Public Speaking: Having Something to Say Isn’t Enough to Be Heard

You may master your profession but not communication. When you speak in public, your emotions can cloud your message, and you need solid tools to enjoy speaking, whether in front of 3 people or 300, for 3 minutes or an hour.

Keeping Your Composure: The Key to Effective Speaking

Master the technique of public speaking and free yourself from it to embody your role naturally. The higher the stakes, the more speaking technique will allow you to remain calm and convincing. From my athletic background, I recognize that the challenges of public speaking parallel those faced by elite athletes during competition. 

Beyond the message you have to convey, you must articulate, control your breathing, look at your audience, use your hands and your entire body, while remaining natural and relaxed. This posture is more important than the very arguments you might use. 

Various behavioural studies consistently show that when a speaker takes the floor, non-verbal communication has more influence than the message itself. The audience focuses 15% on content, 25% on voice tone, rhythm, volume, pitch, and 60% on behaviour, appearance, movements – in a word, non-verbal cues. 

So, why focus only on the 15% of arguments? Invest in your posture!

Befriend Your Stage Fright

The first obstacle encountered by someone preparing to speak in public is emotion. Speeches would be so easy to deliver if there were no emotions… so easy and so boring…!

Emotions bring speeches to life. If you channel them, they will enhance your story. If, on the other hand, you fear them, they turn against you and you suffer the side effects.

Emotion is like a race car: it can send you crashing or take you to the podium if you learn to channel it.

What does this mean? An invitation to modify your behaviour every time you communicate.

Conclusion

To captivate your audience, it’s not enough to master your subject – you must embody your message with conviction. And for that, you’ll need to transform your nervousness into positive energy. Remember that communication is a complete sport where technique, once mastered, becomes invisible to make way for the authenticity and impact of your message.

Florence Meunier

May 2025

.

.

.

.

.

If you want to know more about PeopleSmart and the services we offer reach out to us for a conversation: contact@peoplesmart.fr