Public Speaking & Confidence

I went to few courses by Hoopla. They have improv, but it might be a bit too much. They have improv+public speaking courses. I found it really engaging, non-judjemental, a place to make friends and become more confident. Basically a safe environment to start gently.

For the public speaking part I joined the Guild of Toastmasters many years ago and learned through them. I think they are still on the go and offer the same sort of training.

Tips for the presentation itself - don't read out what is on the slide that is showing - that insults your audience who can read it themselves. Instead offer an overview and some additional info.

Avoid wearing clothes that will make you hot as you probably will warm up automatically from the tension and too many layers can make you feel restricted.

Maybe keep the odd question for the audience with a token gift for the right answer - this will keep them engaged and gives a nice distraction when it gets boring.

Most other points are already covered here I think.

I’ve worked in customer facing roles for most of my working life, including 30 years in supermarket retailing - I always aim to try to “keep it classy” as in todays modern world, even before mobile phones, Covid and Zoom calls, having good communication skills has become so important in recent years and not just for job interviews for even the most basic roles - French has been one of my strongest foreign languages so I’ve been toying for a long time with taking a French language course (followed closely by Italian) - during Covid, I had to give a presentation via Zoom to a group of Irish people via Irish community groups across the world and it was nerve wracking, as my grasp of Irish Gaelic is quite limited despite being born in Ireland, so I can only imagine what Kylie Minogue has to go through in the moments before she goes on stage 

[spam removed by mod]

Undoubtedly advice is needed. I am currently in need of presentation advice.

I heard a trick to looking at the audience, is to look over their heads, and towards the back of the room. This still gives the impression that you're looking at them and engaging with them through eye contact, but you're not directly looking at anyone in particular, so you're less nervous.

Also, if you're using a microphone, get used to hearing your own voice projected back to you, which is unnerving at first, but concentrate in the topic you want to speak and present to others. 

When you have to speak to anyone, to appear confident, you have to have comfortable body language. If you imagine a place that you have freedom to be yourself, (when you're in your room, when you're outdoor hiking, etc.) that you can be comfortable enough to genuinely laugh and express anything you want to, then that's a good mentality to be in. When you are in that kind of mentality, talking to anyone is a lot easier for you, and it comes across as being confident to them, that you're not holding back or hesitating which is caused by fear, that you have the freedom to say anything you'd like to say. 

yes i agree use visuals as much as possible pictures, videos, and physical picture / graphics even just one gives people something to focus on which isnt you 

I have given scientific presentations to up to 250-300 people, though I can't say I ever enjoyed it. I found not having a detailed script, just a running order with salient headings, was much better. I used cards with a loop of string though holes in one corner and this worked for me - if you drop them, they stay in the right order. I also was very keen on visuals, they help detract from all the eyes being directly on oneself. As an autistic, the standard advice to choose one person in the audience to address definitely did not work for me, I much preferred treating the audience as an amorphous mass - my short-sightedness helped with that. Personally, I always liked the freedom to move about, being chained to a podium I found tended to make me more nervous, and you present a moving target. 

I agree but I also feel social interaction and speaking is different, it can go any direction. It's not like practing an instrument or a skill like that. People are unpredictable (for me anyway). I don't understand what people imply and people don't understand what I imply.

So many times has this concept messed up situations for me; interviews, romance and general chatter. I don't understand any of this or why it happens - all I care about is fixing it. I do feel confidence is a major part of it as well. Sorry to ramble, thanks for commenting.

practice practice practice ----- the more u practice public speaking the better you become 

Good suggestion, I've never heard of Meetup.com before. I use Eventbrite for seminars and they have a few on public speaking which I'm going to attend today.

Sounds interesting I'm going to look into it.

Have a look at Meetup.com - it's a social meetings site - there's often people in the same boat running a 'public speaking' group where you get to practice on each other and learn all the techniques needed to be able to relax and perform.

never taken them before, but i saw a trick on a tv programme that they do in them. where you put a pen in your mouth to keep your mouth open in position and make it hard to speak, then keep your tongue pressed to bottom of teeth and then try to talk like that. it supposedly makes you focus on pronunciation more which makes your voice clearer and gets rid of any accent. think its a really old technique that even in ancient greece they did that but instead with stones in their mouth to make it hard to speak. supposedly a traditional way for any public speaker to be better at speaking clearly.

Thank you for the quick response. I've considered this before and I like the idea! Have you personally taken them yourself, if so what is it like? And can you reccomend any places/online classes?

you could take elocution lessons? that helps with making your voice more clear and ironing out any thick accent to make you more understandable. thats pretty much the official public speaking lesson type thing to do.

other than that im not sure there is anything, i guess your mind will always be muddled and you will always trip over words lol take alot of long pauses to think to prevent that i guess.