NOTE: If you’ve haven’t yet read Public Speaking Tip 98: For a Successful Presentation, Get Your Attitude Together Before You Prepare Your Speech and Public Speaking Tip 99: For a Successful Presentation, Practice Individual Ideas Throughout Your Day, they provide helpful background for this tip.
Go for What You Know When You Create and Practice Your Presentation…
By now, you’ve created most of the conditions for a confident, successful presentation:
- You’ve taken a positive attitude toward the overall experience,
- You’ve prepared content with your audience in mind, and
- You’ve practiced the individual ideas in your speech in a relaxed, confident, and flexible way.
There’s just one more part of this experience to go, and that’s staying calm when you go to give your speech.
…and Go For What You Know When You Deliver It
How do you stay calm when you’re delivering a presentation?
- Before you begin to speak, decide to be fully present. Here is a very effective way to center yourself before you begin to speak.
- Then, as you deliver your ideas, stay focused on and connected to your audience. Remember, you’re doing this for their benefit!
- Finally, at the end of your speech, don’t drop your energy or slink offstage. Take pride in your effort, and give it a big finish.
There are many other tips on this site that will help you deliver a great presentation — but the bottom line is, don’t hold anything back!
Unless you plan to panic and run (as filmmaker Michael Bay once did), now is the time to go for what you know!
Your attitude of confidence and pride (whether it’s real or an imitation that you’ve practiced) will convince the audience of your expertise — and more importantly, it will convince YOU that you’re going to make a successful, confident presentation.
You’re ready — now go for it!

Buy 100 Top Public Speaking Tips: The Book!
In 25 years of speaker coaching, I’ve helped my individual speaker coaching clients develop their strengths and skills to become authentic and effective communicators.
Along the way, I’ve developed tips for everything from small talk to speaking up in meetings, from managing fear to making an impact.
And now, I’ve shared it all in 100 Top Public Speaking Tips: The Book. This beautifully designed PDF booklet is searchable, clickable, and categorized, so that you can find what you need, instantly.