Chris de Diego Shares Why Public Speaking Skills Are More Powerful Than You Think

Chris Turn on March 14, 2022

We all know someone with stage fright who is absolutely petrified by the idea of speaking in public. That person may even be ourselves, in many cases. However, public speaking is one of the most important skills someone can master. 

Being able to entertain, inform, and engage a crowd opens the door to so many possibilities. Someone that can hold a room in the palm of their hand as they tell stories and incept their ideas has infinite potential in business, marketing, politics, and anything else they set their mind to. I can’t begin to explain all of the benefits of honing public speaking skills, but Chris de Diego sure can. 

Chris de Diego is a public speaker, coach, entrepreneur, and investing expert who puts his public speaking skills to use almost every day. I interviewed Chris de Diego in order to curate all of the benefits public speaking skills can have on someone’s life, and now I’ll share those benefits with you. 

What are the main reasons for public speaking? Why is it important?

Well, public speaking helps convey your ideas to people. It’s the best tool for spreading your word to people. Not everyone is on social media, and not everyone trusts social media. 

Even if they do, it can be hard to express your emotions and thoughts effectively through text. Public speaking lets you put emotions into your thoughts; it enables you to motivate people and inform them in your own way. 

In my opinion, it’s a necessity for any campaign. There is a reason why debates are held in person and not through Twitter threads. 

What would you say to those afraid of public speaking? Those with stage fright or social anxiety?

I understand having social anxiety, and I understand being afraid of public speaking. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. 

confidence is the key to become and effective public speaker.

It’s easy to sit around and say push through it, but that can be extremely hard for some people. My advice is this; it will get easier if you do it a lot. It may still be painful, but it’ll be easy. 

My 2nd piece of advice, in order to master public speaking, is to practice your heart out beforehand to have the confidence that you will nail it. 

Is confidence a big part of public speaking? 

There are a ton of best practices when it comes to public speaking, but yeah, confidence is key, of course. But they go hand in hand. Public speaking increases confidence. 

If you get a whole room full of people behind your idea, story, or whatever, then there’s nothing that will instill more confidence than that. I’ve had thousands of likes and retweets on certain tweets, and let me tell you; it’s nothing compared to having a crowd full of real people engaged in your speech. 

Having your audience come up to you afterward and tell you “wow, Chris de Diego, how inspirational!” puts you on cloud 9. 

Does public speaking help in any other aspect of someone’s career? 

I mean language, vocabulary, and all of that are extremely important for general communication. It also helps improve leadership skills by giving you confidence in your ideas and just talking to people and communicating what you want. 

Even my team management and leadership skills improved exponentially as I gave more public speeches. 

Follow Chris de Diego on Twitter for more public speaking tips ⬇️
https://twitter.com/chrisdediego

As far as professional recognition goes, do you need to be able to give public speeches to rise through the ranks? 

I believe that there is a ceiling to your career if you are not comfortable giving public speeches, at least to some extent—point-blank. 

Tips on Dealing With Speaking Jitters

Full Editorial on June 11, 2020

If you want your business to be recognized in a crowded field that is saturated with hundreds of new startups each day, then you are going to need to learn the art of public speaking. It’s no secret that many CEO’s and thought-leaders are turning to the stages of TED or attending major conferences in their industry to give a presentation so they can position themselves as an authority.

However, many entrepreneurs will not seek this opportunity because they are deathly afraid of giving a public speech. In fact, 75% of the public are afraid of speaking in public mostly because they don’t want to make a mistake or be seen as incompetent. We recently interviewed Chris Johnson of the professional speaking website MotivationalSpeakerz.com and asked him about this and here is what he had to share with us:

To the average person, says Johnson, “Apart from poisonous snakes, making public speeches is the most frightening thing in the world.”

Johnson confesses that he remains nervous even after having made hundreds of speeches and presentations. However, he is not quite as nervous as he used to be. He says: “The only people who don’t seem to be nervous, in my experience, are those who are the most tremendous bores.”

Hints From Johnson on Clinching a Sales Presentation

Nerves are not only common, they are natural. As a matter of fact, nerves appear to improve the quality of presentations. Nerves are a manifestation of the fact that the presenter cares. And because he cares, he tries harder.

So how can the presenter learn to live with his nerves and minimize the stress? Johnson describes three ways:

  1. “First, remember that no client comes in hoping to see a poor presentation of lousy work. He is looking forward to seeing a good presentation of excellent work. So he is not to be feared.
  2. Second, unquestionably the best way to combat nerves: be better prepared. Whenever I am going to make a presentation I have rehearsed in my mind several times how it is going to go. I even go to the extent of visualizing the audience’s reaction (which is always enthusiastic!).
  3. And third, get mentally prepared and do whatever you can to create a positive mindset. I enjoy reading positive and quotes from websites like Motivation Ping as I find that they put me in the right frame of mind before giving my presentation.

I have anticipated all the things that might go wrong. I have considered what I will do if the audience turns out to be difficult in some way. I will have reflected on the type of people that are going to attend. I will have mastered my material.

 Finally, I find it useful to spend a little time – maybe only three or four minutes – on my own, to compose myself.”

Treat the Creative Work with the Respect it Deserves

Nerves are bad for the creative work too. Johnson says that the presenter must not “rattle” his way through a piece of work. After all, it’s the creative work that tends to get clients excited. It is the physical manifestation of everything they have paid out and will pay out money for. Therefore, the creative work must get it its due.

If creative work is good, then it can stand a fair degree of explanation as to why. If the ad executive who is making the presentation cannot explain why, then maybe he hasn’t thought things through properly; or, even worse, the work just doesn’t make sense.

How to Deal with Presentation Nerves

Although it is natural to be nervous before a presentation, it is a good sign as the nervous presenter tries harder to succeed. Chris Johnson shares two tips on how to conquer presentation nerves.

The first one is to remember that the client is not some kind of monster. He is only eager to see some great creative work since he is paying for it.

Secondly, the presenter should be fully rehearsed and prepared.