The One Way to Defeat Your Fear of Public Speaking… That No One Ever Really Ever Talks About

Posted on February 12, 2025

You feel your heart pounding against your chest while at the same time your vocal cords are frozen. Your body has the feeling that it’s about to jump out of an airplane. Your nerves are screaming like you’re about to step into the ring with one of the hardest hitting heavyweights in the world.

But you’re not ten thousand feet in the air, nor are you heading into a prize fight. The challenge in front of you is…..public speaking.

Most people try to avoid public speaking at all costs. And it does cost them; promotions, clients, money, new opportunities, new relationships, or even a new life.

You can try and play a game of hide and go seek with public speaking. But sooner or later, if you want to move forward in your career, public speaking is going to find you, and you’ll be center stage giving that presentation to your co-workers, managers and higher level executives.

So if neither public speaking or the career defining implications of public speaking are going away, what do you and I do about the crushing self doubt that almost strangles us when we’re about to do public speaking?

That fear will not only rob you of communicating effectively, it’ll rob your listening audience of unique pearls of wisdom that you have to offer.

So what do you and I do to escape this robber’s grip over us?

What if I told you there was an escape route?

Some people will attempt to overpower the fear of public speaking.

I’ve known speakers who before a speech will sit by themselves in their car and scream their heads off in order to surpass their fear. They return from their vehicles with their voices a little more raspy, but they themselves are not much more relaxed.

I ‘ve seen speakers backstage go into meditation, do various breathing techniques, and do countless push ups.

Doing all of this can definitely turn down the volume on your fear, but what if there was an off switch?

The good news for you and me, there is.

There is a way for you to be relaxed when stepping in front of your listening audience.

What is this secret? What is the secret that can relax your frayed nerves?

By taking yourself out of the equation. No, I’m not saying hire a professional to speak in your place, (Unless you want to contact me of course.)

What I’m telling you is to not make your speech about yourself.

How could that be? You’re now asking, if I’m the one doing the presentation, all eyes are on me, how could this not be about me and only me?

The key shift that will take you from a needy presenter to a confident presenter isn't to be confident of yourself, but to be confident of the value you’re giving the audience.

I’ll tell you about the time this lesson was driven home to me.

Once I was working with a guy in my public speaking group. He was going to give a speech about his childhood growing up. He was beyond scared to face the audience. His mouth had trouble getting the words out, and his legs were shaking like he was standing on a half frozen lake.

I was working with him on his pacing of the speech and getting him to take in slow controlled breaths. These techniques were scoring small wins in helping him relax, but his fear was still winning the war.

In a futile attempt to give him some perspective, I said, “just think about how much easier giving your next presentation at work will be.”

What he said next stunned me and forever changed my approach to public speaking. He looked up and told me, “I don’t have any problem doing public speaking at work. I have a PHD in my field, and I know that what I’m presenting is valuable. So I have nothing to be afraid of when I’m speaking at work.”

That’s when it became clear to me that once you see the value in your material, you can then draw your confidence from that. As you stand up there and give your presentation, it’s not about you being liked, it’s about what you have to offer your listening audience.

That is how you flip your fear of public speaking on its head. You need to figure out what is the value that you’re giving the audience. And if you can’t see any value in what you’re currently presenting, create some! Put more work into your speech until you’re certain that you have something of value to offer! No matter how large or small, there is something of value that you can share.

You may be sharing a new technological breakthrough, or you may be reinforcing the idea that people need to stop and smell the roses every once in a while. If you can just simply make the day a little better for your audience, that’s a major win.

You don’t have to bring life changing value to your audience every time, but you must have prepared some kind of value to give your audience.

Ask yourself, after hearing my speech, how will my audience be better off?

Once you know the answer to that question, the fear will begin to ease away.

Once you have the answer to that question, does that mean at the end of every presentation the audience will go into a thunderous applause and then line up to take selfies with you?

Maybe, maybe not, but that’s ok. Your audience may see the value in what you’re offering, or they may not.

The point is you had value to offer your audience. You weren’t just standing up there wanting to be liked or approved of, you had something to offer. Now whether or not the audience members recognized that and took advantage of the value you had to offer is on them, you lived up to your end of the bargain.

If you and I met on the street, and I offered you one hundred dollars, and you refused the money, did that one hundred dollars lose any value because you refused it? Of course not.

The same principle applies to your public speaking. You show up with value to offer your audience, they either accept or not. Again, you lived up to your part of the bargain and deserve to be confident during your speech and then deserve to be at peace with how the audience reacts.

Before you give your next presentation, figure out the value that you’re bringing to the table and keep your focus on that gift you’re giving the audience. Your highest mission is to not be liked or approved of. Your highest mission is to make your audience’s day a little bit brighter. If you can keep yourself focused on that, I believe that the fear of public speaking will not only loosen its stronghold, but over time, will disappear while you stay focused on the value you’re giving your audience.

More importantly than you defeating your fear of public speaking, the world will win when you share with us your wisdom.

I look forward to your work.

Erik