Public speaking lessons from 100 days of rejection

Speaking
Written By Liam Sandford

Is your fear of public speaking holding you back? Do you find yourself avoiding challenges or opportunities because you are afraid of the speaking elements? You are not alone in this, 75% of the population have a fear of public speaking. I used to be one of them.

But there is an easier route to overcoming your fear of public speaking than you might think. Let me tell you a story about Jia Jiang and his 100 Days of Rejection.

Jia Jiang is an entrepreneur who had a mission to hear ‘no’ every day for 100 days in order to overcome his fear of rejection. He made crazy requests, like asking for a free burger refill, or if he could plant a flower in a strangers front garden. He learned that rejection was not actually that bad. In getting to hear ‘no’ he found opportunities to grow in confidence, and become comfortable doing something that initially felt out of reach.

Indirectly, Jia Jiang was performing a daily nano speech for 100 days. A short 10 second speech with a simple open, body and close. In overcoming his fear of rejection, he also built confidence and began asking more outlandish questions. That did not take 100 days. When you start small, you have the ability to build successful reps quickly. Build on those reps, grow your comfort zone, and scale up.

How can you apply the 100 days of rejection to your speaking journey?

Commit to 100 days of nano speeches

A daily speaking habit is the way to build confidence quickly, even if you are an experienced speaker. The goal is not to be perfect but to practice and improve the skill by incrementally improving every day — the 1% better with every nano speech.

Use a meeting at work, dinner with your family, or a Twitter Space, as opportunities to get in a short 10 second structured conversation. Every day settings are perfect for public speaking practice — nobody knows you are practicing and there is little pressure.

Maybe 100 days seems like a big target to you — start with 10, see the progress and continue on from there.

Scale up

The best thing about this approach is you can start as small as you like.

‘I am Liam, and I like books. What was the last book you read?’ — there you have it, a simple nano speech. Rep 1 complete.

As you get used to the 10 second nano speech, you will find it easier to add more detail and to speak for longer. There should be two aims of the daily nano speech — to scale up:

  • The time you are comfortable speaking for

  • The topic range that you are comfortable speaking about

When you get comfortable, that is your cue to scale to the next level.

Set your expectations

Jia Jiang’s expectation was that in 100 days he would be more comfortable hearing ‘no’.

Your expectation should be that you will be more comfortable speaking in front of people in 100 days than you are right now. Not that you will be the greatest speaker, or storyteller, or be able to deliver a 1 hour speech to a crowd of 1000.

Expectations should be set based on your level of experience, not based on what everyone else is doing.

Start your own 100 day challenge today and see how far you can go on your speaking journey.

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Liam Sandford
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