How to conquer your fear of public speaking

Somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of my psyche is a memory I wish wasn't there. I am standing on a stage in front of about a hundred worried-looking people, about to make a toast, a glass in my right hand, a few witty words written down on a sheet of paper in my left. As I look at the audience, my left hand starts to shake with nerves. I appear to be fanning my face – now crimsoning with embarrassment – with the sheet of paper. I can't use the other hand to hold it still because it&

Glossophobia. Fear of public speaking. It affects nearly all of us. Ninety-five per cent if you want to get statistical.

"You should see Dilly," said a friend, when I told him about that psyche-scarring toast. "She'll sort you out. She's the best there is." At 725 for two intensive, two-hour sessions, one wouldn't expect anything less – although for the revolutionary new internet business she is launching this month her fees start at a quarter of this. Dilly's blog, talkaboutspeaking.com, offers a great deal of her glossophobia-busting secrets for free.

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Dilly is Cordelia Ditton. A former actress, she now runs a company, voicebusiness, based at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. For the last 15 years she has been teaching a swathe of Scotland's top business people – and a whole host of others, from advocates to politicians – to speak nervelessly in public.

Last month I found myself on the empty stage of Glasgow's Mitchell Theatre talking to her. I told her all about that nightmare memory – that toast where I was toast – how it had all started so well, how I'd had a drink to relax, how the room was full of goodwill, how everyone was on my side. And how, when I suddenly turned to face the audience, nerves got the better of me. My children (who were there too) call me Old Shaky to this day.

So how do you solve a problem like Old Shaky? Well, if you're Dilly, you start off with reassurance. Faced with a sea of faces, she points out, nerves are only a natural reaction, but there are ways of anchoring yourself against them, small exercises you can do to arm your body against its entirely normal "flight" response; relaxation techniques that can shake out the nerves, sweep out tensions in the shoulders, arms, neck and face; exercises that warm up the vocal chords.

On the Mitchell Theatre's empty stage we go through them. My friend was right: she is good. I'm naturally cynical about psychobabble and the dopey jargon of so many self-help books, but Dilly's teaching is free of all that and resolutely practical. She can't transform my character, she says, she can't make me one of that oh-so-fortunate super-confident five per cent who might never worry about speaking in public. What she can do, however, is go through a checklist of exercises that will fool the body into getting the brain not to panic at the sight of a sea of expectant faces.

There's an immediate purpose to all of this. On the last day of Glasgow's Aye Write! book festival, I'm down to chair three author events. Because I'm this newspaper's books editor, I've done this sort of thing before. But for the final event – chairing David Aaronovitch talking about conspiracy theories – I decide to make things harder for myself. I write a jokey, Clive Anderson-type introduction. Like Old Shaky's toast jokes, it reads well on the computer screen. When I went over it with Dilly, I suddenly realised its major flaw. Clive Anderson has got comic timing. I haven't.

Still, Dilly likes the script, and she should know. Her first client was stand-up comedian Simon Fanshawe, who still raves about the difference she made to his act. Gradually, as we work through her exercises, their point becomes clearer. Of themselves, they might be faintly ridiculous: put them together and it's a sort of ninja training for the mind, mental defences against gabbling, drying up, losing control. Some of it starts with posture, some of it with breath. "Breathe in as if you're smelling the most beautifully scented flower," says Dilly. "Breathe out as if you're going to make the flame of a candle bend about a foot away from your mouth." Try it: it works for me.

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All of which is why, in front of a packed audience at the Mitchell Theatre, I experience a strange sensation. I'm at a lectern, introducing Aaronovitch. There are small jokes running through the marked-up script, jokes which are about timing and control and confidence. And suddenly it all seems so very easy that I wonder why I was ever worried in the first place. Laughs come where they were meant to, the most reassuring sound in the world, rolling into the punchlines like holed putts. I'd already followed all of Dilly's self-confidence tricks, but now the real thing starts to grow inside me. It's an oddly wonderful, expansive feeling.

She's in the audience, and one of the first in the book-signing queue afterwards. I introduce her to Aaronovitch. "This is Dilly Ditton," I tell him. "She's been teaching me how to do all of this." "She's done a bloody good job then," he smiles. The next man in the signing queue agrees. I get out before my head swells any further.

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Mission accomplished, she moves off. She's got far bigger challenges ahead of her than one slightly nervous books editor. Starting this week, via the internet, she's planning on Dittonising the world.

Her business partner in her new project is Kyle Macrae, Glasgow-based founder of Scoopt, the world's first citizen journalism picture agency, which was bought by Getty Images in 2007. Macrae's company, Blether Media, already produces the demonstration videos in which Dilly gives free advice on public speaking on her website, www.voicebusinesstraining.co.uk

They'll both be working together on You Talk Video (www.youtalkvideo.com), which will help companies to make the kind of short "elevator pitch" videos you often find on websites, in which they explain, as pithily and engagingly as possible, what they actually do. Or at least that's the theory: far too many are bland, dull and unfocused. The simple idea behind You Talk Video is that company presentations can be downloaded to the site, where they can be critiqued and re-edited to make them more appealing without necessarily having to go to the expense of hiring a film crew.

Although that's potentially a worldwide business, it's still only part of Ditton's tasks. Back here in Scotland, there are networking training sessions to organise, businessmen who want to learn how to talk with more gravitas, whole shoals of shyness from people from all walks of life to be dealt with. As for me, on behalf of Old Shaky, I'd like to propose a vote of thanks. A toast, even ...

Key sites: youtalkvideo.com; talkaboutspeaking.com; voicebusinesstraining.co.uk; blethermedia.co.uk Dilly Ditton can be reached at Voicebusiness, 350 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow, G2 3JD, tel: 0141-333 9331.

Tips for successful public speaking

Learn the kind of exercise actors and dancers use to dispel nerves before a performance. For example, bend forward from the waist so your head hangs freely between your arms and your hands are near the floor. Slowly straighten up to a standing position, still with your head and shoulders down. Then straighten the top of your spine, not by lifting your head, but allowing it to rise up in the movement.

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Stand correctly (ears over shoulders over hips over knees over feet).

Don't rush, either at the beginning or the end of your speech.

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Mark up your speech as an actor would, picking out the words you want to emphasise and working out where you would pause to take a breath.

Look up talkaboutspeaking.com – because all this advice and more is much better explained there.

• This Article was first published in The Scotsman on Saturday March 27, 2010

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