What are effective strategies to boost your confidence before a speech?

As a professional speaker, it's necessary to radiate confidence so the audience trusts the information you're sharing is of value. Before stepping on stage whether in-person or virtual listen to music that will improve your mood. Additionally, knowing your expertise is important so becoming a continual learner will give you confidence as your knowledge increases.

First and foremost, focus on your speaking materials. Once you master your topic very well, you can master the audience and also master your confidence! I always look up into this quote: Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident." - Dale Carnegie

Don't go up on stage not knowing the ins and outs of what you will talk about. Have people listen to what you are going to say. If there is a question-and-answer portion in your session, you can ask people you trust to ask you questions that can challenge your views, thereby allowing you to anticipate harder questions. Your mastery can give you confidence.

Don't just prepare and practice before your speaking engagement but practice and learn even when there's no speaking engagement yet. You do the repetition as much as you can to build skill. When the time comes there will be an opportunity to speak, you will be way better!

You can always make a personal highlight reel and watch it before you speak. Keep it on your phone so you can look at it as you are in the green room. I would also add a collage of all the positive written feedback you have received and read through it before you hit the stage. Take pictures of cards and thank you notes and put it all on your phone so you can easily refer to it before your speech. Finally, I love to listen to inspirational speeches by other successful speakers. A bonus is a good music playlist that gets you amped up.

It is easy to speak in front of people we are familiar with. It won't be in the case of public speaking and you won't be aware of every one of them. This may be difficult initially. So, it is always good to engage with the audience and make ourselves comfortable with them. It reduces our nervousness, boosts confidence and makes us give a spectacular speech.

This is the main game, Make it light, convey thru story telling, proper homework in bridging the solutions with the problems, punch humour, make it interactive, let your audience participate in the discussion, end with a philosophical string , a connection with the Whole World , and I would assure you that you will truly enjoy.

Sometimes, we lack confidence when we speak because we fear that we don't know what they will ask. Try to master the subject and gain experience as much as you can. If you don't know the answer or if you are asked about something regarding your topic, just humbly say you don't know and tell them that you will get back to them. Or here's a pro tip, if you don't know the answer, you can say that they have a wonderful question, and the question might not be relevant to everyone in the room, you can suggest to the person to speak to you after the event about their question. This will give you time to google their question or ask someone who might possibly know the answer.