It takes a while before anyone could really say that standing in front of a huge crowd does not affect him at all.
Most of the time people go through all the effort of preparing, researching and practicing a piece that he or she intends to deliver. After weeks of careful planning, that special moment arrives and what happens? Same as always, as you walk up to that chosen spot, the world seems to stop for a while and you feel the heat of hundreds of eyes pinned on you.
This feeling is not a strange one since delivering any speech no matter how trivial your topic may be can prove to be a real strain if not handled correctly. Of course, you’d always want to get it through and feel as if you were only talking to a close associate or maybe even your spouse for that matter.
The biggest strain is getting to keep those eyes pinned on you in eager attention up until the end of your piece.
Sometimes, after a long week of practicing and preparing, when that moment arrives, you get to stand there and talk about a totally different thing from what you’ve prepared.
It is never a good idea to actually write a long speech and memorize it. Most of the time, when people do this, the tendency is that the delivery becomes a bore and you’d end up with a restless crowd eagerly awaiting for your closing phrase.
It is ideal that you have a topic to talk about and simply have an outline of the areas you intend to discuss. This way, one is given the freedom of vocally expressing thoughts be able to share ideas with his audience.
You don’t actually need fireworks lighting up before your entrance to get that attention. You get it as soon as you start walking up that platform.
Humor is a good start. Or maybe it would help if you’d go back time a bit and reminisce with the audience a bit. The thing is that you are sharing a story with your audience and you need them to stay tuned.
Now, how “does” it work?
One needs not pretend to be someone else. You should try to look deep into your personality and make use of your best trait to effectively achieve that result. No use in trying to hit punchlines with jokes if you’re really not the funny type of person. By doing so, you might just end up feeling awkward after delivering that joke and lose everything you’ve painstakingly worked on for the last couple of days.
A speaker should be able to project confidence and the right to be viewed as an authority of the piece that he intends to share with his crowd. Being oneself is always the best option to take. Anyway, given that long span of time to create, study and review your piece, you could tell yourself that you know it by heart. So, really, there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.