cure for stage fright or glossophobia (fear of public speaking), is a bridge that must involve a shield or a shell, so that we don’t feel. We think we must minimise what we’re feeling so as to come across as ‘professional’, which many decide means ‘distant’, ‘coldly reassuring’ or ‘unemotionally neutral’.

We think, oddly, that to be a good presenter, we have to become tougher.

Interestingly, we don't. We have to become softer. More vulnerable. More authentic. And more loving.

And not just more vulnerable, authentic and loving towards our audiences and material but ultimately, towards ourselves.

As US researcher, TED star and vulnerability expert Bréné Brown puts it: “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we are supposed to be and embracing who we are.”

It’s tempting, as a confidence coach, to throw around myriad quotations about confidence that suggest we’ll attain that desired end result of bullet-proof brilliance in a single step. It’s more realistic, however, to quote the character of Amy from Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’, who said: “I am not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”

Presentations are tricky and there’s no magic pill. Storms are inevitable. Get comfortable with failure: the process is part of the process. Embrace it.