Tongue Tied - No Longer!
Learn you speech very well - very well indeed.
There are two good approaches to learning your speech. One is for the nervous and one for the more accomplished speaker.
For the former, learn your speech by heart. Breack it down into natural chunks of 30 seconds - 2 minutes in duration. Practice each chunk at least 20 times. After a few times you will remember the words, then practice the intonation, the gestures, the voice, everything. Continue until it comes as smooth as the typical way you answer a telephone. This is a speech that you have made your own. You use exactly the same words, tone and so on. It is easy.
Build the chunks up into the speech. Practice the speech about 20 times so that the whole thing becomes a totally rehearsed performance. One that is so burned into your memory that even if you start with a heartbeat that can be heard in Hanoi, a mind as blank as an Antartic blizzard, you will give a credible performance until your sanity starts to return.
This strategy comes to you courtesy of my sky diving training. They put you through about 12 hours of constant practice of jumping out of the plane. Every time you shout "one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, look up, check canapy, and so on". When you jump out of a plane you suffer a condition called sensory overload. Your body is taking in so many messages all screaming one thing - "you are in big trouble". Actually my brain used slightly earthier language. Your brain shuts down for a short while until some calm returns. By learning the procedure so that it does not even need the conscious brain to be operating is essential.
The other way of giving a great speech is to create it with bullet points only and then choose the words only as you speak. This is for the experiences speaker talking on a subject they are fully familiar with.
Do it in chunks
Only 10% of your fear is seen
Honestly, Hanoi, and your audience, will not hear you heart beating. They do not know that a squadron of butterflies has been carrying out manoevres within your stomach. For all the visible aspects of fear there are little techniques.
Shaking hands - put notes on a lectern or table, do not hold them. When taking a drink of water use quick direct motions to your mouth and back. Do not allow the glass to hover around your mouth.
Shaking leg/legs - shift your weight but not in a continuous manner. Hold the lectern. If both legs are giving trouble, lean backwards.
Life savers - consider everything that could go wrong and have a quip. If a mic or computer does not work, look at an imaginary label and read "last serviced by (pause) Edison".
Get the best speaking tools
Focus on your audience
Your personality is your strategy for dealing with the outside world. It has only one task - to protect your inner psyche. We are all immensly fragile. We all build barriers. That is why loved ones can hurt the most. To them, we lower our defenses - expose our most intimate thoughts, fears and aspirations. Any barb will strike home - right at our inner self. Accept it - you are no different - you are so easily bruised inside. We all are.
The greatest known emotion to protect us is compassion. Compassion for others. It is a defining human quality. Once you are worried about protecting another from whatever is punishing them, your ability to be bruised is almost none existent. You can use this to overcome your fear of speaking to others.
Assuming that you are delivering a message, consider what are the benefits to a person who follows your point of wisdom. Then reverse this and consider the peole in your audience that are being cheated by ignorance of your message. Your audience will be a mix of people who are being cheated and those who are not.
You are now only speaking to those who are need help. If you fix on them you will be fear proof.
I had to evaluate a school speech competition. Previously they had been evaluated a little roughly and had been upset. My focus was on how to evaluate with a gentle touch but not avoiding my responsibilities as a judge. I was not speaking to the teachers, the parents, nor to the friends who had attended. I was only talking to the speakers. They were 14 - 15 years old, they had attempted something daunting and I could so easily have damaged their feelings big time! I had been apprehensive but when giving my judgement along with evaluations I was consumed with only one emotion - concern to avoid hurting. I had no fear whatsoever. Compassion and concern for those you speak to
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