Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking: Essential Skills for Career Growth and Leadership

Do you get nervous at the thought of speaking in public? You’re not alone — and mastering this skill can be a game-changer for your career and leadership growth.

In this episode, I explore practical strategies to overcome fear, develop your authentic speaking style, and connect with audiences through storytelling, emotion, and clear purpose. From avoiding the perfection trap to bringing enthusiasm and energy to your talks, you’ll learn how to make every presentation memorable.

Plus, discover how my book Zero to Keynote provides a complete roadmap for turning ideas into compelling talks, getting submissions accepted, and delivering keynotes that leave a lasting impact.

Whether you’re pitching ideas, leading a team, or speaking at conferences, this episode will help you speak with confidence and influence.

I mention Sir Ken Robinson's talk on schools killing creativity - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
I mention my own book Zero to Keynote - you can buy the print or digital copies here - https://zerotokeynote.com/
Supporting article on Cultivated - https://www.cultivatedmanagement.com/the-importance-of-learning-public-speaking-skills/

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Creators and Guests

Host

Rob Lambert

I help leaders turn communication into their greatest leadership tool—to build creative, agile, and human-centred workplaces. Through books, courses, consulting and coaching, I guide leaders and managers in using communication to unlock clarity, creativity, and better business results.

What is Here's an idea worth playing with?

Consider this your business, work and personal development ideas lab — bite-sized riffs on communication, creativity, learning, and how to go from idea to value smoothly and quickly.

I help leaders and professionals unlock their personal communication superpower, spark creativity, and release agility to get things done faster, smoother, and with more impact. Through books, workshops, consulting, and coaching, I guide leaders and managers in creating workplaces where ideas thrive, teams collaborate effectively, and results follow.

Bite-sized ideas worth playing with.

Website -- http://www.cultivatedmanagement.com

Rob: 00:00

Hi, everybody, and welcome to another episode of here's an idea worth playing with with me, Rob Lambert. It's a beautiful, beautiful autumn day today. It's very sunny, it's very bright, but it's very cold, and it's actually lovely. I'm I'm enjoying this kind of weather. It's my favorite season.

Rob: 00:15

But today, I'm gonna be talking about something that a lot of people dread. Yes, public speaking. Now, you've probably heard people say, I'd rather die than stand up on stage. Pretty dramatic, pretty extreme, but I understand it. You're putting yourself on display on stage or in front of clients to talk about something.

Rob: 00:35

There's a risk of being rejected. There's a risk of making a mistake. And so it's completely natural. I mean, you're standing in front of an audience, sharing your ideas, exposing yourself to critique, it's intimidating. But here's the thing, if you wanna grow in your career, whether that's climbing the leadership ladder, leading a team, or just getting better at influencing people, like sales for example, then public speaking becomes an essential skill.

Rob: 01:02

Your ability to sell ideas, align people, and move them into action often matters more than many of the technical skills that we often focus on. And of course, it's not just about the office or leadership roles. Think about conferences, meetups, community events, workshops that you're running. The need to speak confidently in public is pretty much everywhere. Sharing your story, promoting an idea, persuading people depends on it.

Rob: 01:27

So let's jump into this. So the first element of this to sort of, I guess, talk about is that competency in your job does not always equal competency on stage. In fact, they're often two very different things. It's a big misconception that being good at your job makes you good at public speaking. It doesn't.

Rob: 01:46

I've spent years helping people on my teams develop this skill. I've even got a book called Zero to Keynote and a communications workshop, ultimately geared around helping people develop excellent communication skills. And let me tell you, it is career changing when people learn how to develop those abilities to sell and influence and stand up on stage and share their ideas, it really, really does help elevate their career in a different way to developing technical skills. But public speaking is a skill that fundamentally must be practiced. Facts alone won't persuade an audience.

Rob: 02:21

Sure, data, numbers, historical facts, trends, they matter. But facts are static. They need context. They need stories. And they need that human touch.

Rob: 02:32

And that's where good presentation skills come in. Because when you present, you're trying to move people. You're trying to get them to act on something, to support an idea, to see things your way, to listen to your story, to take on board your perception of the world. And facts won't do that. They need stories, you need emotion, and you need connections.

Rob: 02:53

The second step to this is don't imitate other people. So when I'm coaching people, when I do a zero to keynote workshop, for example, everybody can look at a really, really good presenter and say, I'd love to be able to present like that. Now there is absolute value in, you know, looking at other people presenting and then trying to copy some of the stuff that works. You know, you could mimic their gestures, their slides, their words, but I think this is actually an ultimately big mistake. You can learn from that of what works, but you need to bring your own style.

Rob: 03:23

You've got to bring your own experience, your own personality. It needs to shine through. So study other presentations, and Sir Ken Robinson's School's Killing Creativity, I'll include a link in the show note, is a wonderful presentation to watch. No slides, no big movements, compelling story, emotional. It is a wonderful talk.

Rob: 03:44

And I've learned a lot from watching people like Sir Ken Robinson. But authenticity matters. Humans respond to humans, not a carbon copy of someone else. So you're gonna need to bring your own style, your own experience, and your own personality. So the next idea is don't aim for perfection.

Rob: 04:03

Perfection is a trap. Now many people avoid public speaking because they think it needs to be flawless. And trust me, I've been doing this for twenty odd years. I am still making mistakes on stage. There's always something to improve.

Rob: 04:19

I still leave the stage thinking I could have done something better. The key though is practice. It's not to be perfect, but that practice helps to make your talk permanent. One of the key aspects of Zero to Keynote is the rehearsal, the practice. Practicing in small groups or even just filming yourself and practicing.

Rob: 04:39

Even every single presentation you deliver is a form of practice. You're learning to get better, you're learning to develop your style, you're learning to know your material, your flow, and then it will not be perfect. And another aspect of this sort of practice is that you are helping to make your talk permanent so that when you step on the stage, if you've practiced the delivery, if you've rehearsed the talk, not only will that deal with nerves, it'll help you feel a little bit more confident, but you will know your material inside and out. That practice is not only how we get better at presenting, but it's also how we make our presentations permanent, so we don't forget them. So if the lights go off or the projector, projector, god I'm showing my age, or the presentation stops, or you've got unruly members of the audience, which can happen, you know your talk, you know where to get back to it, because you've practiced it.

Rob: 05:33

And every time you encounter something that you think could be better with your presentation, go away, refine it, and practice. So the next idea is to bring enthusiasm and emotion. So a common mistake is letting your energy drain away. Certainly at conferences, there's a heavy social life sometimes, and that can take its toll on you the night before your talk. Corporate settings often make people feel sort of neutral and bored and uninspiring on stage.

Rob: 06:00

We've all been in those corporate presentations. You don't have to bounce around or act overly dramatic. That's energy, it's enthusiasm, it's one form of it. But actually enthusiasm and emotion, it comes through when you care about the topic, when you believe in what you're saying, when you know your subject, and your audience will feel it. You have to have emotion in there.

Rob: 06:23

If you think about the English word emotion and you remove the e from the front, what do you get? You get the word motion. Because when we feel something, we move. So if you're trying to get people to move into action, you have to help them feel something. And that comes through your energy, your enthusiasm, and the emotion that you put into your presentation.

Rob: 06:44

So the next idea is to focus on your purpose. If you've ever sat the Communication Superpower Workshop, you'll know that all communication has a purpose, it has an audience, and it happens in a context. Every talk has a clear purpose. What are you trying to achieve? And the more solid that you can become about your purpose of the talk, then obviously the talk is gonna be a lot smoother, a lot more focused.

Rob: 07:09

It's gonna be a lot more impactful because you're narrowing down on your purpose. If you have too many purposes, you're gonna get confused. You're gonna confuse your audience and the talk really isn't gonna make sense. So get clear about what your purpose of the talk is. What's the thread?

Rob: 07:25

What's the big idea? What's the thing you're trying to, I guess, encourage people to leave that talk with? Is it to support your idea, buy your products, listen to your perspective on the world? Whatever that purpose is, get clear about it when you're designing the talk. Because everything that you put into that talk, the stories, the facts, the information, the energy, the emotion, it should serve that core purpose.

Rob: 07:48

Your goal is to leave the audience with a clear takeaway. So the final little idea for this, here's an idea worth playing with podcasts, and of course, these are short, sharp riffs from the edges of communication, curiosity, creativity, and learning. If you want a little bit more detail, then obviously Zero to Keynote is the place to go. It's my book that encapsulates the entire process from coming up with ideas, getting a talk accepted at a conference, all the way through rehearsal structure practice, and then all the way through to delivery as well. But this last idea is that appearance does matter briefly.

Rob: 08:23

Now let me just explain this in a little bit more depth. So first impressions count. We make our first impressions generally based on two things. One, is this person likable, essentially. And number two, is this person competent?

Rob: 08:39

So your first impressions when you hit the stage, when you stand up in front of the sales audience, when you're trying to pitch a new idea at work, is to try and make sure that you come across as both likable and competent. Now your posture, your clothes, your presence, your appearance, these are all signals about your competence and your approachability or your likability. You've seen the presenter that is mismatched from the audience. They're either dressed really smart for a dressed down audience or they're dressed really scruffy for a really sort of high end audience, and they immediately look, somewhat out of place. Or you've seen the presenter that sorta scuttles on stage really nervous, really not confident in themselves, no eye contact, no smiles, no strong posture.

Rob: 09:24

It sends a message. But of course, you're probably gonna be a little bit nervous. You know, we can't escape that. So think about putting your shoulders back, nice big smile, make sure you practice and rehearse that opening to your presentation, really powerful intro. Get on that stage and then hopefully if you can control those nerves and you can get through that first two or three minutes of your talk, you've made a great first impression.

Rob: 09:47

However, it's not impossible to recover a talk if you manage to find your groove, get past the nerves, or you feel like you've made a really poor first impression. The rest of the content, if you can keep your audience's attention, can help to change that. So don't worry too much about it, but if you can, try and make a really, really positive first impression. So let's just quickly wrap these up. So first one is being competent in your job does not make you competent on stage.

Rob: 10:12

A lot of people make that mistake. They think that just by being an expert in something, they'll be able to communicate that and move people into action. That doesn't happen all the time. Number two, facts need stories. Stories go where facts cannot.

Rob: 10:23

So you need stories, context, emotion. You need to put your personality into the presentation. Number three, don't copy others. Be yourself. You can learn from others, but don't be a carbon copy.

Rob: 10:34

Find your own personality, your own style. Next one is practice makes permanent, not perfect. So practice your talks so you don't forget them, but also every time you present. That's a form of practice. What can you learn?

Rob: 10:47

What can you make better next time? Enthusiasm and emotion matter, of course. We need people to connect. We want to move them into action. So the more that we have enthusiasm and the more that we have emotion in our talk, the better the chance it is of moving people.

Rob: 11:01

Always focus on your purpose. Everything about communication has a purpose. What is the goal? What are you trying to achieve? And then focus on that.

Rob: 11:10

And then while first impressions do help and matter, and it's important to try and make that first impression, your talk, the overall thing, is actually what people will remember. So when you're doing a talk, you're trying to bring your knowledge, your experience, your personality, your enthusiasm, your emotions all together. You're 're trying to share a story. You're trying to compel people into action. You're trying to connect with the audience.

Rob: 11:32

So don't be afraid to let that enthusiasm shine. If you're interested in more, then the Zero to Keynote book is your guide. You can find that either on cultivatormanagement.com or I've got a dedicated landing page for it called Zero to Keynote, and that's zero, z e r o two t o, Keynote, k e y n o t e, Zero to Keynote dot com. And with that, I'm gonna sign off, take some cough medicine. I'm still feeling a bit rough for those who have listened to the last three or four podcasts.

Rob: 12:01

And thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you in the next one.