Sahil Bloom stood on the side of the stage. There was a buzz coming from the packed auditorium.
He was the keynote speaker, and it was moments before he was about to deliver his talk.
The entire event had been building to this moment.
“Go!” the event organizer said, gently pushing his shoulder.
On cue, the song Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys blasted out of the speakers.
Huh?
“You’re probably wondering why I just entered to Girl on Fire,” Sahil said.
“Well, it’s my one-year-old son’s favorite song, and I figured he’d be more excited to watch the replay if his dad entered to his favorite jam.”
Choosing that song as his walk-on song provided him with “a built-in joke.” Sahil writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.
“My anxiety disappeared,” he recalls, “when I saw the smiling and laughing faces in the crowd.”
The bigger point? “Doing something unexpected and funny early in a talk immediately cuts the anxiety and tension in the room.”
Lesson #1 of public speaking: Cut the tension. “Find a simple way to cut the tension early and get people on your side,” Sahil writes.
Research shows that many people “rank public speaking ahead of death on a list of their greatest fears,” he writes.
Overcoming our trepidation and becoming a confident public speaker is a key skill on which to build our careers and lives.
“It expands potential relationship circles and builds authority and expertise that are markers of earned status,” Sahil writes. “It has the potential to accelerate personal and professional endeavors meaningfully.”
Becoming a self-assured speaker is something we can all achieve by utilizing nine strategies to boost our confidence, enabling us to perform at our best.
Lesson #2 of public speaking: Study the Best. If we want to become better at anything, a smart place to start is to become a student of the very best.
A simple search on YouTube will yield videos featuring some of the greatest speakers of all time, including Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs, and many others.
We can watch their talks and take notes:
- How do they structure their speeches?
- When do they pause? When do they accelerate?
- What gestures do they use?
- When do they raise their voices? When do they lower them?
- How do they move around the stage?
“By studying the best,” Sahil notes, “we naturally move to embody the traits we’ve identified.”
Lesson #3 of public speaking: Create a Clear Structure
“The best public speakers don’t deliver a speech,” Sahil writes, “they tell a story. They take the audience on a journey.”
To become a great public speaker, we are wise to create a clear structure for our talk that is easy to follow.
“It’s helpful to be clear and explicit about that structure up front,” he suggests, “whether in the presentation materials or in our early delivery.”
Lesson #4 of public speaking: Build Our Lego Blocks
If we are nervous about delivering our speech, toast, or presentation, we may attempt to memorize our content.
Don’t.
“When we memorize material, one tiny slip-up can throw us off,” Sahil says. “We know the material only in one fixed linear trajectory, so we’re unable to adapt.
“All it takes is one glitch in the slides, an off-track question from the audience, or a slight stumble in our opener, and our preparation goes out the window.”
Instead, Sahil recommends that we break our talk into “Lego blocks,” including our opening, transitions, and punchlines.
“Practice the speech in segments rather than sequentially,” he recommends. “This may seem counterintuitive, but it will make us more dynamic if things don’t go perfectly according to plan.”
Another suggestion? “Practice once while briskly walking or lightly jogging,” Sahil suggests. “I have found that it effectively simulates the heart rate increase you might experience when you take the stage.”
Lesson #5 of public speaking: Address the Spotlight
“The spotlight effect,” he explains, “is a common psychological phenomenon in which people overestimate the degree to which other people are noticing or observing their actions, behaviors, appearance, or results.”
Delivering a speech is one instance when the spotlight effect becomes most noticeable.
And “potentially crippling,” Sahil writes.
Two simple words can help us combat this tendency: So what?
“So what if we forget your remarks or you don’t deliver them perfectly?” Sahil asks. “We’ll stumble through, but it won’t kill us.
“Our families will still love us when we get home and life will move on.
“The answer to ‘So what?’ isn’t nearly as bad as we think.
As the Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote: “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
Lesson #6 of public speaking: Get into Character
“Character invention is a technique in which we create a character that can show up and perform in situations that induce in us fear or self-doubt,” Sahil writes.
How? We create a character who can nail the speech.
We imagine a public-speaking figure that we would like to become:
- What traits do they possess?
- How do they interact with their surroundings?
- How do they physically appear to others?
- What is their mentality?
Then, before we step into the spotlight, we “flip the switch” to become this character.
Lesson #7 of public speaking: Eliminate stress
There is a highly effective, research-based technique to eliminate stress.
“It’s a breath pattern marked by a long inhale, a short inhale, and a long exhale,” Sahil explains. “People do it naturally when levels of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream get too high.
“It creates a relaxing sensation by releasing a lot of carbon dioxide very fast. If we feel our nerves rising before the event, try it:
“Inhale through your nose twice, once slowly, then once quickly.
“Long exhale through your mouth.
“Repeat two to three times.”
The impact? Real and positive.
Lesson #8 of public speaking: Play the Lava Game
One mistake poor public speakers make is shrinking on stage. They put their hands in their pockets. Or they don’t use their arms to gesture.
We can avoid this tendency by playing the Lava Game.
Remember the childhood game where parts of the floor are lava that we aren’t allowed to touch?
“During a speech, I try to play a similar game. I think of my pockets and torso as lava—I can’t touch them,” Sahil writes.
“This simple framing forces us to get our arms away from our bodies, gesture broadly, and express confidence.”
Sahil’s Pro tip? “Use big, bold, body-opening gestures early in the talk. I have found that doing so builds confidence and momentum (consider this my hat tip to Amy Cuddy’s much-debated power-pose research).”
Lesson #9 of public speaking: Move Purposefully
Another trap poor public speakers fall into is “pacing around like we’re on the phone with our childhood crush,” Sahil observes. “It isn’t helpful. It just makes us more nervous.”
Instead, we can take “slow, methodical, purposeful steps,” he suggests. “Move with gravitas. Use our movements to add dramatic pauses to our words as we navigate the room.”
Turns out there is a big difference between moving to move and moving with intention.
“Always be the latter,” he writes.
The above nine strategies will make a huge difference in our public speaking, Sahil writes.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Which of these nine public speaking strategies could most transform my confidence and presence—whether on stage or in a meeting?
Action: Choose one of the strategies listed above and practice it deliberately during my next presentation or public speaking opportunity.
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