how to overcome your fear of public speaking

Public speaking is the number one fear that people have, ranking above spiders, heights, and even death. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that around 40% of people experience glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking. But recent studies suggest this number is even higher, with around 75% of people experiencing some anxiety about speaking in public. At its core, this fear isn't about the speaking itself, it's about the dynamic. We're standing in front of dozens, if not hundreds of people with minimal live feedback. Are they enjoying the speech? Do they notice my mistakes? Do they think I sound weird? Do they notice my shoes aren't tied? Humans are social creatures whose survival has depended on being accepted by the group. So on some deprimal level, public speaking feels like a test. Do well, and you survive. Mess up, and it's time to find a new tribe. But public speaking isn't like this at all. By the end of this video, my goal is to not only help you overcome your fear of public speaking, but to actually improve at it as well. So over the last two years, I've started to do a lot more public speaking. Earlier this year, I gave a keynote at a creator economy conference in Dubai. I had to memorize and deliver a 15 minute speech about my YouTube journey to creators, executives, and industry experts. And a few months prior to that, I spoke at the White House. I hosted a fireside chat with the former director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar. This was at the White House's first ever creator economy conference, where I got to see President Joe Biden himself. And a few months prior to that, I gave a keynote in front of 300 people at an internal YouTube event, which was also live streamed to over 1000 Google employees. And I promise I say this not to flex, but to show you what's possible. Because in high school, I remember butchering my speech when I was running for student council. I stood up in front of my class, had my speech right in front of me, and stumbled over the word pivotal five times in a row. But thanks to making YouTube videos, putting myself out there in college and giving speech after speech these past few years, I can confidently say that public speaking is a fear that you can overcome and a skill that you can improve. So why are most of us so deathly afraid of public speaking? Actually, deathly afraid isn't the right phrase, because most of us fear speaking more than death. So maybe speakingly afraid of speaking? Anyways, we have three psychological forces at play. Let's dive into how each of these work. And more importantly, to overcome them. So first, we have the spotlight effect. This is the psychological phenomenon where we overestimate how much others pay attention to us. As we're speaking, we feel like people notice every tremble in our voice, every word we stumble over, or every facet of our appearance. But the truth is, people are far too occupied with themselves to notice any of these details. There's a famous experiment from Cornell University known as the Barry Manilow t-shirt study. Researchers made students walk into a room wearing an obnoxious t-shirt with the face of Barry Manilow, who's a famous American singer. Afterwards, the students guessed that about half the room had noticed their shirt. But in reality, only a quarter did. Study after study shows that people are paying less attention to us than we think they are. But go hard, that doesn't mean people are not paying attention. And that's right, I don't want to act like if you mess up, nobody at all is going to notice. But, and there is always a but, mistakes can actually work in your favor. A phenomenon known as the pratfall effect states that a small mistake can actually make you seem more likable. Stumbling over a word doesn't mean you're incompetent, it means you're human, and this can deepen your connection with your audience. It's also important to remember that people will forget your mistakes the second they walk out of that room. Here's a fun exercise, try to think about the last time you saw one of your classmates give a speech. Do you remember any mistakes they made or how nervous they seemed? I bet you're struggling to remember what they even talked about. Now the second psychological phenomenon we have at play is imposter syndrome. This is when you feel like you're not qualified to be speaking, even when you are capable. I have definitely felt this at times. For example, whenever I'm speaking at these YouTube events, I sometimes wonder why Mr. Beast is not up there instead. Imposter syndrome especially shows up in the classroom when you're speaking in front of your teacher or professor. It feels a little odd when the roles are reversed and you're not trying to This feeling that your professor and classmates know more than you can be very nerve-wracking before a presentation. However, you have to remind yourself that your audience sees you as more of an expert than you see yourself. The fact that you're just standing up there means that you already have the knowledge, perspective, or a story that's worth sharing. Now an easy way to get over imposter syndrome is by doing something I like to call assume the persona. As you get ready to stand up in front of your class or go on stage, imagine you're the world's greatest speaker about your particular topic. Keep your head up, relax your body, and walk out there with confidence. What you'll notice is that your physiological state feeds into your psychological state. If you stand confident, you will feel confident. And I know this all feels a little performative because it is a little performative. Yes, you should be authentically yourself on stage, but you should be a slightly more animated, elevated version of yourself. By allowing your brain to switch into this mindset and to essentially switch personas, you make it easier to drop the nerves. Just go up there and put on your best performance. And now the third psychological phenomenon that feeds into our fear is fight or flight. Now you have definitely heard about this in your psychology courses. Fight or flight is your body's automatic survival response that floods you with adrenaline to either run from danger or fight it head on. You'll notice that this response will activate in those few minutes before you have to give a talk. Your heart will beat faster, your palms might start to get a little sweaty, maybe your knees go weak, and then your arms go heavy. Those aren't just Eminem's lyrics. That is your body preparing yourself for danger. Except the danger is just the kids in your third period history class. And what you'll notice is that the second you get up there and finally open your mouth, the nerves will disappear. This is precisely what happened to me my senior year of high school, when I had to deliver the biggest speech I had given up to that point, my graduation speech. I remember climbing those steps to face over 600 family members, hundreds of kids in my graduating class, and dozens of teachers and administrators. But the second I got behind that podium and lowered my mic, because my friend who was salutatorian was like 6'3", all the nerves vanished. In fact, I have noticed this time after time after time. The nerves will only last up until the moment you open your mouth. Sure you might still be a little nervous as you speak, but your body quickly realizes that you're not in eminent danger. The worst that happens at this point is someone yawns? Maybe? I mean, it's third period. People want to go home. Okay, so now that we understand the root of our speaking anxiety and how to overcome it, let's focus on how to get better at public speaking. I have a bunch of tips that I'm going to split into two parts, preparation and delivery. But before I dive into my tips, I want to show you a tool that makes practicing way easier, GenSpark. GenSpark is an all-in-one AI tool with many different types of agents, but my favorite one is AI Slides. Here's how it works. I just ask it to generate a presentation on any topic, say the French Revolution, and within minutes, a full deck pops up. Instead of starting with a blank screen, we have something structured to work from. And editing is super easy. If we want more detail, we can ask it to add extra context. Or if we think a slide is too text-heavy, we can just ask it to make it more visual. That's what makes GenSpark different. It's not just a generator, it's a collaborator. It builds the draft with me and helps me polish it until it looks stage ready. And if I want to push things even further, I can jump into AI Designer to spin up custom graphics, posters, or visuals that can slot right into my slides. This way, the deck has more of a personal touch. I think GenSpark is especially useful for what I call practice decks. These are sample decks you can spin up just to practice your delivery. You run through them out loud, catch filler words, tweak your pacing, and get comfortable before the real deal. And the best part is you can take this same practice desk and enhance it until you have the final version ready with no extra effort. That's the benefit of GenSpark. It can help with both practice and the final product. So this way, you spend less time formatting slides and more time becoming a confident speaker. I'll drop the link in my description. So you prepare for a speech or presentation like you prepare for anything else in your life, with an insane amount of practice. When I gave that speech in front of YouTube, do you know how many days I practiced for? Three. And do you know how many times I recited that speech? Dozens. My neighbors can probably recite it by heart. Practicing for a presentation is tricky because you don't want to memorize the whole thing word for word, nor do you want to read off the slides the entire time. If you do memorize everything, you risk sounding stiff and robotic and combusting the second you forget a word. And if you read off the slides the entire time, I don't think I even need to tell you why that's a terrible approach. You need to find a middle ground. Memorize the flow and key messages, but leave room to improvise. And here is how you do that. First, print out your speech. And this is critical because you want to be able to hold onto something and move around as you practice. Do not just sit there and stare at your screen to practice. Second, take a pencil and divide your speech into chunks. Each chunk should represent a different part, theme, or idea of your speech. Next, grab a highlighter and highlight one to three key sentences in each chunk. These will serve as your anchors. So while you're talking on stage, just keep these in mind and your brain will be able to fill in the rest. So now when it comes to the actual reciting part, you want to go chunk by chunk. Read a chunk out loud, then put the paper down, and then try to deliver that chunk to the best of your ability. If you forget an idea or fact, keep going. Do not look back at your paper. Improvise or skip over it entirely. It is important to be agile while you practice because that is how you're going to be agile on stage. Conversely, if you let yourself freeze up during practice because nobody's watching, that is how you'll freeze up on stage when everybody is watching. And again, I'm not trying to scare you by saying this. I just want you to take your practice seriously, and you're going to take it even more seriously by recording yourself. Set up your phone camera and capture yourself speaking, then watch it back and take notes on your performance. More specifically, determine your filler words and phrases. We all already know that it's important to avoid filler words like um or uh, but it's also important to avoid filler phrases like you know, at the end of the day, or what I mean is. These are often comfort phrases we sneak in without even realizing it. And this happened to me almost two years ago when I saw a recording of me on a panel. I used the word you know far more than I knew. And luckily, once I caught it, I was able to make a conscious effort to cut that phrase from my vocabulary. But you should be cutting more than just your filler words, which leads me to my third tip Sometimes you won't have slides, so just ignore this. But if you do, keep listening. Keep your slides as simple as possible. Three to four bullets at max. It's honestly even better if your slides don't have bullets at all, but rather images, graphs, or headlines. This is what I did for one of my final presentations in college, and my professor loved it. My first three slides were three separate images just to hook the audience. No jargon, no text, just clean and strong visuals. Remember, your slides should be in the background supporting what you're saying. Keep them minimal so that you remain the center of attention. Okay, so now that you've had enough practice, it's time to move on to my advice for delivery. In other words, actually giving the speech or presentation. First and foremost, speak slower than you normally do. I promise you that because of that slight adrenaline spike, you're speaking faster than you think you are. Force yourself to speak a tiny bit slower, even if doing so feels uncomfortable. And this is how you'll end up speaking at a pace that's engaging for the audience. Second, get comfortable with pauses. Okay, maybe don't pause for that long, but pausing for just a second or two is a great way to let your ideas simmer. After you've delivered a phenomenal presentation, one that you've spent days and weeks finely crafting, delivering key insights that will forever change the world view on a topic, let it soak in. Pauses aren't just great for emphasizing a point, but they also give you room to recover if you lose your train of thought. Instead of filling the silence with a dreadful um or uh, just stop for a moment. I know it'll feel like a millennium to you, but trust me, it doesn't seem that odd to the audience. While you're up here scrambling for the next word or thing to say, they'll just think you're being an effective presenter. And they'll also think you're being an effective presenter if you make eye contact with them. You see how I'm staring at you right now? Yeah, don't do that, but instead use Briefly make eye contact with someone on the left side of the room, then the back middle of the room, and then the right side of the room. Mix it up and keep it natural, but this simple pattern will help the entire audience feel included. And it doesn't matter how large the crowd is. Even if you can't lock eyes with a specific person, look in each general direction to capture the energy of the room. Which leads me to my final tip. Lean on personal anecdotes. Throughout this video, I have sprinkled in stories from my own public speaking experiences. Do the same in your next presentation or speech, unless it's for something straightforward like a book report. But anecdotes stick way better than facts and allow you to build a deeper connection with your audience. Your role as a speaker isn't just to regurgitate a bunch of facts and information. That's what Wikipedia is for. Your goal is to engage a group of people, expand their worldview, and most importantly, make them feel something. Stories are how we've always shared knowledge, not just to inform, but to move people. And with that, I think you are already prepared to crush your next presentation. If you want more videos about public speaking or life skills, let me know in the comments. Be sure to like and subscribe if you haven't already. Check out Next Admin for help with your college essay, and I'll see you again next week.