Why Video Matters

I always stress practicing every speech every presentation on video for all of my clients and every single class every single category doesn’t matter if you’re practicing for a one on one job interview or one on one talk.

Practicing on video helps tremendously and it’s essential.

But if you’re going to speak in front of a really large audience it’s absolutely essential because if you haven’t spoken in front of a really large audience before it’s been a while.

You’re going to be nervous that you’re just absolutely positively going to be nervous.

That’s okay.

But if you know in advance how not to look nervous how not to sound nervous well then you’re going to be in great shape.

Keep in mind audiences audiences of a thousand ten thousand or one hundred can’t really read your mind.

All they could do is make judgments about you based on what you’re doing with your body or not doing with your body what you’re doing with your voice or not doing with your voice.

So if you’re doing the things that audiences associate with confident comfortable commanding speakers they will assume you are confident comfortable and commanding.

And if you understand that if you go into this realizing that and you’ve already seen a video of yourself speaking in a way that you perceive is confident comfortable and commanding guess what you will actually be hard for you to look and sound nervous when you’re up there because you’ll know what to do.

You’ll have muscle memory.

You may be thinking Gosh there’s a lot of people there I’m nervous but your hands are still going to move.

You may be thinking wow this is awful I can’t wait to finish but you can still smile have a steady eye contact gesture speak in a conversational tone and not rush.

What makes us nervous is often the fear of looking nervous looking stupid looking foolish forgetting what we’re going to say.

If you know in advance how not to look nervous and how to look your best and you know exactly what to do that takes the pressure off.

You’re not going to have to worry about like going to a fancy ball if you bought all your clothes in advance you took your time you changed you rearranged it you got it tailored you looked in the mirror from every single angle from ten different places and you had three friends all give you the once over and say Wow you’ve never looked better.

You’re probably not going to be nervous walking into that black tie event at least as far as how you look at that point you’re confident that you know you look your best.

So you’re not worried about that of just walking in people seeing you in your suit or your dress. I want you to have the very same mentality when you’re walking in to your presentation in front of a large audience knowing exactly how you look your best and sound your best and that is the real power of practicing on video.

With respect to speaking in front of large audiences.