Concept
The Audience Wants You to Win
The audience wants you to win is the principle that most listeners arrive hoping a speaker does well, because a good talk serves them and a failing one is uncomfortable to sit through.
Stage fright makes the room look like a jury. Your old survival alarm reads a crowd of faces turned towards you as a threat, so it's easy to assume they're waiting for you to stumble. Usually the opposite is true. People gave up their time to be there, and they want that time to be worth it. Watching someone struggle is awkward for them too, so most will forgive a lost word, a dry mouth or a shaky start. Scott Berkun makes this point in Confessions of a Public Speaker: listeners are mostly thinking about what they'll get out of the talk, not grading your nerves. Knowing this won't switch off the adrenaline, because the alarm still fires. It does change what the alarm means. You aren't facing opponents. You're serving people who are already on your side.
A real-life example
Maya is presenting quarterly results to forty colleagues. Her hands shake at the start, and she loses her place on slide two. She pauses, says "Let me find that again," checks her notes and carries on. Afterwards three people mention the clear chart on slide four, and nobody brings up the pause. The stumble felt huge from the front of the room. From the seats it barely registered.
How to use it
- 1Before you start, write one sentence naming what the audience came for, and remind yourself that they want you to deliver it.
- 2In the first minutes, find two or three friendly faces and speak to them first. Let their nods steady you.
- 3When you stumble, pause, say a short plain line such as "Let me back up," and carry on. Skip the long apology, because the room takes its cue from you.