If you caught the postgame coverage of the World Series this week, you might have seen Chevrolet executive Rikk Wilde botching his post-game presentation in which he gave Chevy pickup keys to series MVP, Madison Bumgarner. Wilde, who was visibly nervous and sweating, lost his breath, something that happens when you’re nervous, particularly when speaking. After unsuccessfully searching for guidance from his notes, Wilde fumbled out, “It combines class-winning and leading, you know, technology and stuff, with Wi-Fi powered by OnStar.” And all of this happened on national television.
I’ve given hundreds of speeches, presentations and interviews in my career. There’s plenty I’m not good at, but when talking, I’m almost never nervous. But I can still remember the few times that I’ve lost my breath during one of them. Sometimes you don’t even see it coming. But the nervousness hits you like, well, a Chevy truck and the next thing you know, you’re out of breath. The nervousness just escalates from there, and it can be nearly impossible to recover.
Unless you stop and take a deep breath.
In those moments when you just can’t catch your breath and your nerves are getting the best of you, the best way to calm yourself and get back to neutral is to take a deep breath. If you’re not on live national television, you can even sip a glass of water to buy a little time. But even Rikk could have just ad-libbed—“That game was so exciting, I’m still trying to catch my breath!” One long breath and he would have won back both his breath and his audience.
You can even prepare an emergency time-buying phrase ahead of time. People tend to be on your side when you’re nervous and you own it:
“I guess Steinbeck really has an effect on me, especially when talking about him in front of my English class.”
“I can see every key executive in the company is in this room. Let me catch my breath so I can get this presentation right.”
“I promise I won’t be as nervous in my college classes as I seem to be during this college interview.”
The deep breath and subsequent exhale only take about 3-4 seconds. It might feel awkwardly long when you do it. But even the shortest of audience attention spans can hang in there for 3-4 seconds. And the pause itself will never be as awkward as a breathless presentation will be.