She pushed back on my suggestion, claiming that it wouldn’t be authentic.

What she really meant is that it didn’t feel natural to her because she had never done it before.

I agree with the concept of being authentic when you’re public speaking.

The trap is that “authenticity” is often used as an excuse for staying in your Comfort Zone.

Your Comfort Zone feels good. Your Comfort Zone feels natural and familiar. It’s easy to confuse being in your Comfort Zone  with being authentic precisely because it feels natural and familiar.

But your Comfort Zone and your Authentic Zone are not the same. Your Authentic Zone is much larger. Your Authentic Zone straddles both your Comfort Zone and your Courage Zone.

What is authenticity?

Abraham Maslow developed the idea that we have an inner drive to fulfill our potential – to become self-actualized.

Both the part of your potential that you have fulfilled and that which you have not yet fulfilled are part of the authentic you.

Authenticity is the essence of you.

There are parts of the authentic you that you have never expressed to the world.

There are parts of the authentic you that you don’t yet know even exist.

These parts of the authentic you are waiting for you to discover and explore, and then express to the world. This process will most likely involve risk and discomfort. You will be in your Courage Zone.

How to develop your authentic style as a speaker

Each time you speak, push the envelope of your Comfort Zone.

Experiment with different styles.

Watch other speakers and note what works for you as an audience member.

Be playful with what you choose to express to your audience.

Don’t use authenticity as an excuse to stay in your Comfort Zone. You will be robbing both yourself and your audience.

“I want you to make as many pots as possible. At the end of the term I’ll grade you on the weight of your pots.”

To Group B he said: “I want you to make the best pot possible. At the end of the term I’ll grade you on the quality of your pot.”

The students worked away at their assigned task – Group A churning out pot after pot, while Group B concentrated on endlessly perfecting one pot.

At the end of term, the ceramics teacher graded all his students on the quality of the pots they produced. And all the best quality pots came from Group A students!

[This story comes from the book “Art and Fear” by David Bayles and Ted Orland].

The lesson for presenters

The lesson for us as presenters is to repeat your content multiple times. It’s only when you repeat your content multiple times that you get really good at it.

When you repeat your content multiple times here’s what you’ll find:

1. You’ll see which pieces of your presentation audiences most relate to – the “lean in” moments and you can then make more of those in your presentation (credit to Terry Williams for the “lean in” moments phrase).
2. You’ll see the pieces during which your audience seem to glaze over. Then you could either delete these from your presentation or put serious effort into improving them.
3. Each time you’re delivering your presentation live, you’ll use a slightly different form of words and you’ll find one form that is particularly effective. Something happens in the space between us and the audience that we find just the right way of saying it.
4. Your content will form such a well-worn path in your mind that you will no longer have to think about what you’re saying and instead can focus whole-heartedly on connecting with your audience.

So why don’t more people repeat their content?

1. Fear of getting stale

Some people don’t like repeating content because it feels stale to them and they want to do something fresh, new and exciting to them. This is not serving the audience – it’s all about the presenter. They also believe that they won’t be able to deliver the information with energy if the information is not fresh to them.

Early in my speaking career, an experienced professional speaker said “Say it differently every time.” This mantra stops you from being attached to saying it the same way every time, it stops you from getting stale by always travelling the same well-worn groove, and it invites you to play with different ways of saying the same thing – which means you may discover new, and even better ways of saying it.

2. Fear of the audience being bored

Some people are worried that there will be people who will have been in the audience before and so who will be bored by hearing the same content. My experience here is:

1. If your content is valuable, those people in our audience will not be bored.
2. In fact, these people often love hearing the content again. Just like you enjoy watching a good movie, or reading a good book because of the nuances you receive the second time round.

3. Fear of being out-dated

Some people think their content has to be totally up-to-date. This may be the case in some industries eg: if you’re talking about trends in the stockmarket, you’ve got a point. But for most presentations, we don’t have to have the absolute latest information.

If you are constantly delivering material which is new to you, you will always be in the land of uncertainty – how does this presentation flow, how will the audience relate to this piece, will this work? If you’re in this place, you are in your head concerned about your content, and you will never have the experience of being able to let go of thinking about your content and connecting with your audience.

It’s when you repeat your content, that you start becoming a professional presenter.

“I must be knowledgeable.”
“I must be the expert on this topic.”
“I must be able to answer every question.”

The problem with these statements

The first is the use of the word “must”. This makes them into a demand – something that you must achieve. And demanding that you achieve something is likely to increase your nervousness.

Second, it’s difficult to know when you have achieved them. How do you know when you are knowledgeable enough? After all you can always gather more bits of knowledge. When do you achieve the status of expert? And there’s no way of guaranteeing that somebody won’t ask you a question you can’t answer. You will always have some element of doubt.

If you say these kinds of things to yourself, you may find yourself:

1. Researching far more than you need to before getting down to actually writing your presentation. Therefore you procrastinate on getting started, your prep time gets squeezed, and your actual presentation is not as good as it could be.

2. Staying up late in the days leading up to your presentation, researching the answers to all the questions you could possibly get asked.

What should you do instead?

Here’s what you audience wants – they want to listen to someone who is credible. They don’t want to waste their time listening to someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. But being knowledgeable is only one route to credibility. Credibility and being knowledgeable are not synonymous.

How to be credible?

1. There’s that old saying that you only have to be one page ahead of your audience. I prefer to make it two pages, but the idea is sound, you just have to know a little more than the audience.

2. Be upfront about what you know and what you don’t know. My friend Deb was speaking at a conference for teachers of philosophy. She is not a philosopher and so was having serious issues about her credibility for speaking at the conference. I pointed out that for the particular topic she was speaking on there was no need for her to be a philosopher or even to talk about philosophy. Once she took on this mindshift, she even made some humour from it at the beginning of her presentation “We have three philosophers on our team, I am not one of them.”

3. Scope your topic to make it quite clear what you’re talking about and what you claim expertise in. You can make this as narrow as you like. Western culture reveres specialization and narrow expertise.

4. Talk about your topic from the point of view of your experience of it. Position yourself as an expert on your own experience. There is no one who knows about your experience better than you do.

So make your goal to be credible, rather than to be knowledgeable.

It’s not unlike the feeling that I used to have when standing in front of an audience and delivering a presentation “Look at me, and judge my ability to present.”

And it turns out that you can use this similarity between the feelings to become more comfortable about public speaking.

That’s because underlying the fear of public speaking is the fear of being judged and disapproved of. So if you want to get more comfortable with public speaking?, expose yourself to the fear of being judged and disapproved of in other contexts.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

So take an action every day that will trigger your fear of disapproval. Here are examples of actions you could take:

Ask for someone’s name when you’ve forgotten
Wear your jacket inside out
Say “Hello” to everyone you meet as you walk along the street
When you’re in a line (queue) talk to the person next to you
Ask for help at work
Say no when someone asks you to do something that doesn’t sit right with you
Put a less than flattering photo on social media

Take these actions on a regular basis and over time your level of discomfort will decrease. And so will your fear of public speaking. You’ll have become more comfortable with discomfort.

I call this process of taking actions every day the Disapproval Immunization Process. You can do this process on your own, or if you’re a woman and you’d like coaching, support and accountability, you can join the next Stairway to Confidence program.

Here’s what previous participants have said about taking these actions.

“The biggest learning for me was that deliberately engaging in small challenges every day has a cumulative and beneficial effect on overall confidence.” Margaret O’Brien

“Doing those actions everyday did make such a huge difference. It’s such a simple concept, but it works really well.” Marie Waldron

The next Stairway to Confidence program starts on 9th July. It’s a program for women who are fed up with being held back by their fear of public speaking and want to become more confident speaking up in meetings, presenting to groups and recording video. To learn more and to watch videos of the women who completed the previous program click here.

There was one problem that I turned over in my mind. For 20 years I had run public speaking courses in New Zealand and tried my best to help people overcome the fear of public speaking. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. I wanted a more reliable method to help people overcome the fear.

The problem of the fear of public speaking

Here was the problem as I saw it. The traditional way of overcoming the fear of public speaking is to simply speak in public many times and hope that you will feel less nervous every time you do it. But there are some issues with this approach:

1. Speaking in public for the first time is so scary for some people that they never do it. They never take opportunities to present at work, they never go on a public speaking course, they never join Toastmasters. That initial leap is too big.
2. For people who have been brave enough to take that initial leap, they don’t have regular public speaking opportunities, so they never get enough practice to truly get over the fear. Every time it’s a fresh ordeal.
3. When people do have an opportunity to present to an audience, there’s often a lot at stake eg: it’s part of a job interview, or making a business case to the senior management of the company. That makes it many times scarier.

So as I lay in bed, I puzzled over this problem.

The theory

I came up with a theory. What if the fear underlying the fear of public speaking was the fear of disapproval?

What I mean by this is, what if what people are really frightened of is that the audience will disapprove of them.

In evolutionary times having the approval of other people was essential to our survival. If the members of our group didn’t approve of us – if we didn’t pull our weight, if we said something that offended the leader – we could be thrown out of the group, and then it was very likely we would die. This is no longer the case, but we still have a fight or flight response when threatened with the disapproval of our group, just as we had in evolutionary times.

This theory gave me a possible new approach to helping people overcome the fear of public speaking. Instead of addressing the fear of public speaking by exposing people to public speaking, what if it could be addressed by exposing people to disapproval.

Would overcoming the fear of disapproval make public speaking less scary?

Testing the theory

I’ve now tested out this theory. Eight courageous women took part in a pilot program. They all struggled with the fear of public speaking. For example, here’s what Marie said:

“The thought of public speaking was absolutely terrifying. Even in meetings at work I was terrified of making a fool of myself or going bright red. The thought of actually giving a speech…I could not imagine ever doing that.”

During the pilot program the women took small actions every day which exposed them to a tiny dose of the fear of disapproval. The steps were so tiny to begin with that they flew under the radar of their fight or flight response. For example, one of the first steps that Marie took was wearing clashing clothes to the supermarket and risking that people might look at her and think she was weird.

Over time, Marie built up her immunity to the fear of disapproval and took actions that previously were way out of her comfort zone. Eventually, looking for opportunities to do something scary became a game to her.

“Just doing a scary action every day made such a huge difference. It’s such a simple concept, but it really works. I can’t believe I’ve gone from where I was to where I am now in just 12 weeks. It’s incredible.”

Stairway to Confidence

Marie is not alone. Every one of the seven other women had similar breakthroughs. I’ve put together a page with their stories and more information about the Stairway to Confidence program (if you received my emails earlier in the year you’ll see that I’ve changed the name from Journey to Confidence).

The next Stairway to Confidence program I’m running starts on 9th July. If you would like to be a part of it, click this link to find out more about it.

You’ll see that the program is for women only. I’ve made this decision after much thought. My experience in the pilot and the feedback I got from the pilot participants were that it functioned best once it was a women-only space (there were some men initially enrolled, and they were unable to continue). Additionally, though all the genders have confidence and visibility issues, there are some issues which are gender-specific. As a woman, I have most insight into the issues specific to women and as a result can help women the most.

You’ll also find details of the sliding scale of payment system that I’m using to make the program affordable to every woman who wants to do it.

What has Stairway to Confidence made possible for Marie?

A few weeks ago Marie was named a finalist in a competition and “had the opportunity” to speak in front of 400 people.

She told me:  “I never would have been able to get onto that stage before Stairway to Confidence.”

“Being able to speak has opened up so much for me. I know new fears will come up for me, but I know now that I can work through them because I’ve done it before. It’s just made me really excited about the future. Anything is possible.”

To see video of Marie talking about her experience of being on the program click through to the Stairway to Confidence page.

Torna Pitman has been a university lecturer, and so is a reasonably experienced presenter. She was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at a workshop on domestic violence. As her topic was controversial – Coercive Control – Torna knew that there could be some push-back from the audience, so this was potentially a nerve-wracking situation. She was hoping that Journey to Confidence would prepare her for this presentation.

A major insight for Torna during the Journey to Confidence program was that she tended to view presenting as all about herself – how she was coming across or how credible she was.

Making it all about you

This is very common. Many of us are concerned about ourselves, and the possibility that we won’t be enough for the audience. As a result when we’re up in front of the audience, we put on a persona.

I did this for a long, long time. My speaking career started in Toastmasters, and it led me into thinking that every speech was a performance, something that I put on. I didn’t actually see, let alone connect, with people. I was too busy being a performer on stage.

I’ve also seen this time and time again when I’m running a two-day course. On the first day of the course I get to know the participants on the course as I help them plan their presentations. Then on the second day they deliver their presentation, and sometimes I think, “Where is the person who I got to know yesterday?”. They became someone else.

There are three problems with becoming someone else, with putting on a persona, when you’re presenting:

1. It’s exhausting. You’re putting out so much energy that at the end of your speech you are just spent.
2. It’s very easy to feel like a fraud (and in a sense you are), and so imposter syndrome rears its ugly head.
3. And finally, it’s very difficult to authentically connect with an audience when you’re not being yourself. If you’re not being yourself, who is there for the audience to connect with?

The Mindshift

Instead of thinking about yourself, think about how you can best serve the audience. How can you leave them better off by listening to you? You can serve the audience with two things:

1. The content that you share

The content that you share is the foundation of any speech or talk. It’s non-negotiable – you have to have valuable content for your audience. Else, why would you be speaking? And serve your audience by making it as easy as possible for them to process and remember that content.

2. The connection that you make

This is what makes a presentation – a presentation, or a speech – a speech. This is why we do it. Otherwise, we could just put everything in writing. It makes a difference to see the person in front of us and make that personal connection, and that’s what presenting and speaking enables you to do.

Making this mindshift (and many other aspects of Journey to Confidence) made a big difference for Torna for her high-pressure presentation:

“Journey to Confidence gradually led me to a state where I knew I could do it. The program gave me ways to look after myself and make sure I was stable (keeping my demons at bay) so that then I could look after the audience. Once I was in front of the audience, there was no stopping me, I was on fire!

The personal feedback I’ve received has been amazing. Many people have said “You’re a phenomenal presenter!”

But most important is that I got my message across – domestic violence providers are rethinking their approach as a result of my presentation.”

If you’re interested in taking part in the next round of Journey to Confidence click here to be one of the first to be notified when I open it for enrollment.

Note: After much thought I have decided to make the Journey to Confidence program for women only. This is for two reasons:

1. The pilot program became women-only because the men who were enrolled discontinuing for various reasons (mainly time issues) and the women-only environment worked well.

2. Though both men and women suffer from confidence issues, some of the issues are gender specific and as a woman I feel I am more able to help women.

From your career’s point of view, research has shown that people who speak up early and often are seen as leaders – get this – even when they are wrong (the experiment involved solving a maths problem where there was an incontrovertible right and wrong approach):

Consistently, the group members who spoke up the most were rated the highest for such qualities as “general intelligence” and “dependable and self-disciplined.”

You’ve probably seen this in action for yourself. You see other people speak in meetings (and you may be thinking to yourself they’re spouting rubbish) but their ideas get implemented. Or even worse they articulate your ideas, and even if they credit you, they are still remembered and forever associated with the idea, not you.

So speaking up in meetings is an essential skill to enable you to be seen as a leader, to get credit for your ideas, and to progress your career.

It can even stop you from being laid off. A reader contributed this anecdote:

I have a former boss who almost always dominated meeting conversations. She frequently spoke up before anyone else could get a word in and she was hard to interrupt. Everyone acknowledged her passion, but some of us felt she asked banal questions or made superfluous comments. But then 3 of 4 people from our department were laid off. Guess who survived?

Hint: It wasn’t me with all my precious thoughts in my head, never shared at the conference table.

Speaking up in meetings is also a valuable way to practice public speaking. If you don’t have to do formal presentations on a regular basis yet, or if you have few opportunities for formal presentations speaking up in meetings is also a way to practice and get more comfortable with speaking to a group.

Extroverts have an advantage when it comes to speaking up in meetings. But introverts can also make valuable contributions to meetings – it’s just a matter of going about it in a more considered and thoughtful way. In this blog post, I lay out the most useful mindsets to take on, the different ways you can add value, how to prepare and how to be heard once you’re in the meeting.

What stops you?

So what holds you back from contributing to meetings? Many introverts have the following thoughts:

“I’ll speak up, but only when I have something useful to offer.”

Despite the research I’ve quoted above, I can’t bring myself to advise you to speak up when you don’t have something useful to offer! But, it’s likely that your standard of what’s of value is higher than it needs to be. So my advice is if you’re sitting there wondering “will this be useful or not” it probably is, so open your mouth and start talking.

“I want to make sure that what I say makes sense, so I’ll just think about it a bit more before I speak up.”

By the time you’ve worked out what you want to say, the discussion will have moved on. It may not be perfect, but it’s more important that you be heard now.

“It’ll look like I’m dominating the meeting if I speak up too much.”

If you’re a person who generally doesn’t speak up much, the likelihood of this being the case is vanishingly small. Let this thought go. If you have difficulty with letting go of this thought ask a colleague whose opinion you respect to let you know if they think you’re speaking too much.

“There’s never a silence for me to speak in, and it’s rude to interrupt.”

You may well have been taught as a child that it’s rude to interrupt, but if you’re working in an organisation where other people are talking all the time, you’ll need to get over that conditioning or you’ll never get your voice heard.

Different ways you can add value to a meeting

We often assume that the only way to contribute to a meeting is by sharing your ideas or opinions. But there are many other ways you can add value:

1. Ask questions that spark further discussions and result in a better decision, for example, “what’s a reasonable timeline?” or “what consequences will this decision have on x?”
2. Summarize the discussion eg: the pros and cons that have been discussed.
3. Answer questions or provide additional background information that will help make a better decision.
4. Support someone else’s point of view and giving your reasons for doing that. For example, somebody spoke and you think they made a lot of sense, but the discussion seems to be going in a different direction maybe led by more vocal and insistent voices.
5. When the discussion goes off track, pointing it out and help steer the discussion back to the agenda item.
6. Identify action items coming out of the discussion, and ensure they are allocated to a particular person or group.

There’s one way of contributing that I don’t recommend, and that is offering to take the minutes. Particularly if you’re a woman there is a danger that you’ll be put in the pigeonhole of being a minute-taker. If your role is to take the minutes, don’t assume you have to say silent. Methods 2, 3, 5 and 6 are natural extensions of the minute-taking role. The other meeting attendees will notice the contribution you are making.

Principles for speaking up

1. Prepare beforehand

As introverts, we are better at speaking when we’re prepared. And we prepare better when it’s quiet and calm, rather than trying to form our thoughts during a meeting with a whole lot of noise in the background.

2. Have strategies to keep you honest

You may have all the best intentions to speak in the meeting. But understand that your brain will try and talk you out of it, and so have strategies in place to outwit it.

3. Let go of perfection

If you’re anything like me, you want all of your sentences to come out fully formed and for everything you say to be of high value. This will not happen in a meeting situation! Let go of this standard for your contribution.

Preparation

1. Get hold of the agenda for the meeting as soon as you can and study it. Look for at least two items where you can add value.

The reason to have at least two items earmarked for your contribution, is that if you lose your nerve at the last minute on the first agenda item- you’ll have another agenda item waiting for you. Use your annoyance at yourself for not contributing on the first agenda item fire you up to speak on the second agenda item.

2. If your agenda items are not till later in the meeting, find an agenda item early on in the meeting where you can at least say or ask something sensible – do some research if necessary – it doesn’t have to be your area of expertise.  If you have to wait an hour or two for your agenda item to come up, your brain may talk you out of it.

3. Where you’ve decided to contribute by expressing your opinion or idea, prepare a rough outline of what you will say. A useful framework is PREP:

Point – what’s the point you’re making. Express this in one succinct sentence.
Reason – optional. If it needs additional reasoning or explanation to be understood.
Evidence – back up your point with an example, story, statistic or endorsement (eg: X company having been running the process successfully for the past 2 years). If it’s a complicated concept, use a metaphor or analogy.
Point – reiterate your point to give a clean ending.

If you plan on asking questions, spend some time thinking about the type of questions that are likely to be useful.

If there’s an agenda items where you could be helpful by providing additional background information, gather background papers or data and familiarize yourself with them so that you can quickly find relevant information during the meeting.

4. If you think that it may be difficult to make sure you’re heard, email or talk to the chair or facilitator of the meeting beforehand and say that you’d like contribute to the agenda items. Then they’ll be on the lookout for you being ready to speak and will invite you.

Just before the meeting

5. Arrive at the meeting a few minutes early and make a point of talking to people – this will help warm you up to speaking. Talk to the chair or facilitator and either mention to them or remind them that you want to speak on your agenda items.

6. Sit in a chair where you can be easily seen by the meeting chair or facilitator – this will very much depend on the set up of the meeting room, but generally opposite them will be better than near them.

During the meeting

7. Stay engaged throughout even when the agenda items are not in your area of expertise. Keep yourself interested by looking for opportunities to add value and be ready to jump in if the opportunity arises.

8. When the agenda item that you’ve chosen comes up – use the 5 Second Rule from Mel Robbins, Mel came up with the 5 Second Rule to help herself do things Ythat she knew she ought to be doing, but that she didn’t feel like doing. Speaking up in meetings probably comes into this category for you. you know it’s good for you but when the time comes you’re probably not going to be feeling like doing it. Here’s Mel’s one line definition of the 5 second rule:

“If you have an impulse to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill the idea.”

Don’t stop and think – your thoughts will derail you. As soon as the agenda item comes up, take action – put up your hand or start talking. You may think it would be better to let other people talk first, but until you’ve become comfortable with speaking up I don’t recommend it. If you let other people talk first, they may say something similar to what you were planning to say and then your brain will persuade you not to speak up.

9. Sometimes the only way to be heard, is to interrupt. I know that interrupting can be really hard for an introvert. Here’s a way that I’ve found doable: when someone seems to be winding down and before the next person takes over “Can I add my opinion at this point?” Phrasing it as a question will make it easier for you to say, and will be better received than a straight interruption.

I do hope that this guide helps you speak up more in meetings, and help you grow your career and reputation. Remember the adage “Better to be thought a fool, than open your mouth and prove it” does not serve us well as introverts. The research shows the opposite. People who speak up often,  are seen as competent, intelligent leaders. If you struggle with speaking up you may be interested in my program Journey to Confidence. It will be open for enrollment again in June. If you’re interested, click through and put yourself on the wait list.

You go through all the feedback forms ignoring the “Great job” “Learnt a lot” comments and go straight for the form that declares: “That was a load of mumbo jumbo”.

And then you flagellate yourself. You obsess over it. You can not let go of it.

It’s the human brain at work. The #1 job of our brain is to keep us from getting killed. So our brain zeroes in on the one negative comment – because it’s a threat. And threats must be neutralized so that they don’t kill us.

The two types of feedback

There are two types of feedback you can get when you’re presenting:

1. Feedback about your performance as a presenter.
2. Feedback about how your content impacted your audience.

Most of the time you should ignore the first type. But pay close attention to the second.

Why you should ignore (most) feedback about your performance as a presenter

1. It’s subjective

Feedback about your personal performance as a presenter and public speaker is subjective. It says more about the person giving the feedback – their own opinions, triggers and idiosyncrasies – than it does about you.

As Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big says, even Amazon best sellers with thousands of five star reviews have their share of scathing one star reviews. As a presenter, you don’t want to risk listening to the one star reviews. Because that will stop you from ever getting the five star reviews.

Your goal is not to be liked by everyone.

So ignore any personal feedback until it becomes a trend. If several people mention the same issue, then it’s time to listen and consider whether to take action on it.

2. It can turn you into a clone

Listening to feedback from traditional public speaking coaches or people who follow the rules will turn you into a clone of a traditional public speaker. You might not offend anyone, but you won’t draw people to you either.

Kyle Cease is a comedian turned personal development seminar leader. He breaks most of the rules of public speaking – he paces back and forth across the stage, his content follows no recognizable format. If he had listened to traditional feedback, he wouldn’t have developed his own unique and evocative style that enables him to fill a 3,400 seat theater for two days.

If an artist were to listen to all the feedback and try and please everyone they would never create artwork of any significance. Imagine if Kehinda Wiley, the artist who painted Barack Obama, or Amy Sherald, who painted Michelle Obama, had listened to feedback. Would they have developed the style that attracted the Obamas to choose them to paint their portraits?

The feedback that matters

This second type of feedback – how your content impacted your audience – is the feedback that matters. That’s why you’re presenting – to impact your audience.

Think of every presentation as an experiment:

1. Form a hypothesis as to the best way to get your message across.
2. Execute.
3. Collect data on how your message impacted your audience.
4. Make refinements to your hypothesis according to the data.
5. Execute once more.

Repeat this process many times and you will eventually have a presentation that gets your message across every time. That’s what matters.

But I didn’t spend most of my time on planning my presentation. I spent most of my time preparing for the Q&A. I knew this would be the most important part of my performance, and where I was most likely to get hammered if I wasn’t prepared.

And because I’m an introvert, thinking on my feet is not a natural strength. As introverts we’re great at planning what we want to say ahead of time, winging it – not so much.

That’s because of the fundamental difference between extroverts and introverts. Extroverts do well in a highly stimulating environment, whereas introverts do better in a lower stimulation environment. When there is a high level of stimulation it interferes with our working memory and makes it harder to think on our feet.

So I needed to plan for the Q&A. Here’s the 3 step process I followed.

1. Brainstorm Questions

I brainstormed a list of possible questions that people in the audience might ask me. I asked friends what questions they might ask me, particularly friends who weren’t natural supporters of the Green Party. These were the questions that wouldn’t occur to me because I was already so familiar with Green Party policies.

This is a common problem for subject-matter experts. It even has a name “The Curse of Knowledge”. Because you know your topic so well, it’s difficult for you to imagine what it’s like to not have that knowledge. So when you’re planning your Q&A, and you’re presenting to an audience of lay people, don’t ask your fellow experts what questions they would have, ask someone who has a similar level of knowledge and similar attitudes to your audience.

2. Prepare Answers

Next, I worked out answers to each of the questions I came up with in step #1. There were 3 things I tried to do in each answer:

1. I acknowledged the concern behind the question. This was particularly important in the context of representing the Green Party in the early 2000s. Many people weren’t familiar with their policies and what little knowledge they had from the media often scared them. For example, at that time the Green Party’s policy of legalizing marijuana was seen as extreme and dangerous. So I would start my answer to any question about marijuana by saying “I understand that the idea of legalizing a drug that we have been told is dangerous can seem frightening.”
2. Where I could, I would find common ground: “What we all want to do is to reduce the harm that is caused by drugs – whether they’re legal or illegal”. OK this was a bit sneaky, I dropped in the line about “legal or illegal” to prepare the ground for what I was about to say next.
3. Then I would make my point in a clear and succinct way: “The Green Party believes that the best way to reduce harm from marijuana use is to provide treatment to those who want it. That’s much easier to do when the drug is legal, as in the case of tobacco, where a number of treatment options are available.”

(Note: The current marijuana debate is well beyond this in many countries around the world, but this way of approaching the issue worked in New Zealand in 2001. And if you have strong views about the legalization of marijuana, don’t get side-tracked by my content, this post is about my process :-)).

3. Practice Out Loud

I wrote out each questions on a 3×5 inch index card. I ended up with a thick stack of cards. Then whenever my husband and I went walking the dogs, I would hand the stack over to him, ask him to shuffle it, and interrogate me. I practiced answering each question over and over again. As I practiced articulating my answers I often came up with improvements to my original.

The Meet the Candidate meetings were nerve-wracking, sometimes fractious and I got more than my share of hecklers. But I nailed the Q&A.

“I was a walking panic attack. My stage fright was so complete and overwhelming that it ruled my every public appearance.”

Then she made a commitment to say “Yes” to every speaking opportunity. This culminated in her being asked to give the Commencement Address at Dartmouth University. Here’s what she says:

“And for the first time in my life, I stand on a stage and raise my voice to the public with full confidence and not an inch of panic. For the first time in my life, I speak to an audience as myself and feel joy.”

Susan Cain is the author of the best selling book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World which can’t Stop Talking.”

In the book she recalls the night before her first big speech:

“It’s 2.00am, I can’t sleep, and I want to die…What if my mouth dries up and I can’t get any words out? What if I bore the audience? What if I throw up on stage?”

Susan took part in a face to face class involving desensitization. Here’s what she says now:

“Since then I’ve done plenty of speaking, to groups of tens and crowds of hundreds. I’ve come to embrace the power of the podium.”

I share these stories for two reasons:

1. To show you that it is possible to get over extreme stage fright and become a powerful speaker.

2. That the path to overcoming fear is being in action.

I am creating a small-group program called Journey to Confidence to help you be in action too.

Journey to Confidence is for people who identify as introvert and are fed up with being held back by fear when they want to speak up or speak to a group.

Journey to Confidence will have you in action, taking small, but consistent steps. You’ll have a clear path to follow and be supported by me and your fellow members.

There will be a cost to join Journey to Confidence. This is so that you’ve made a financial commitment – that you have some “skin in the game”, and also because this is the way that I make my living.

At the same time, I want it to be affordable. So I’m going to experiment with a sliding scale of payment. This means that what you pay is related to what you can afford.

Here’s my current thinking on the suggested tiers based on your household income level:

• US$70,000+: US$500
• US$60,000 – 69,999: $400
• US$50,000- 59,999: $300
• US$40,000 – 49,999: $200
• US$20,000 – 39,999: $100
• US$0 – 19,999: $30 (this is the per person cost of the software that I’ll be using to run the program)
• US$0 – 19,999 + developing country: US$10

What you pay is up to you – I’m not going to ask you to prove it!

Hopefully, you’ll also be able to choose the amount you want to pay (this will depend on whether I can get my checkout software to do this). That means that those of you who want to pay more to support those who can pay less, can do so.

My vision with this program is to help people overcome the fear of public speaking so that they can apply for the jobs and promotions they want, go after leadership opportunities, promote their business with speaking, and share their ideas so they can make an impact in the world.

Update

I’ve now launched the first run of Journey to Confidence. You can find out more about the program and sign up to be on the waitlist for the next program at this page.