If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you know that I’m primarily a coach and secondarily a speaker.  Lately, I’ve been out on the road more than usual talking about the issues raised in my new book, Can You Hear Me? How to Connect with People in a Virtual World.  Naturally, I try to take my own advice as a speaker, and I was thinking about that before a recent speech in Dublin.  What should you do to prepare for a speech – on the day of the event?  In other words, are there any last-minute to-dos and don’t dos that will reliably help your speech go well?

I’ll start with a question.  Would you rather talk to friends or strangers?  I’ve asked this question of many clients over the years, and the voting is split down the middle.  People either seem to be inhibited by talking to their friends or encouraged.  There is little middle ground.  So that’s my first bit of advice.

Connect with the audience if it warms you up; don’t if it heightens your anxiety.  I like to know the audience, so I spent the hour or so before the event mixing with the audience.  Indeed, I had spent the day before touring the Irish Parliament and looking at the Book of Kells with one member of the audience – shout out to John Keating for very generously giving of his time and organizing prowess so that we could do all that and still end up at O’Donahue’s pub, a place rich with the history of Irish music.  Shout out also to Frank Dillon, editor of the premier Irish business magazine, Decision, for a great event and a delightful dinner.

Go over your speech structure several times.  I don’t recommend full rehearsals the day of; you’re liable to be preoccupied and the rehearsals won’t do much good.  If you’re under-rehearsed, by all means do as much as you can, but if you find that it’s simply making you more frightened, cease and desist.  Do review the speech order and structure so that the overall road map is clear in your head.  Before the Dublin event, I was only able to do this minimally, since it was a breakfast speech and I’m a night owl by nature.  Mostly I was trying to get awake in time. 

Get some light exercise.  This trick is very helpful in discharging a bit of excess adrenaline.  Don’t overdo the exercise and risk wearing yourself out.  In my case there was no way I was getting up at 5:00 AM for a walk in the rain, so the only exercise I got was lifting a coffee cup to my lips repeatedly.  Physician, heal thyself. 

Do some deep breathing.  When we respond with the fight-flight-freeze response to stress or danger or public speaking, adrenaline courses through our bodies.  One of the results is that we take faster, shallower breaths.  This response tells us that we’re nervous, and it becomes a vicious circle.  So break it by breathing slowly in for a 5 – 10 count, hold for 3 – 5, and then breathe out for 5 – 10, depending on your aerobic capacity.  Over time, if you practice this technique regularly, you should be able to increase your in and out counts. 

Get to the room early, before the audience is there, and own it.  Walk around the room, check out the view to the stage from as many vantage points as you can, stand on the stage itself, check out the lighting, make a lifetime friend of the A/V team, check your slides and any other technical issues if you haven’t had a tech rehearsal already – do as much as you can, in short, to make yourself feel completely at home. 

These quick, easy prep tricks will help you rule the day, rock the house, and generally look like a pro, not an amateur. 

And break a leg!