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Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Public speaking advice?
Not sure if this is the right board for the question, but I figured it's worth a shot. I have very bad anxiety when it comes to public speaking (which impacts my job when I have to do it). Nothing seems to help, because the moment I stand up to speak my heart starts pounding and I start panicking, even it I wasn't feeling worried before. It's like it's my body's natural reaction now. I was wondering if anyone out there had tips on how to conquer this kind of anxiety... other than pills (I've tried).
Re: Public speaking advice?
When I was in highschool, I was in choir. I'm not a great singer, but all my friends were doing it. After a few performances, I began to feel more comfortable on the stage. There was safety in numbers and once you get used to the feel that everyone is looking at you, its not such a big deal. So maybe you can do something similiar?
Another idea would be to pretend you are just talking to one person who you are comfortable with.
Toastmaster is a great idea. Practice makes perfect.
Try to remember the following:
1. You know more about the subject than your audience
2. You aren't the President of the US; your material is not on a teleprompter handed out in advance. It's OK to go with the flow. If you err, as long as you don't react, no one will know.
3. rehearsing is key
4. If you are doing a power point or someother computer presentation have back ups -- on your flash drive & e-mail a copy to yourself that you can download on the fly if necessary. Also have paper copies.
5. breathe before hand -- repeat at least 10 times: "I am calm cool collected & confident"
6. the 1st words out of your mouth ought to be your name; hearing your name spoken has a pyschologically calming effect.
These apply more to formal public speaking rather than extemporaneous situations of speaking for a few minutes in meetings.
Practice. A lot. In front of a mirror, videotape yourself, call your voice mail, in front of friends, etc. If you have to err on the side of sounding over rehearsed and robotic or frazzled, scared, and under rehearsed, choose over rehearsed. Eventually, you'll become more comfortable winging it. This can also help you to understand how bad, or not, the problem is. You can go back and assess when you felt nervous, did it seem like something was wrong.
Have everything memorized from the point you stand up to the point where you'll start to feel comfortable. You won't start off winging it with, "um, hi, I'm rbcrock and, um, today I'm here, to, um, talk about a very important item, er, topic, er issue that's been presented to us by management because it's...very important."
Realize people don't completely listen. Do a preview and a review and give reminders about the outline in between. "Now that I've explained why we're using a new system, I'm going to discuss how to use the system."
Does a local college have a public speaking course? I was terrified of speaking to crowds until I was forced to do so in that class. Practice made perfect.
By the end of the semester, I was comfortable enough to be the reporter for my honor society, which required a TON of public speaking. The skills carried into the workplace. I love client meetings and workshops now.