Make a toast and not get into trouble: 6 rules for a speaker

“I hate toasting, I feel like a clown!”, “I blurt out some stupidity, everyone will laugh at me” – such thoughts rush through the minds of many who have ever tried on the role of a speaker at a holiday. What can we say about more serious performances – in a circle of colleagues or a wide professional community.

Are you familiar with these phrases? Agree: by thinking in this way and imagining a negative scenario in advance, we ourselves are programming ourselves for failure. These mental images cause the body to shrink, increasing anxiety and stress. No celebratory toast in this state, most likely, will not work.

Let’s look at a few rules that will help you get yourself in a cheerful state and properly tune in to the performance.

1. Take a couple of minutes and focus on your breath

Most importantly, breathe! Yes, yes, in situations where we experience fear, discomfort, stress, we often forget to breathe. Therefore, sit on the edge of a chair, straighten your back, relax your neck, shoulders, chest and stomach. Pull yourself mentally by the top of your head to the ceiling – and slowly, measuredly, breathe deeply. At the same time, focus all your attention on the process of air movement. Give practice at least 1-2 minutes. Within 10-15 seconds, you will notice how the level of tension decreases, you become more calm and collected, your head clears up. Thus, by working with the body and breathing, you gradually master the skill of adjusting the resource state.

2. Stop seeing the public as a threat

The world is arranged in a funny way: as soon as we draw the future in dark colors, assuming the saddest development of events, how it (whoops!) is embodied exactly in this form. Have you noticed this?

In the context of public speaking, it is very important to get rid of the idea that there are “enemies” sitting in the audience who are just waiting for the moment to ruin your holiday. Say to yourself: “People came here to have fun and enjoy the evening (including my performance). None of them are my enemy. And I can please and amuse them right now.” Remind yourself of this again and again, you can even say it out loud.

If you have a rich imagination, play this game with yourself: close your eyes and imagine that this hall or room is right now filled with people who are looking at you with kind, loving eyes. They look forward to your performance and are waiting to admire your charm, wit, depth and deafen you with shouts of “bravo” in the finale. Live this scenario in your imagination: honestly, in detail, from beginning to end!

3. Treat what is happening as a game

A feast with friends or a speech in front of an audience is a game in which you yourself set the rules and shape the scenario, even if you did not realize it until now.

Well, now you know. Prefix the words “toast”, “report to the board”, “scientific conference”, “presentation to the most-important-in-the-world-bosses” with the phrase “game of toast / report …” It seems that your attitude to the topic of public speaking is starting to subtly change, is not it? It becomes more creative, lighter, more exciting… And, most importantly, you stop taking yourself too seriously. “Slight stupidity makes a person practically invulnerable” – this is just the case.

Let’s say, during the course of your speech, your microphone breaks, your voice “gives a rooster” or the presentation does not work – this can happen to anyone, no one is immune from this. What will a person who perceives everything that happens as a game say? “Wow, what surprises the Universe is throwing at us today! Well, ladies and gentlemen – it seems that we will have to continue communication without a microphone, presentation and in complete darkness! This is unusual to say the least! This is the first time for me, how about you? So, where did I stop…”

And that’s it! With such a light attitude of the speaker to force majeure, the viewer will forget about what happened in 15 seconds.

Remember that in this performance you “lead” the viewer, not he you. It is you who show an example of how to treat any problems and what importance to attach to them.

4. Practice… delirium generation

Creative thinking, imagination flexibility and reaction speed are skills. For their development, there are many exercises code-named “Delirium Generation”.

Here is one of them: let’s take a couple of the most incompatible objects – for example, “iron” and “parrot”, and for a minute we will tell how they are similar to each other. “An iron and a parrot are similar because they both live in the same apartment: a parrot can make the same sounds as an iron; if you heat the parrot, then you can iron the shirt with its beak, like with an iron … etc. ”

Got an idea? Then they themselves: “Santa Claus” and “nail” – the minute has gone!

Such exercises gradually develop resourcefulness, which is why they are especially loved by the hosts of events for whom force majeure is part of the job! The electricity was turned off, the artists did not come, the projector broke down, the hot dish was not ready – and now you have 20 minutes of time that you need to fill with something. Go ahead, improvise!

5. Think over the structure of the speech

Write down in advance the key steps of your speech: from where to what are you going? What goal do you want to achieve?

Structure is the banks that set the direction for free flow. So rhythm and harmony hold the melody so that it does not turn into a chaotic set of sounds.

Did the unexpected happen? Breathe in, breathe out, ask yourself: “Where am I at? What is the next step?”. Two seconds for everything about everything – and we drove on, as if nothing had happened.

6. Imagine yourself… a weaver

Imagine for a second a kind of crazy sorceress-weaver who sits at her loom, and she categorically does not give a damn what to weave her canvas from. She weaves absolutely everything into it: threads, dust, needles, drops of water, rays of the sun, smiles of children, newspaper news, the noise of a tractor outside the window, the smell of manure, the barking of a dog and the squeak of a mosquito! Everything that falls into the field of her attention becomes part of a woven fabric …

Represented? So. The weaver is you. The loom is your creative muscle. Canvas – speech, training, performance, presentation, toast, webinar, live broadcast. Whatever happens during the performance, nothing can stop you! Nothing is a hindrance, an obstacle. Nothing to fight, nothing to resist, nothing to defend against. Any phenomenon that occurs in space is just feedback from your playmate (the Spectator) that you can process and weave into the fabric of your performance.

Try the following thought experiment. Imagine that any absurdity, an overlay, an error, a technical breakdown, any stupid comment from the audience, an uncomfortable question, even outright rudeness – none of this threatens you anymore. Tell yourself: this is just an excuse for my creative activity. It’s part of the big Game that’s being born right here. And in this game, I’m not a victim, not a schoolboy-loser, but a full-fledged Partner. Co-Creator.

And remind yourself of this more often.