You're about to face a daunting crowd for your first big speech. How can you own the stage with confidence?

The anxiety can be real, but the anxiety is also something internal - being created by our focus on the external. Practice the speech, know it so well you can go off on tangents and come back to it. Check out the venue in advance, stand on the stage, get the feel of the space. Breath, pause, breath again. Take your moments. Gather yourself. There is great work to be done around reframing how you are thinking about the audience, finding your way to frame the crowd in a way that relaxes you. We are way more capable than we allow ourselves to believe

Empathy Mapping is your secret weapon! Why is this crowd daunting? Is it because they're an audience you've never spoke with before? If that's the case, try an empathy map to check your assumptions. If you can complete your empathy map with certainty, then you've understood what your audience needs from you. That is all the confidence you need to do a great job from the stage. Props to you 🎉 If you're having to rely on assumptions to complete your empathy map, go find someone (or even better, 'someones') to help you get close to your audience. Evidence builds confidence. Get inside your audience's head and check how much better you'll feel before standing up to speak.

Repetition is the mother of confidence. If you do not know the content, there is no way you can own the stage and ace your talk. Repeatedly practice your content alone AND in front of a live crowd (could just be your friends/ family)

Knowing your content inside out is key to owning the stage as a public speaker. As a public speaking coach here's what I recommend: - Make your speech your own. Internalise it in words that you are comfortable with without losing the core message. - Don't mug up your speech as it can sound Robotic. - Understand subtext of the written lines & work on your delivery and tone accordingly. For example- a paragraph meant to evoke Empathy needs to be delivered in an empathetic tone. - Practice in front of a mirror or in front of a small group of family and friends. Imagine it to be the real deal and take feedback from them. Implement the feedback. - Record yourself and play it back over a few days. - Employ deep diaphragm breathing to relax.

Understanding your audience and why they're there can make a huge difference. It's not about you, it's about them! It's about how they can feel they've benefited by being there, whether it's be suggesting solutions to their problems, or making them think about their challenges in a different way. You don't have to have all the answers too, no-one can do that, but by being in that space, knowing who's there or who else can help, you can help create collaborations and partnerships with others there for those who need it.

✅✅Emotional connection fosters trust and resonance! The audience then gets to relate with your content and information deeply!!

You need to understand that it is human beings who are sitting there in the audience who seek an emotional connection with the speaker. Be that speaker who is there to put across a point with assertiveness yet calm, strongly but humanely. Talk to them about a story, or a personal experience that they can relate to and can see the authenticity of that emotion in your voice and eyes. This way you will win the trust of the audience.

The way you carry and present yourself as a speaker can help you to own the stage with confidence. This can be through maintaining eye contact, using effective gestures and expressions which help to emphasise certain points within your speech. Also paying attention to pacing, tone and using effective pauses can add power to your speech and allow you to lead with confidence.

Take up space. As humans when we feel nervous we tend to shrink and keep ourselves confined. Take up space by opening up your body posture. Walk around the stage and make eye contact with your audience. Lastly harness the power of pausing during your speech.

Take up space. As humans when we feel nervous we tend to shrink and keep ourselves confined. Take up space by opening up your body posture. Walk around the stage and make eye contact with your audience. Lastly harness the power of pausing during your speech.

Oh the nerves are real!! I visualised my time on stage before I got there! It definitely helps! Take pauses during your talk if you need to. Smile a lot and smile at your audience. Remember, if some of your audience are looking at you with blank faces, that doesn't mean anything other than they are engaged with what you're saying. So don't let that put you off. Tell yourself you're good, that it will all go well. Even after you may feel it didn't, all very normal until you do more and more! Good luck 😉

3 simple ways to manage anxiety before/during a talk: 1. 5 deep, diaphragmatic beaths before you go on stage (belly breaths) 2. Focus on delivery of the content rather how nervous you feel (ask yourself, do they understand me? Rather than do they like me?) 3. Speak slowly

✅✅When it comes to this , I would lay emphasis on posing questions, encourage discussions, or facilitating group activities to foster a sense of community and active participation.

→→I personally love this approach because reflecting on how I handled these challenges (experienced during speaking )can help me develop strategies for overcoming similar obstacles in the future.

Confidence is just evidence. If you do something for the first time, you have no evidence that you can do it well, so you will be very anxious. Try give yourself evidence (practice), that you can do something a number of times before you do the actual thing. Example: Athletes train 5 days a week for 9 months before a big race, they are still nervous before the race but they can trust their intuition because they have evidence that can do what they're about to do.

And …. Breath!!! Breathing allows your brain time to think of the next bit of your talk Breathing allows you to add a pause - to reflect, to assess Breathing reduces the amount of fuller words you use - umm - ahh - kinda… etc Breathing settles your adrenaline response which has caused most of your anxiety feelings. It helps the adrenaline move round your body which encourages you to move. Breathing allows you to imagine you are looking at yourself from the audience’s perspective - do you need to move more - change your pace - your pitch - do you need to look around more? This is a fascinating ability because you can see yourself and ask, if I were in the audience what would I need. All made possible because you took a breath.

Consider what you're planning to wear. Make sure you feel 100% comfortable and it will have a huge knock on effect for your confidence. Don't choose that day to wear heels if you don't normally or a grey shirt if you sweat a lot as it's more things to worry about. Make it easier for yourself.