Turn Your Insecurities Into Superpowers: Overcoming Self-Doubt in Public Speaking

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We all have insecurities.

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There's no doubt about it.

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Or maybe you are that exceptional

person who is filled to the

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brim with extreme confidence and

has no personal insecurities.

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If that is you, this episode

is not gonna be for you.

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But if you can relate more to having

a few insecurities or maybe even more

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than a few, And to know that that

might affect you sometimes as a speaker

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and presenter and many of the things

that you want to do professionally,

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then this episode is exactly for you.

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In this short episode we're gonna talk

a little bit about some of the common

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insecurities that we have as professional

speakers and coaches and communicators.

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And we're gonna talk about The main

reasons why they work against us

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and what we can do to help make our

insecurities into our superpower.

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Welcome to Present Influence the show

that helps speakers, coaches, and

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communication professionals develop these

skills to impact, influence, and inspire.

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My name's John Ball, keynote

coach, professional speaker,

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and your guide on the journey to

mastery level presentation skills.

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My mission is to provide professional

communicators like you with

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everything you need to maximize your

impact and present with influence.

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Follow the show on your favorite

podcast app for weekly episodes and

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interviews with influence experts.

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And join me on LinkedIn for the

Present Influence Weekly newsletter.

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So we all have insecurities

and sometimes they get in the

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way of our ability to deliver.

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We end up talking ourselves out or going

for opportunities and putting ourselves

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out there because our insecurities may

be shining so brightly in our minds.

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Now some of the most common

insecurities that people have

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are about the way that they look.

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And certainly, I'm not

immune to that myself.

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I don't think of myself as one of the

beautiful people or anything like that.

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I just have a belief at least that my

appearance is tolerable enough or despite

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a bad hair day today that my appearance

is tolerable enough that it's not going to

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interfere with my talks and presentations

to the point where people are just gonna

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be staring at me because of how I look.

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But there are certainly things I

don't like about my appearance that I

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worry that people are gonna focus on.

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It's normal and natural to have those

kinds of feelings, and that is the kind

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of thing that can make you even more

scared to get up on a platform in front

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of people and put yourself out there.

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You may not like the way you sound,

especially if you've recorded yourself

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maybe for podcasts or maybe for video

content or anything like that, and

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heard your voice back, if you are

not fully familiar with how your

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voice sounds to other people, when

it's not coming from inside you,

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and it definitely sounds different.

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You may not like what you hear because

it is not how you hear yourself.

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There is a bit of a dissonance

inside of, as I said.

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That, is that how I sound to other people?

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And we may not like it, but the reality

is that's how we've always sounded to

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other people in some way, shape or form.

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Maybe not exactly, but more or less.

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Our voices sound a little more resonant

inside our own heads when we are speaking.

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As I speak to you now, I can feel

my voice resonating in my throat,

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somewhat in my chest and in my

head, and I know probably not gonna

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sound quite as deep and resonant.

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To you as it is to me,

listening to myself right now.

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So just know that it can take a long time

to get over the sound of your own voice.

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And some people may never get over some of

their insecurities about how they look or

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how they may come across to other people.

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Sometimes our insecurities are about

things that aren't necessarily visible,

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but we worry that people might find out

things about it we might have some things

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in our history that we are not super proud

of, and those are things, that can hold us

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back from putting ourselves out there and

being excellent speakers and presenters

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taking our message out into the world.

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So what do we do?

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How do we get out of our own way in

order to be able to get out there and

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deliver a message and fulfill whatever

we feel is our mission and purpose as

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a professional speaker or communicator.

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But it really does come from

focusing on the message and the

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people receiving the audience.

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At least I think this is the case

that I'm not doing this all for me.

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I get benefits from the work that I do.

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I feel fulfillment.

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I often get well paid and I enjoy

it as well to a greater degree.

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And so I have to start to forget about

the things that I'm worried about

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and just know that maybe some of the

audience will focus on some of those

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negative things, but for the most part,

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people are focused on the

message and who you are.

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And who you are is not just how you

look, as shallow as the world can

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appear to be sometimes, and often,

very superficially focused on looks

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undoubtedly being physically attractive

is a huge advantage to getting you

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further along your professional path.

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We tend to like people who look

good and we also attribute certain

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qualities based on how people look.

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So if we look at someone and think that

they're not particularly attractive,

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we're also likely to associate

potentially negative thoughts to them.

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If someone is overweight, we maybe

have prejudgments about how they

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eat and maybe are not looking

after themselves and their health.

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Nevermind that their weight might

have nothing to do with their

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diet or lack of exercise and

might actually have other causes.

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But that doesn't help you in terms of

are people gonna make those judgements?

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They probably will, but they're

not gonna spend that much time with

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them, for the most part, unless they

have insecurities, unless they have

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prejudices that are getting triggered

by you in some way, shape, or form.

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And that makes it about

them and not about you.

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And this really is the main thing with

our insecurities is that most people are

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not really thinking that much about you.

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And think about it this way in life, this

is how it usually works for most people

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when we make connections with others.

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We may have some initial first

impressions, but those impressions do

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change as we get to know people more.

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And if we like those people, we

naturally start to think of them as

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being more attractive because they are

likable, because they're good people,

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because they have a message or maybe

they have good leadership qualities

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or other things that you see in them.

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These are the things that

we start to look up to.

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It's a person's qualities that actually

make them in the long run, more or

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less attractive to other people.

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I'm not talking so much about

sexual attraction here, though.

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I'm not saying that's

completely irrelevant.

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I am really talking more

about social attractiveness or

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professional attractiveness or

maybe appeal would be a better word.

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In some ways there's something feels more

appealing as someone you'd like to get

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to know or spend time with, or hang out

with or you feel respect for them, you

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admire them in some way, shape, or form.

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We do start to see people a little

differently when we know more about them,

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and I think this is one of the ways that

we can lean into our insecurities at

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least a little bit and be okay with them.

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Maybe even acknowledge them

sometimes with our audience.

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It can be okay to make a joke

at your own expense, so long as

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it's not too self-deprecating.

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For example, there's a

UK comedian Jo brand.

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She used to have this joke about

she'd be standing behind a mic stand.

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She's a larger lady, and she would

say, oh, let me just move from behind

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the mic stand so that you can see me.

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Great joke.

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Not super self-deprecating, but it does

go as far as acknowledging the thing

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that probably most people first notice

about her is that she's a plus size

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lady, and there's absolutely no harmony.

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What she does by doing that is owns it

and just says, yeah, look, I see it.

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You see it is there.

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Let's just get that out the way right now.

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So humor can be a great tool to

lean into to help you with that.

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But again, don't go down

the route of making yourself

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the complete butt of a joke.

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You wanna be kind to yourself as

well, so don't say anything about

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yourself that you would be super upset

if someone else said it about you.

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That's probably not

such a great idea, but.

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If for example, you have a high

pitched voice and that's what

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you are concerned about, it could

be good to acknowledge that.

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And I think humor could be a great

way to help you to do that as well.

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Whatever it is that you feel insecure

about, maybe you do have a past where

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may, just as an example, 'cause I

know someone who has this in their

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past had a history of drug abuse.

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Had been a drug addict and

has been open and honest about

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that in some of their talks.

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It's not necessarily always relevant, but

it does open up a level of vulnerability

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to say, look, that's not where I'm now.

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My life is better.

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I'm sober.

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I'm out to all of that.

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And it can actually add to your

credibility and be more empowering.

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There may still be people in an audience

who would hear that and be like.

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I'm just gonna discount everything this

person says because I have no respect

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for anyone who's ever done drugs,

but that would be a little bit crazy.

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And again, it says more about

them than it does about you.

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So I do think that owning our

insecurities, acknowledging them,

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and maybe even learning to love

ourselves a little bit more as

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a whole person, flaws and all.

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Think about somebody in your life

who you love, who you care about.

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Are they completely perfect?

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I would say not because nobody is, and

so they have flaws and you love them,

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and you love them with their flaws,

not without them, not in spite of them,

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but you love them with their flaws.

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If they were perfect in

every possible way, I.

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It might be hard to love them more

because you wouldn't feel that you could

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really connect with them in the same way.

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So our flaws, our insecurities, do allow

a little vulnerability and a way in to

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improve our connection with other people.

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So we don't need to lay all of our

dirty laundry out online for people

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and share every aspect of our life,

our insecurities, or the things we

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absolutely hate about ourselves.

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But the ones that are particularly

important and coming up for us are

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maybe causing some fear for us or

interfering with our ability to get up

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on stages, making us feel more nervous.

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Those are perhaps the ones that we

can lean into a little bit more.

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We can make them work to our

advantage by owning them and

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sometimes acknowledging them so

that we take the power out of them.

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We are not embarrassed by it.

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We're not worried about people laughing.

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We've accepted it.

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We know who we are and we've accepted it.

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This puts us also into a growth mindset.

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So I think there's a lot we can do to

reframe our insecurities for ourselves

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and perhaps for our audience as well, and

make them into a point of connection, an

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entry point of vulnerability to deepen

your connection with your audience.

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And again, you don't wanna

go too far with this.

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You're not trying to get

sympathy from your audience.

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You are really just relating to them in

a way that they're gonna understand and

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to be honest, sometimes the insecurity

that you may have people in your

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audience won't even have thought about.

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I'll share with you this one client

I was working with last year.

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She had a very strong Texan accent.

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And as a midlife lady of color, she was

very worried about getting up on stages to

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the audiences that she wanted to go to and

having this really strong Texas accent.

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For me, I hadn't even thought about

that whilst we'd been talking in our

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sessions and I said, I actually love your

accent and I really think you need to

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own it, rather than try and change it.

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If there was an issue of you are hard

to understand because of it, then

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maybe there is some work to do there

because being understood is gonna be

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important as a professional speaker.

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However, if it's just that you're worried

that people are gonna think that you're

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a bit stupid because you have this strong

accent that is often associated with

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people who aren't all that intelligent,

which again is a horrible stereotype.

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That's not a great thing

to be concerned about.

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You could own that and acknowledge

it and maybe even joke about it

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in your presentation, and you

take all the power out of it.

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In fact, your audience will love you

more because of it, and they probably,

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for the most part, haven't even thought

about it in the way that they don't share

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your feeling of insecurity or that you

should even feel insecure about that.

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I hope this is an interesting

perspective for you on insecurities.

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If you are someone who has a mission and

a purpose, a message to take out into

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the world and you want to share it with

other people, I really hope that you

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will take what we've talked about here

at the heart and find a way to start to

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reframe, move past these things that are.

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Potentially blocking you from

doing the things that you could

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be doing and even own them.

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Accept them, own them, and perhaps

even find deeper connection with your

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audience because of your imperfections.

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Gonna leave it there for today, but

I will be back next week continuing

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the theme of visual storytelling.

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So this week we just had an

episode with Emily Schneider, where

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we're talking about PowerPoint.

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In the next episode, we're gonna be

talking about your visual representations,

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things like your headshot and your

professional photographs and images with

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a professional photographer who works

with lots of coaches and speakers and.

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Communication professionals to

help you get the right shots.

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So we're gonna be talking about what

photos you need, what photos you don't

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need how much maybe you should be thinking

about investing into this, how to make

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those images work for you, where to

be putting them, all that good stuff.

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So please do join us for that episode

of Present Influence Coming next week,

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and we're back again on Friday with a

solo episode continuing on from some

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of the themes we've talked about today.

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I hope this has been a

little bit of value for you.

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If it has, do you consider leaving the

show a five star review on the app that

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you're listening to me on right now.

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It does help to encourage other

people to take a listen on the

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show, and I'm deeply appreciative

of every review that I receive.

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I look forward to connecting

with you again, wherever you're

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going, whatever you're doing.

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Have an amazing rest of your day.

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And I'll see you next time.