How to get over public speaking nerves: what we teach teams

Our hosts stand up in front of rooms for a living: a quiz night, a games night, a wedding, an awards dinner, a circle of strangers playing Treachery!. Experience doesn't make the nerves disappear. What it gives you is an understanding of what the nerves are doing, and a routine for the first minute. That routine can be taught, and public speaking is one of the things our workshops teach.

This is the practical version, for the person with a presentation next week, and for the L&D lead choosing a workshop for a team.

What the nerves are doing

The racing heart, the dry mouth, the shaky hands and the urge to go to the loo are your body getting ready for something it thinks matters. It is adrenaline, the same response that would help you run. It isn't a sign you are going to do badly. Most of the time it is a sign you care.

Two things help. First, the audience sees far less of it than you feel. The shake in your voice that sounds enormous to you is usually invisible from the third row. Second, the nerves peak before you start and drop once you are going. Almost everything that follows is about getting through the first minute, after which your body catches up.

Preparation that actually helps

• Know your first and last lines cold. Not the whole talk: a script you read word for word sounds read. But the opening sentence and the closing one, learned so well you could say them in your sleep. The middle can be notes.
• Three points, not ten. If the audience can remember three things you said, the talk worked. Structure gives you something to hold on to when your mind wanders.
• Rehearse out loud, standing up. Reading your notes in your head is not rehearsing. Say it aloud, on your feet, at the speed you would speak, and time it. Most talks are longer out loud than people expect.
• See the room if you can. Where you'll stand, where the screen is, whether there is a microphone. Check the tech before anyone arrives. Nothing raises the nerves like a laptop that won't connect to the screen with the room watching.
• Arrive early. Waiting outside, imagining it, is worse than being in the room chatting to the first people who arrive. Talk to a few of them. Then you're speaking to people you've met, not to a crowd.

The first 30 seconds

This is where the nerves are loudest, so plan it to the second.

1. Walk on and plant your feet. Stand still, weight even, hands where you can forget them.
2. Pause. Look at the room before you speak. Two seconds of silence feels like a minute to you and like confidence to them.
3. Find a friendly face. There is always one. Start by talking to them.
4. Say your first line, the one you learned cold. Slower than feels natural.
5. Don't apologise. No "sorry, I'm a bit nervous", no "I'll try to be quick". It tells the room to worry on your behalf.

Breathing and pace

Nerves make you breathe high and fast, and speak the same way. Slow both down.

• Breathe out for longer than you breathe in. A few slow breaths before you walk on, with the out-breath longer than the in-breath, calm the body down faster than telling yourself to relax.
• Speak slower than feels right. Nervous speakers rush. What feels painfully slow to you sounds normal to the room.
• Use the pauses. A pause after a key point lets it land and gives you a breath. Pauses are where good speakers look most in control.
• Have water within reach. A sip is a natural pause, and it fixes the dry mouth.

When your mind goes blank

It happens to everyone, including people who do it for a living. The fix is to have a plan before it happens.

• Pause. The silence feels huge to you. To the audience it looks like you're thinking, because you are.
• Look at your notes. That is what they're for. Keep them as a few signposts in big writing, not paragraphs you can't find your place in.
• Repeat your last point. "So, as I was saying..." Restating where you were usually brings back where you were going.
• Move on. If it doesn't come back, go to the next point. The audience doesn't have your script; they don't know what you skipped.

Practice that works

The only thing that reliably makes the nerves smaller is doing it more often, in rooms where it doesn't matter.

• Speak up early in meetings. Make the first comment, not the fifth. Small, regular, low-stakes practice does more than one big rehearsal.
• Practise to a person, not a mirror. A friend, a colleague, the dog. Speaking to someone is a different skill from speaking at a wall.
• Record yourself once. Watch it for one thing only: the pace, or the "ums", or where you look. Not everything at once.
• Practise the first minute most. If the first minute is solid, the rest follows.

Hosting works the same way. Our guide to the essentials of a great quiz host is the same advice in a louder room, and how to approach strangers at social gatherings is the one-to-one version.

Why play and improv help

Advice like the above helps, but nerves are mostly beaten on your feet, not in your head. That is where play comes in. Our workshops use immersive play as a way into teamwork, and games and improv exercises do the same job for nerves: everyone on their feet, talking, making things up and getting things wrong, in a room where getting it wrong is the point.

It works for three reasons.

• It lowers the stakes. In a game, nobody is judging your quarterly figures; you might be arguing that a stapler should be Prime Minister. The skills are the same: volume, eye contact, holding a pause, thinking on your feet. The fear isn't there to get in the way.
• It practises recovery. Improv is built on mistakes. You lose the thread, the room laughs, you carry on. That is exactly the skill you need when your mind goes blank in a real presentation, and it is the main thing hosting a live event teaches you.
• It builds the room. A team that has been ridiculous together is a team that is kinder to the person presenting. That is why play is also our way into teamwork.

For the L&D lead: choosing a workshop

• Small groups. Everyone should be on their feet more than once. Our workshops are for 8–25 people, so nobody can hide and nobody waits an hour for a turn.
• Practice over theory. Ask how much of the day people spend speaking. The answer should be most of it.
• Built around the team. A sales team pitching, a graduate cohort presenting for the first time and a leadership team doing town halls need different days. We start from a conversation about what your people need.
• Taught by people who do it. Ours are taught by people who host for a living: quiz nights, games nights, weddings and awards dinners, in front of real rooms.

A half day is £750 and a full day £1,400, up to 25 people. Get Social is not VAT registered, so the price you see is the whole price. Travel outside London is extra. The workshops are for universities and for drama and youth groups as well as teams. If the team has a big night coming up, see how to host an awards night.