Love public speaking? Probably not.

If you’re like most people, the thought of taking the podium at a high-stakes moment likely puts your heart in your throat and a wobble in your knees.

But here’s a little secret that can help. 

No one’s a natural at giving a speech or delivering a press conference. It takes hard work and many hours of practice to find your own style of public speaking—and the confidence to do it well.

The effort is always worth it.

For years you’ve heard us talk about the power of your message to change hearts and minds, frame the conversation, and shift public opinion to help make life better for people. Finding the right words to reach the right audience and get heads nodding is crucial to bringing more people on board and winning the change you want to see.

But delivering your message takes more than the right words.

What you say matters. And how you say it matters just as much.

The instrument you use to deliver your message is your body and your voice. Your tone, your speed, your hand movements, stance, posture, and breathing rate—it all affects how you feel about public speaking and how you make your audience feel when they hear you.

The more you’re able to get out of your anxiety and get into the moment, the more likely you’ll be able to bring people with you. And your audience is more likely to be moved to action and persuaded by your message when your delivery is natural, fluid, confident, and relaxed.

At The NOW Group, we help leaders and communications teams find the unique style of public speaking that suits them best. And we do it in coaching sessions that look different depending on your needs—from regular one-on-one practice to small-group coaching to full-day sessions with over 100 people in the room. The more people in your organization who can deliver your message with confidence, the better equipped your entire team will be to win action on the issues that matter most.

Here’s four simple tips that can help get you started:

• Breathe. If you’re not a practiced meditator, here’s a 3-minute meditation to try. Particularly if you’ve had a tough day, taking three minutes to reset might just be what you need. And if you don’t even have three minutes, we bet you have time to take three deep breaths. Even that will make a difference, we promise!

• Move. Whether that’s a quick walk around the block, or a quick bit of desk yoga, we can’t emphasize enough how much of a difference it makes to sneak some movement in. On busy days, too many leaders rush from meeting to meeting – or get stuck in back-to-back Zoom calls—which is a recipe for fatigue and poor emotional regulation. Particularly when you’re prepping for a speech or an interview, take 2 minutes to move your body, consciously relax the tension in your muscles, and shake off the nerves. You’ve got this!

• Laugh. We worked with one leader who tended to speak quietly and struggled to connect physically with their material. Their delivery felt stiff and wooden, which makes it hard to connect emotionally with an audience. Over a series of months of working together, we realized that laughter was often the best way to get them out of their head and back into their body. So, we did something unexpected: we upped the goofiness quotient, often joining them in song or even dance as part of their speech prep. It helped them relax and turn their worry into a smile. Now, that may not be your solution, but learning how to relax on demand is a skill every leader needs.

• Practice. Do the best athletes ever stop training? Yeah, we didn’t think so. Too many people make the assumption that once the speech is written or the press conference remarks have been printed, you’re somehow ready to go. That’s never a good strategy. Whether you’re new to speeches and press conferences or have been doing them for twenty years, you still need to build time into the schedule to sit with your words, review them ten or twenty times (seriously), and get comfortable with what you’re saying—and how you’ll say it.

There is lots of research to back up the value that a little more integration with our physical selves can help us perform better in all aspects of our work. And if you give a couple of these tactics a try, we’re willing to bet that you’ll gather a bit of anecdotal evidence of your own.

Who knows? You might just learn to love public speaking.

Want to talk about what our personalized coaching sessions can look like for your team? Give us a call. We’re always here to help!