Hopefully by this stage, you've had a look at the intro acronym about how to craft a really impactful start to your speech. I'm aware though, that if you're nervous about public speaking very often, something very strange happens. About a minute into your speech. You get out there and you feel fine. And then a thought descends upon you from nowhere, that says, I appear to be doing public speaking, the complete feeling of horror takes over your whole body and you start to shake your mouth goes dry is the most hideous feeling in the world. I have experienced this myself, believe it or not, and you do have a good trick for overcoming this.

What I want you to do when you're planning your content is to plan a break early on. As soon as you've done your impactful beginning, then try to plan somewhere that you can stop and have a drink of water because it may well be You've experienced these feelings. If you haven't used a question as far as for impactful, this is a good time to use it. So ask the audience the question, and then take a cup of water. One woman said to me that she tried this, and the audience answered too quickly. So she asked them a question and went to drink the water and somebody said, five, and she was like, I can't get it to my lips.

What do I do? And I said, Don't worry, you just ask another question. So how many of people have this? Somebody said five, and then you go, What does everybody else think? Just make sure that you make the time to have a break. It's your time up there.

And don't forget something that I often say your experience is not their experience. The way that time passes on stage is totally different to how it passes in the audience. So what feels like a big pause for you while you feel like in slow Motion you take a drink of water. It's nothing to them at all and they'll appreciate your professionalism that you know how to look after yourself.