268. The Confidence Cycle: Breaking Through Public Speaking Anxiety with Mick Spiers

Have you ever felt that knot in your stomach before speaking to a group? That flutter of fear that makes you question whether you should just stay quiet? What if that sensation isn't weakness but potential trying to break through?

Following my powerful conversation with Israel Duran—who transformed from a boy who would get in trouble to avoid public speaking into a globally sought-after speaker—I'm sharing my own framework for turning speaking anxiety into impact. At the heart of this transformation is what I call the Competence-Confidence Cycle. Unlike what many believe, you don't need to feel confident before taking action. When you take even imperfect steps, you build competence, which naturally grows confidence, creating a virtuous cycle of growth.

Great speaking isn't about charisma but clarity. I outline how focusing on just 1-3 memorable points creates more impact than overwhelming your audience with information. Learn why the strategic use of silence—the power of the pause—might be the most transformative speaking tool you're not using. Discover how storytelling and metaphor can move your message from intellectual understanding to emotional connection, making your ideas stick long after your words fade.

The next time fear rises before you speak, recognize it not as an obstacle but as a signal that you're about to do something meaningful. This awareness itself is transformative. Remember that effective speaking isn't about perfection but presence. Speak with purpose, with clarity, and with a desire to serve rather than impress. Each time you step forward despite your fear, you strengthen this muscle until one day, speaking becomes not just something you can do, but something you love to do.

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Episode Transcript

Mick Spiers (00:01):
What if fear wasn't the enemy but a signal that
you're about to do somethingimportant. What if that knot in
your stomach before apresentation wasn't weakness but
potential trying to breakthrough. In today's episode, I'm
going to share some personalreflections sparked by the
extraordinary conversation withIsrael. Duran Israel's story was

(00:23):
powerful, a young boy once soafraid of public speaking that
he would deliberately get introuble just to avoid standing
in front of the class. Fastforward to today. Is a globally
sought after speaker and coach,helping leaders grow through the
power of their voice. And thatgot me thinking public speaking
is still one of the most commonand paralyzing fears people

(00:46):
face, but I've come to believethat fear is not there to stop
you. It's there to wake you up.
It's a signal that somethingmeaningful is about to happen.
So in today's discussion, I'mgoing to add my own tips about
overcoming fear and the art ofpublic speaking.
Welcome back to The LeadershipProject. I'm your host, Mick

(01:07):
Spiers, and today we're divingdeep into public speaking. This
still today, is one of thegreatest fears that many people
face, and if they never approachthat fear, they'll never
overcome it. So I'm going togive my own tips for about
overcoming the fear of publicspeaking, and some basic tips
about how you can become a moreimpactful speaker. This stems

(01:30):
from the great conversation withIsrael Duran, and today I'm
going to add my own flavor onsome of the things that we took
from Israel, and also my owntips. So let's start with
reframing fear, and I'm going tointroduce you to something
called the competence confidencecycle. When we talk about fear,
that fear could show up in allkinds of ways, a fear of

(01:53):
judgment, what will people thinkof us? A fear that we're not
good enough, the dreadedimposter syndrome, the thought
of, why would people want totalk to me, or I just, I'm just
not a good public speaker. Thestory that you've told yourself
in your head is a very powerfulstory, but you have the ability
to rewrite that story. So let'sunpack those one at a time.

(02:17):
First of all, the fear ofjudgment, I have to tell you
that people sitting in theaudience, they're not sitting
there waiting for you to fail.
They've actually got your back.
They want to be entertained.
They want to be informed. Theywant you to do a good job.
They're not sitting therewaiting for you to fail. So you
need to get over that thoughtthat people are just watching

(02:40):
you and judging you and lookingat your shoes and how you sound,
etc. That's just not true. Theywant you to do a good job and
they want to cheer you on. Whywould people listen to you?
Well, you've got somethinginteresting to share. Everyone
has got a story. Everyone is atdifferent stages of development
of their life, and yourperspective is unique to you.

(03:03):
People want to hear thoseperspectives. They are
interested. And third, aroundthis lack of perceived
competence, here's the thing,competence and confidence are
not fixed traits. They'recyclical. It's called the
competence confidence cycle.
When you take action, especiallyin perfect action, you start to

(03:25):
build competence. And as yourcompetence grows, so does your
confidence. And then thatconfidence gives you the courage
to take even more action, andthe cycle continues, but it
doesn't start unless you takethe first step.
So you need to take the firststep. It might start with a very
small audience, three people,where you might share a story or

(03:48):
give a three minute intro on atopic, or whatever the case may
be. Start with something small,but you must start, and it's
okay for it to be imperfect,because afterwards, you're going
to reflect and you're going togo right. What went well? What
didn't go well? What would I dodifferently next time? What did

(04:10):
I learn about myself? What did Ilearn about others, the people I
was speaking to? So that you canlearn from it and then go again,
so you're building yourcompetence, so that your
confidence flows, and theconfidence gives you the courage
to go again, and before you knowit, you start building up. You

(04:32):
start going from an audience ofthree to an audience of seven to
an audience of 15 to an audienceof 30. And before you know it,
you could be standing on a stagein front of 1000 people, but you
started small. You startedscared, but you started this is
the only way to get through it.
Now, what about the craftitself? Well, the next thing,

(04:54):
and Israel covered this well inhis interview, great public
speaking is not about charisma.
It's about. Clarity. It's aboutknowing your audience and
crafting your message withintention. So before you speak,
ask yourself three simple butpowerful questions, who is my

(05:15):
audience? Where are they todayin their thinking, feeling and
understanding, and what do Iwant them to think, feel and do
differently by the end of thisspeech, when you answer these
you move from performance topurpose. You stop focusing on
how you look or sound, you startfocusing on the impact you want

(05:37):
to make. And here's a goldenrule I want you to remember this
one less is more. One of thebiggest mistakes that public
speakers make is thinking thatthey've got their opportunity.
So they need to tell the worldeverything they know about topic
x, but if you try to say toomuch, you dilute your message,

(05:59):
if you give your audience 10takeaways, they're going to
remember none of them. But ifyou give them one to three
powerful, repeatable ideas,you'll create transformation.
The dilutive effect also canhave other impacts in your
business life. So if you'redoing a pitch to your boss, and

(06:19):
you've come up with 16 greatideas as to why the company
should take a certain action,and you think that you need to
tell all 16 you're going to loseyour boss, the first one to
three might have been enough,where you've got them convinced
going, Oh yeah, yeah, this is agreat idea. But then you keep

(06:41):
talking, and you actually dilutethe power of the three biggest
reasons why you should be takingthis action. You they might have
in their head waited the firstthree things you said, No. Idea
number one, 50% idea number two,30% idea number three, 20% and
you've got them, they're readyto act, and then you keep

(07:03):
talking, and they've forgottenalready what the first three
compelling reasons were. Andworse still, it only takes one
of those 16 things to have aslight inaccuracy for the whole
conversation to now focus onthat thing that wasn't quite
right. Now, let's bring thisback to our public speaking. The

(07:24):
same rule applies if you try toshare 16 things, people can't
remember 16 things. Like youcan't remember they can't
remember. People cannot remember16 things. And you might have
had three powerful things thatyou wanted to have them take
away, and now they can'tremember it because you added

(07:45):
another 13 and it only takes forone of your 16 points to be
slightly inaccurate, for thetrust and confidence in your
message to start being affected.
So in your delivery, think aboutwhat are the one to three
powerful and repeatable ideasthat you can share, that will be
memorable, that they can takeaway the thing that you wanted

(08:07):
them to remember. Don't let themchoose the thing that you wanted
them to remember, and use thatas the focus of your speech. And
it literally can be just one canbe one takeaway. Some of the
greatest speeches ever had onlyone takeaway, but please limit
to no more than three.

(08:29):
Now, How about the delivery? Ifthere's one tool that every
great speaker must master, it'sthis. It's the power of the
pause. A well timed pause ismore powerful than any word you
could say. It gives youraudience a moment to breathe, to
reflect, to feel so don't beafraid of silence. Own it. When

(08:54):
you pause, you're not losingtheir attention. You're
commanding it. When you pause,people look to the speaker, and
you recapture their attention,and you're signaling to them
that what you just said wassomething important, that they
should pause and reflect upon.
Human beings are terriblemultitaskers. So when we speak

(09:18):
at a million miles an hour,we're not giving them the chance
to actually pause and reflect onwhat we just said. We're making
them choose. We're making themchoose between, am I going to
process what the speaker justsaid, or am I going to listen to

(09:38):
what they're saying now?
And because we're terriblemultitaskers, we then actually
get confused with everything,and we're now lost. So the power
of the pause allows the personto process and to feel what you
just said before you say thenext. Thing. Now for many of us,

(10:02):
we actually speak inmultilingual environments. A lot
of workplaces now are verymulticultural, multilingual.
You'll be talking to people thatcome from backgrounds that their
native language is not the sameas your native language. So if
you're not building in thesepauses, you're also now allowing

(10:24):
them to do a little bit ofsubtle translation in their head
if they're not fluent in yournative tongue. So pause, pause,
pause. This is the number onething that will improve your
public speaking. If you want tosee this in action, go back and

(10:45):
watch some of the most powerfulspeeches in history, whether
it's Martin Luther King, Jr,Barack Obama, Winston,
Churchill, the most powerfulorators that captured your
attention, and I guarantee youthere will be very deliberate
pauses in those speeches. Thenext is storytelling. Humans are

(11:06):
Wired for Story. It's how we'vemade sense of the world for
1000s of years. A story turnsdata into meaning. It moves your
message from the head to theheart. And finally, metaphor, a
great metaphor makes theunfamiliar familiar. It connects
the abstract with the tangible.
It gives your idea wings. Nowhere's an example where I can

(11:29):
show you how to use metaphor. Sowhen we talked about the
competence and confidence cycleearlier, imagine it like a
flywheel. Hard to push it first,but once it gains momentum, it
becomes unstoppable. That's anexample of a metaphor and how
you can build it into yourspeech. So embrace storytelling,
embrace the use of metaphor.

(11:53):
This is how people will rememberit. They won't remember the
facts. They'll remember thestory. If it's an emotional
story, they'll remember how thestory made them feel, and that's
what they'll remember forever,not the facts and figures that
you thought were compelling.
They'll remember the story. Nowwe've had many guests on the
show talk about the power ofstorytelling. Andrea Sampson,

(12:14):
great example, I encourage you,if storytelling and metaphor is
one that you want todeliberately practice. Go back
and listen to some of theprevious guests that were on the
art of storytelling.
So here's my challenge to you,the next time you feel fear

(12:35):
before you speak, don't run fromit. Step towards it, because
that fear. It's not a stop sign,it's a signal, a signpost saying
that you're about to dosomething that matters. It shows
that you care, and if you don'tcare, maybe that's not a good
sign about the speech thatyou're about to give. So the

(12:59):
fear is showing you that this issomething that matters to you.
Remember that you don't need tobe perfect. You just need to be
present. Speak with purpose,speak with clarity, speak to
serve, not to impress. And mostof all, keep practicing, because
every time you speak, you buildthat muscle, and one day you'll

(13:23):
look back and smile at how faryou've come. So that's it for
today. In the next episode,we'll be joined by the amazing
Kumar Parikala, the awardwinning CEO and expert in
digital disruption. He's theauthor of lead to disrupt, and
he's going to be talking to usabout disruptive leadership in

(13:43):
the era of digital change. It'sa super interesting
conversation. Make sure you joinus for that.
Thank you for listening to TheLeadership Project
mickspiers.com a huge call outto Faris Sedek for his video
editing of all of our videocontent and to all of the team
at TLP, Joan Gozon, GeraldCalibo and my amazing wife Sei

(14:08):
Spiers, I could not do this showwithout you. Don't forget to
subscribe to The LeadershipProject YouTube channel where we
bring you interesting videoseach and every week. And you can
follow us on social,particularly on LinkedIn,
Facebook and Instagram. Now inthe meantime, please do, take
care, look out for each otherand join us on this journey as

(14:29):
we learn together and leadtogether.