{"id":2182415,"date":"2026-10-05T23:30:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2182415"},"modified":"2026-10-05T23:30:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:30:51","slug":"dread-presenting-at-work-read-these-tips-before-your-next-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2182415","title":{"rendered":"Dread presenting at work? Read these tips before your next meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/8033\/live\/983e6510-b826-11f1-9173-8b6ede38f022.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"StudioStudio Grey for Social Market Foundation<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Dani Payne would have panic attacks at the thought of presenting – now she does it most days<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Dani Payne was so anxious about public speaking, she had a doctor’s note to excuse her from presenting at school and university.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Now aged 28 with a job in politics at a cross-party think tank, she’s spoken in parliament, sits on discussion panels and presents social media videos. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Most days I do some form of public speaking,” she says. “I wouldn’t have believed that at 15.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Want to get better, or simply get started? Here are four ways to help you nail your presentation or speech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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1. Start with your passion<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Payne, from Exeter, says she stopped any form of public speaking after developing a severe anxiety disorder and experiencing panic attacks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But looking back, she says avoiding it didn’t help her build “coping skills or resilience”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The more you avoid what you’re anxious about, the more you’re anxious about it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In her second year of university she was invited to present a subject she was passionate about. “I realised I was losing out on opportunities that I felt really strongly about.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She presented research for her dissertation on sexual misconduct in academic fieldwork settings and that was the start of conquering her fear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Her advice is to look for or create opportunities to speak about something you care about. “Picking something you genuinely feel passionately about will always make it easier,” she says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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2. Practise in virtual reality<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
A virtual reality headset can help you present in front of a pretend audience<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Daisy Schofield, a 32-year-old documentary producer and journalist, had her first panic attack at university during a presentation, she tells Woman’s Hour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She managed to avoid public speaking until she got her first job and had to present company statistics on Teams every Monday. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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To build her confidence, Schofield practises by using an app on her phone to create a fake audience in a virtual reality headset she bought online for \u00a310.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It makes practising feel much more engaging and like the real thing, compared to practising at home on your own, which feels a bit awkward and boring.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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3. Choose one word<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"FredFred Ferschke for Emotion<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Stand-up comedian Viv Groskop<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Viv Groskop, a stand-up comedian, writer and public speaking coach advises picking a word that encapsulates what you want your speech to convey. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It could be something like clarity… you can think to yourself afterwards, ‘did I set out to be clear? Was I clear? Yes. It’s a win.’ And every time you choose a different word.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Groskop also advises putting a post-it note on your laptop camera and reminding yourself to look there and not at people on the screen “because it will mean you’re looking down, not at people.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When you’re presenting in person, Prof Nazanin Derakhshan, a neuroscientist at Birkbeck, University of London, advises not to focus too much on people’s faces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Accept that their facial expression may mean anything, and distract yourself internally from interpreting these facial expressions.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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4. Expect mistakes<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Payne says being good at public speaking does not come “naturally to someone”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“You wouldn’t pick up a guitar, and be surprised that you couldn’t play a song when you’ve never picked up a guitar before – public speaking is the exact same thing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Groksop says people who are good at public speaking have just been doing it more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Many people are spending up to eight hours a day on Teams or Zoom, and if you think about a television newsreader, they’ve been trained for that.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She says no one around you expects you to “immediately be a master public speaker the first time you do it”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Derakhshan says being vulnerable is a “big asset” when public speaking. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We all make mistakes, we all forget things. It’s not the end of the world. If you can go back and make a humour of it the audience are quite forgiving and accepting.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Additional Reporting by Simon Richardson. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cqm2r0vpn08xo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/8033\/live\/983e6510-b826-11f1-9173-8b6ede38f022.jpg”] Studio Grey for Social Market Foundation Dani Payne would have panic attacks at the thought of presenting – now she does it most days Dani Payne was so anxious about public speaking, she had a doctor’s note to excuse her from presenting at school and university. Now aged 28 with a job […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2182415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2182415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2182415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2182415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2182415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}