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Nervous when giving presentations?
Posted by volleypc • 10/29/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: presentations
Do any of you still get nervous when doing presentations? I usually do not but for some reason I am today. I am giving a presenation on my Thru Hike on the Appalachian Trail today and have the jitters. Maybe I am just excited to be talking about the trail. I miss living in the woods.. lol
User Comments
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Only nervous if I am not prepared or don't know or understand the subject matter myself.-
So Morgan, what subject would you be MOST nervous from? -
At the moment, without proper preparation and study, there is a long list of subjects I would be equally nervous about presenting.
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been doing presentation for top management and I always get nervous but i guess you need to be nervous a little to be on top of your game...
Public speaking as they say is the number one fear of people in america... -
I thrive when all eyes are on me.-
@db
Attention whore
Unlike db above me, I don't like all eyes upon me and get very nervous in presentations. Therefore I avoid them at all costs. -
Probably ;p
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What kind of "presenting" are we talking about? o_0-
Perv...
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I get very nervous when giving presentations and I thought it was something I would grow out of, but I guess not. -
I don't get nervous. I just don't show up. -
Not really polybore has coping methods for these situations. Used to imagine the audience naked but that can be, erm, distracting.
These days polybore simply regards the audience with utter contempt which works quite well. If you set out to bore your audience rigid while ensuring that they still leave with your main points in their head it is actually difficult to get nervous. -
Nervous for being too relax/casual. -
I have given lectures and conference presentations for ever. Fortunately I seriously messed up only once, near the beginning of my career. It was a one-hour lecture and after 40 mins I realised that I didn't have a single thing more to say
How utterly humiliating I never wanted to give a lecture again
Since that horrid day, I have followed the following plan:
1. make notes on a card, to remind yourself of the important material.
2. test out your visual presentation before leaving home.
3. have enough material to last longer than the time allowed. If you are given one hour, have 70 minutes worth ready to go. That gives you a bit of flexibility, if 1-2 of the points you were going to make no longer sound relevant.
4. pretend all the people listening to the presentation are sitting in their undies. If THEY look like dopes, you won't ever be anxious about impressing them.
5. a bit of personal information in the presentation doesn't hurt. It suggests you are one of the group. -
It depends on who the audience is. -
I don't do as many presentations now as I did in the past, but I actually feel more comfortable speaking in front of a group than I do socializing at a smaller gathering.-
brian, of course. One-to-one socialising at cocktail parties, for example, is hard work. More impersonal group presentations are much easier.
Perhaps the advice about imagining people in the undies would work at cocktail parties also
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I never get nervous while giving a presentation, nor when giving speeches in front of large crowds, but do tend to puke afterwards. It never fails to happen either. -
After doing so many presentations, I don't get nervous anymore but I do have to control myself from getting too excited. -
I've done my share of presentations over the years, prior to my retirement. One thing that presenting a little easier, was of course knowing the subject matter. Whether its was a powerpoint or just lecture, I made every effort to merged my personally and experiences into the presentation. Lastly,I always remembered that I was presenting to other "people", and not robots. -
Not me, I love it. Especially when you have it all down and can deliver it perfectly. -
I usually go with the old tried and tested trick of pretending I'm naked and the audience are paying to watch me swing my bits for pennies. -
As long as I'm confident in what I'm speaking about, I'm fine. -
I used to get exceptionally nervous, to the point of breaking out in a major sweat and having my voice crack throughout any presentation. Then, several years ago, my biggest (revenue, not girth) client said to me, "we want you to do the product pitches on a 12-city marketing road show. You'll be good at it." I don't know why they thought I'd be good at it. They had never heard me speak before. If they heard my voice crack or had to man the buckets to mop up my sweat they might have thought differently. However, that client was responsible for about 50% of my revenue at the time, so I swallowed hard and said, "What? Huh? Yah, sure."
That was several years back, but if memory serves, I billed my client for far less than half the time I spent rehearsing because I was embarrassed about how much time I put into it. In the end, I think I did a pretty good job. My client seemed to like it. In fact, after the first couple of cities they fired the MC for the event and had me take over that role too. What's more, thanks to my over-rehearsing and much to my surprise I was comfortable doing the presentations and even enjoyed it and would welcome the opportunity to do it again.
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