[Video Series] Speak with Confidence – Part 1

Video Transcription

Welcome to our Speak With Confidence series. This is Roberto Monaco with InfluenceOlogy. In this series you are going to discover how to transform the fear of public speaking, anxiety, doubt, maybe that nervous energy into unstoppable, amazing, unshakable confidence. Regardless if we’re speaking from one person, 10 people, 100 people, 1000 people, 10,000 people really doesn’t matter. Now before I share with you my first idea, I would like to say something to you. The most effective way that I know for anybody to transform their fear into confidence is through preparation and rehearsal. Maybe some of you don’t want to hear that because some people don’t like prepare and rehearse, but you have to do it, That’s the best way.

I am not covering presentation preparation here because I already did that in the past, so if you want to watch a little video here that I recorded, in this video I share 4 different ways you can enhance your presentation preparation. You guys ready? What’s the first idea in this series? This one, increase the connection with your topic, but what is that? What I found is that the best speakers, the best communicators and influencers, they have this strong emotional connection, they mastered their topic. Why people who experience fear, uncertainty, they don’t. How do you do that? Let me give you a formula, get REAL.

R.E.A.L.

R, “Reasons”. What are your reasons for speaking? What are your reasons for putting a talk together, drive somewhere, do a webinar, record a video? What I’ve found is that the more attached to your reasons, you can use the word purpose here, the more positive energy, reasons, purpose you have in your body, then the last room for the negative energy, you want to leave no room for fear or doubt.

Let’s say we have 2 presenters, A and B. Presenter A has one reason, presenter B has the same reason plus 50. Who do you think has more influence, more charisma, more power, more certainty? Presenter B obviously. My personal experience, my reasons that I think speaking when we do InfluenceOlogy is a matter of life and death. What do I mean about life and death? We have so many people in our society, chiropractors, dentists, loan officers, real estate agents, lawyers, speakers, coaches that they want to be speaking, communicate and master a higher level, but they don’t because they allow fear to stop them. Because they are not communicating, people are dying or people are making the wrong decisions, so our job here is to transform the people into master presenters, so now they communicate their messages and they impact the society in a positive manner. We have a bigger purpose, a bigger reason, so when you communicate we leave no room for fear. Same rule applies to you to master your business.

E, what are your personal “Experiences” with your topic? Instead of talking about something you don’t have a personal experience, talk about something that you have experienced. Find your stories that you have an emotional connection with your topic. I see so many presenters or wannabe guru’s, they see a hot topic and like, “Oh, I want to talk about that,” and then they copy someone else’s content, the information and now they’re talking. They’re radiating, they’re communicating, incongruency, uncertainty, anxiety, it’s not good. Don’t be that guy, don’t be that girl. Ask yourself, “What are my personal experiences with this topic?” If you do have a new presentation in a new topic, then what you do as a leader, you go first and you apply this information and you have your learning, your have your mistakes, you have the lessons, and then, only then you communicate from that angle.

A, is for “Actionable.” Is my message, is my topic actionable? In other words, can the audience take action in the end of my talk? Super important, why? Because instead of focusing on the fear, uncertainty, doubt, you focus on the next step because you know in your heart when your audience takes action they will improve their lives. We had a gentleman one time called me up and said, “Hey man, I have this presentation that I’m doing about stress reduction and I have this huge fear and anxiety that I’m experiencing right now. My talk’s tomorrow, what do I do?” I ask him, “What’s the call to action? What’s your offer? What’s the next action that you want the audience to take?” He goes, “I don’t know.” I was like, “Man, don’t you help people?” “Yes I have to have success stories, yes.” So focus on the next step, focus on how your audience are going to take action in your content, improve their life, instead of worrying about all of this fear, anxiety and doubt. Super important, is your message actionable?

L, is for “Love.” How much do you love your topic? How much do you love to talk about your topic, to research your topic, to interview people about your topic? I personally love to talk about public speaking, influence, communication skills, story telling, leadership marketing, mindset, but some topics I am not very passionate about. I know your thinking, so Roberto, “I work for this company and sometimes I’ve got to do a presentation about our database management system and I’m not very passionate about it. I am expert but I’m not passionate about it. How do I become passionate about a topic that I’m not passionate about?” Here’s the secret, you guy’s ready?

2 ideas for you. Number 1, you ask yourself, “What are some of the topics I’m very passionate about?” So for example, I’m passionate about going to the beach, about watching FC, about reading, about eating out, having fun. I would draw a parallel, “How is running a database effectively just like going to the beach?” As of delivering my message about database, I’m telling maybe 1, or 2 or 3 examples about going to the beach and having fun, so even if I’m not very passionate about database, I’m passionate about going to the beach so I can talk about a couple of things, couple of stories, couple analogies here so that my message is still fun. There’s always a way.

The second way, even though I’m not passionate about talking about database management systems, I am passionate about helping people, so just in your case, focus on your clients and your clients stories. You have a lot of examples, because ultimatley I know you are very passionate about helping people aren’t you? I know you are, I am.

I hope you enjoyed this series. If you are watching this video on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss our next video, and you’re going to learn more about how you can take a public speaking presentation [inaudible 00:07:06] skills to the next level, just go to http://www.influencingfromthefront.com. One more time, www.influencingfromthefront.com and I will see you in our next video, video number 2.