Every Public Speaker Needs to Build Resilience

Every Public Speaker Needs to Build Resilience       

If you are thinking about a career in public speaking know that ‘Every public speaker needs to build resilience’. No exception!  When you’re speaking or delivering a presentation, it’s your resilience that’s your ability to bounce back when things don’t go as planned. Your equipment breaks down, or your speaking time gets cut in half, or your audience is not responding the way you thought they would. How you handle these, and other challenges, depends on how resilient you are as a public speaker.

What is resilience?

The dictionary defines resilience as …

1. The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.
2. To maintain well-being in the face of adversity, “bounce back” from difficult or challenging life experiences.

For me when life gets tough, it’s our ‘stick-to-itiveness’, it’s our capacity to be able to rise up and keep moving forward. Often, we don’t even know how resilient we are until we come face to face with difficulty. Quite simply, it’s our ability to bounce back when ‘shit’ happens.

While there are many success characteristics and skills speakers need, resilience is one they can’t be without. Every public speaker, presenter, and actor needs to have it….and the good news is it’s a skill we can learn. Resilience is not something we are born with. Instead, it is a character trait we can develop and practice over time. And, the more we practice it, the stronger we become and the easier it is for us to adjust our approach when the unexpected happens.

Why is resilience important?

Resilience is important. It’s our resolve, our inner strength and helps us cope when faced with a challenging situation. Our success, especially as public speakers and presenters, depends on how quickly and effectively we can recover from being derailed by something or someone, and continue to move forward positively with our audience.

We all know that as much as we try to prepare for every contingency, the unexpected will happen. I remember I was about to begin a day-long leadership training. My introductory slide was up. Energy in the room was high. And, without warning the screen went black. My computer shut down, then rebooted and started doing a major upgrade. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

I looked at the 70 people in front of me. Took a deep breath and discovered my resilience. I said to myself. I don’t need the slides. I don’t need the computer. I know the content. I know the outcome I want to achieve. I will improvise, and I did. For the next 3 hours I had participants fully engaged on the subject of leadership. We did activities, had group discussions and shared experiences. At the end of the workshop participants commented on how much they appreciated the activities and discussion and not have to sit through slide after slide for the entire day.

Resilience is our capacity to remain flexible and adaptable while facing the challenges life may throw at us.  It is this developed inner strength that helped me handle my momentary panic, fear and burst of nervousness of ‘what to do’ when all my equipment failed. https://studio.youtube.com/video/bULk369llTg/edit Resilience helped me adapt quickly. To achieve any degree of success, every public speaker needs to build resilience.

How do we develop resilience?

Here are five ways to build resilience. Consistently …

1. Set goals for yourself.   Make a plan of the steps you need to take to achieve those goals. When you have a sense of purpose, it’s easier to move through difficult times.
2. Keep your confidence up.  Remind yourself of past successes, and what you had to overcome. Recognize and believe in your strengths and inner resources.
3. Be solution focused, not problem focused. Think of solutions and take action
4. Work to understand there are things that you can’t change. Accept what you can’t, and focus on what you can.
5. Develop a positive outlook. Consider meditation, or doing affirmations or practicing visualization. All help with disciplining the mind to focus on the positive and help with feelings of well-being and confidence. https://youtu.be/lQVvdE0mgSQ

As public speakers, we know there will be times when things won’t go as we had planned. When that happens, how quickly and effectively we bounce back and continue with our speech or presentation depends on the depth of our resilience, look at it as an investment in your speaking career.