My first class I taught at Richland College…
My first class I taught at Richland College…I thought, “I have a lot to cover in this 90-minute class.”
But I was done in 5 minutes!
There I stood, with 28 college students looking at me. I knew I had nothing else to say. Unfortunately they also knew I had nothing else to say. I instantly sported a sheen of sweat.
Had I not signed a contract to teach that class I might not be the Founder of Speak For Yourself® today! I was forced to show up at Richland College every Tuesday and Thursday for 16 weeks. That was 32 class sessions in case you didn’t do the math.
It was a powerful lesson about perseverance and practice.
And now…
I warn all of my fabulous clients that speaker anxiety is part of the game of speaking. You won’t get rid of it. In fact, you want that adrenaline edge. You learn how to dance with that demon and use that extra energy in a positive vs. negative way.
Some of those demon-dance steps include practice, perseverance, time, rinse and repeat.
I taught at Richland College for 10 years. The first class of each semester lasted the full 90 minutes… to their chagrin!
One of my coping mechanisms then and now … I wear cotton. You want to be in control of your potential physical side effects of speaker anxiety.
What are some of your coping mechanisms?
One of my best scrub techs was the director of a teaching program at the local university. These scrub technician students are terrified of their first clinicals when they are to go into the operating room for the first time as surgeons are not known to be the friendliest of people when things are slowed down by students. I was asked to give a lecture to get the students prepared from a surgeons point of view. They were expecting me to give them a long list of things to stay away from to try to stay out of trouble.
Using the time honored tradition of starting with a bit of humor to soften up the audience, I chose the opposite tack. I named the lecture “ how to get yelled at by the surgeon in the operating room“ I then proceeded to list several ways that they could piss off the operating surgeon, such as showing up late, not knowing what operation to do, telling a joke or calling the surgeon by his or her first name. Not only did that break the ice, but it put them totally at ease. They realized that surgeons were just like other people and that the same things that would piss them off would do the same to the operating surgeon. once they saw me, a surgeon, using humor it made surgeons real people in their eyes, and not the big bad wolves that they had anticipated.
Michael – you are spot on!!! You used humor in a positive way. You did not tell a joke – this is a humor technique that I discourage clients to use. Why? You never know how you might offend someone in your audience. (And you also told them NOT to use jokes. Well done!) What you did here is golden – you used self-deprecating humor. You, a well-known and well-respected surgeon, made yourself “human”. You made yourself approachable and lowered the tension for these newbies.
You also then shared valuable tips to make them shine as speakers. Bravo.
Focus on the ROI you are providing your audience: you are making them happy or making them money. Of course, that might not work with college students.
Val – You’ve nailed it! By focusing on the ROI for your audience it forces you to concentrate on your audience and THEIR goals and minimizes your self-talk. And… your method works for all audiences, including college students. The ROI may be different than “making them happy or making them money” or maybe not! Those are the two universal triggers: Money and Emotion, as seen in every commercial promoting any product/service to any age group.