Public Speaking and Video Presenting Skills

Handle fear and present with confidence
• Fear is irrational
• Why fear
o Fear of rejection
o Never 100% get rid of fear
• First steps
o Do not stare at your fears without taking actions
o Do not procrastinate
o If you don’t do it right now, you will probably never do it
o After first step is done, fear is replaced by excitement
o Do not compare yourself to great presenters. Compare your current videos with your older videos to see the progression
• Practice
• Downward spiral
o Just because you feel the fear, doesn’t mean that other people can see it
o Fear is inside every single speaker. Don’t think the audience can see it. If you think audience can see it, the fear will increase.
• The camera is not your enemy. Change your perception of the camera
o Don’t think the camera is your enemy, think about it as your best friend
o For off-line videos, you can restart the video if you did a mistake
• Make a transition in your mind and make the camera your best friend
o Think you are talking to a device, not in front of a lot of people
• Focus on adding value
o Forget about yourself or the audience: think about your message

Craft a compelling message and practice smart
• Building content
o Very short presentations (< 1min): Write and memorize everything
o Longer presentations
 Build the basic structure on paper
• Write down all your ideas
 Start trying to present
• Add notes, add bullet points, remove bullet points, etc.
 Memorize the structure / pattern, examples
 Trying to not split your video in lot of small videos
 Do not memorize word by word
 Record the audio of your presentation and listen to it when you have time (in car, subway, etc.)
 Keep bullet points for the real presentation
 For intro and conclusion, you can memorize the first few sentences, to get confidence
o Practice
 Should practice in front of a camera. Not in front of a mirror
 Put a little pression during your practices to get used to it
 Look for negative points to correct and note good things you did
 You can show you training sessions to your friends to get feedback and highlight things to improve
 During the practices, imagine there are people behind the camera (get out of your comfort zone)
 Before to sleep or during any other moment of the day, close your eyes and visualize your success during a couple minutes
o Prompter or no prompter
 Try to not have this dependency
 When reading
• you pay less attention to your body language, etc.
• eyes move from left to right
o It’s all about perception
 Everything starts in your mind
 When recording the final video, act as it is just another practice and the video will not be published
o The fake deadline (strange strategy)
 Imagine the deadline is a couple days before
 Practice for that fake deadline
 It pushes us to work harder and not procrastinate
The first impression
• Make positive impact or they will close the video
o Opinions are made very quickly, during the few first seconds
o Capture the audience right in the beginning
o Put a lot of efforts to have an amazing introduction (30 first seconds)
o Mention great benefits or pains that the viewers are experiencing in the first few seconds
• The power of stories
o Powerful
o Should use in our presentation
o Stories are easier to remember for viewers
o Stories unlock emotions, trigger curiosity
o The more personal the stories are, the better it is. Expose yourself and your vulnerability. It connects people. It shows authenticity.
o Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end
• Messages need to be simple and easy to digest
o Use simple words
o Speak the language of your viewers
• Manage your state
o Feel like a winner and you will be perceived as a winner
o Change your physical state, do not stay seated all along
o Open body language helps to be confident and send positive signals to your mind and to your audience
o Think about things that you are grateful for
o Repeat in your head positive thoughts
o Relax, control our breathing, meditate
• Breathing
o Do not hold your breath, it highlights stress
o Oxygen gives energy

Powerful body language
• Most communication is about nonverbal communication
• What you do with your body will impact your mental state
o Stand up straight
o Before presentation, do some power postures
• Open / Closed position
o Open your arms and show them that you are trustworthy
o Arms closed = defensive mode or like if we are hiding something
• Eye contact
o Always look directly at the camera
o If you are not looking at the camera, you are not looking at them
o If you do not look at the camera, people have the feeling that you are not talking to them

• If things go wrong, do not panic, show confident
• It is better to have a small room full of people rather than a huge room half empty
• Do not rely on slides too much
• You are already a great public speaker, in your day-to-day life.
• Imagine you are talking to old friends and you want to deliver value to them