The journey from fear to speaking on podcasts

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Last week I joined Owen Sammarone on the Daily Author Podcast to talk about my latest book, ‘Become a Best Selling Author in 6 Months’. We talked about writing a book people want to buy, getting it to best seller and how to use your book as a lead magnet for your business.

The journey from fear to speaking on podcasts

Heart racing, sweaty palms, trembling with fear. Public speaking used to get me down. But here is the thing — the thought of speaking was far worse than actually doing it. The worst case-scenario’s really did not play out, by practicing in comfortable environments I grew to be a confident speaker.

Fast forward 10 years from a defining moment at university where I found the fear of public speaking too much, I have a successful public speaking coaching business, and have guested on a few podcasts.

Guesting on podcasts is something I always secretly wanted to do even though I was afraid of the thought of speaking in front of people. When you are first starting out it is hard to know how to get guest appearances, but there are several speaking lessons that come from my first couple of podcast appearances that translate over to other forms of speaking. Let’s run through them.

It’s okay to be nervous

If you have never been on a podcast before you will be nervous and likely won’t know what to expect. Luckily my first podcast appearance was on the Speaking of Impact Podcast with Bob DePasquale who I had hosted the Creators Unwind Twitter Space with for over a year at the time. This made the conversation comfortable because it was just like running another space.

Being comfortable is everything when speaking in public and guesting on podcasts is no different. If you know someone who runs a podcast, that might be a good place to start. Either way you will still be nervous.

Nerves are not the same thing as lacking confidence. Nervousness means you care about the delivery, in fact it should be a concern if you aren’t nervous before public speaking.

It’s okay to mess up

Nobody expects you to be perfect when speaking in public, and even more so in a conversational podcast. It is okay to mess up, in fact I did during my first podcast recording. I simply lost my trail of thought and rather than rambling on trying to get it back on track I acknowledged it. I am human and that is an important side to show your audience.

The creator world is full of people trying to show their ‘best life’ but actually succeeding in creating and business comes with struggle, setbacks and challenges. The best creators and entrepreneurs acknowledge and share those things. It is okay to not be perfect. If someone comes across as perfect you should know that there are several pieces of the puzzle they are not sharing.

When it comes to public speaking perfect does not exist. If you are guesting on podcasts don’t try to be the perfect guest. Instead, just be you. You are your superpower — nobody can do that better. That is your personal brand and that will be your competitive advantage.

Action steps if you have a fear of public speaking but want to guest on podcasts

• Start where you are comfortable, with short speaking reps. A 1 second nano speech (use the open, body, close structure) is all it takes.

• Only scale up to speaking for longer when you are comfortable with short speaking bursts.

• Build a daily speaking habit. Practice is the only way to become a confident speaker. Reading about speaking is only getting ready to get ready to speak in public.

• Join social audio, get a nano speech in, and leave. This is a great forum to start building speaking confidence.

• Have conversations — if you know a podcast host, see if you can guest on their show. Endless opportunities can come from appearances on podcasts.

• Listen to my guest episode on the Speaking of Impact Podcast — we talk through the basic steps you need to take action on to become a stress-free speaker.

• Reach out to me — if you have some specific questions about public speaking I am always happy to help.

That's all for today!

As always feel free to reply to this email or reach out @liamsandford as I would love to hear your feedback.

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Liam Sandford

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