Public Speaking for Introverts

Hello, and welcome to the?Kindred Letters -?my newsletter for 500,000+ introverts and other kindred spirits who prefer quiet to loud, depth to superficiality, sensitivity to cool.?

Today, we’re talking about public speaking for quiet people!

But first: this link will allow you to sign up for?my other (free) Kindred Letters newsletter, WHICH HAS DIFFERENT CONTENT from what I post on LinkedIn. For example, recently I wrote about how to protect yourself emotionally from unfair accusations. Please sign up here if you'd prefer not to miss any of my letters.?

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Before my first book,?QUIET, came out, I was an absolutely flat-out terrified public speaker. I couldn’t eat for the week before giving a talk. I couldn’t sleep. I wished for the taxis driving me to speaking events to crash into telephone poles, so that I wouldn’t have to go through with it. Then I’d add in a plea for the taxi driver’s life to be spared.

But then, there I was, on the verge of publishing this book that meant so much to me. I’d wanted to be a writer all my life, and my dream was finally coming true. And I was really, really passionate about shining a light on the undervalued powers of introverts. I knew I had to get up onstage. I had to overcome my fear.

So I embarked on what I called my?Year of Speaking Dangerously: practicing public speaking every chance I got. (The key to overcoming any fear is to expose yourself to it, in SMALL AND MANAGEABLE STEPS, until you’ve trained your brain to stop coding it as a threat.) And now, strangely, I’ve become a person who’s traveled all around the world, giving hundreds, or is it thousands, of talks to schools, companies, universities, and beyond.

Here are some of the public speaking tips I learned along the way:

1. If it’s an important speech, videotape yourself first. One reason public speaking can be so uncomfortable is that you have no idea how you’re coming across. If you went to a job interview without fixing your tie or applying your lipstick in front of the mirror, you would?hope?that there’s no lip gloss smeared across your teeth, but how could you know for sure? Better to take the guesswork out of it.

2. Think about what your particular audience wants to hear.?Are they craving new information? Insights? What problem do they hope to solve? It’s not about YOU. Give them what THEY want and need. Even more important: focusing on them, not you, will make you feel emotionally stronger and more expansive.

3. If you haven’t spoken publicly in a while and feel rusty, watch videos of speakers that have shots taken from the speaker’s vantage point, where you can see what it’s like to face the audience.?(Many TED talks have these shots.) As you watch, pretend that you’re the speaker. Get used to what it feels like to have all those eyes on you. At first, it’s really uncomfortable. But that feeling does wear off.

4. Similarly, if you can, visit the room where you’ll be speaking. Practice standing at the podium, looking out into the rows of seats.

5. When you listen to a great speaker or hear someone mention one, get a transcript of the speech. Study it. How was it constructed? What kind of opening and closing did the speaker use? How did they give examples, tell stories? How did they engage, inspire, educate? MOST PEOPLE DO NOT START OUT AS GREAT ORATORS. They study. They practice.

6. Know your strengths and weaknesses as a speaker, and accentuate the positive. If you have a great sense of humor, use it. If you’re not a natural cut-up, don’t try to be. Instead, focus on what you do best. Do you have a great story to tell? An interesting idea your audience hasn’t considered? Information they need to hear? Frame your speech around your message —and around who you are as a person. Thoughtful and thought-provoking is every bit as powerful as dynamic and entertaining.

7. At the same time, public speaking?is?a performance, and that’s a good thing, even if you’re not a natural actor. Have you ever wondered why people enjoy costume parties? It’s because they feel liberated when interacting from behind a mask, from within a role. Dressing up as Cinderella or Spiderman removes inhibitions as effectively as a glass of wine. Think of your onstage persona the same way.

8. Smile at your audience as they enter the room, and when you begin speaking. This will make you feel relaxed, confident, and connected.

9. Here’s a funny tip from a reader of Gretchen Rubin’s?Happiness Project. It’s probably not the best advice, but it will make you laugh. And you want to have SOMETHING that will reliably make you laugh, right before you head onstage and you’re beset with butterflies.

“My eighth grade teacher told us all to pretend the people [in the audience] are heads of cabbages. I never quite got that one as making much sense, but to this day (40 years later) I still say that line to myself before I speak. And I laugh.”

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I hope that you found these tips helpful. And if so, I am so happy to tell you that I’ve finally developed a course on Public Speaking for Quiet Speakers! This is something I’ve wanted to do for YEARS. And now,?it’s finally here! The course is based on what I’ve learned over the past decade of speaking all around the world, as a decidedly quiet speaker – and on some extraordinary classes that my husband Ken teaches on creative self-expression.

Enroll here!

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Reader Mail

For this week’s reader letter, I’d like to share (with permission!) some excellent advice that a reader named Michael McGuire offered, in response to another newsletter I did on overcoming the fear of “putting yourself out there”:

“One way to “strengthen your backbone,” says Michael, “is through ‘low-risk exposure therapy’. I teach this to managers in my leadership development work. To get yourself, or others, to overcome their fears and put themselves out there, begin with activities that have a low risk of failure. Success - especially continued success - will breed confidence. As your confidence grows you will, without much of a push, want to test yourself by taking bigger risks.”

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Did you find today’s public speaking tips helpful? I’d love to know why or why not – and, where you hope to be a year from now, with your own efforts to “Speak Dangerously”.

And, if you enjoyed this letter, you can sign up here for?my other (free) Kindred Letters newsletter, WHICH HAS DIFFERENT CONTENT from what I post on LinkedIn! For example, recently I wrote about how to protect yourself emotionally from unfair accusations.

See you next week!

my warmest,

Susan

#PublicSpeaking #Introverts #QuietLeadership #IntrovertedLeadership