This gets a big NOPE from me. I’m terrified of it. Good luck!
I don't think I've ever "spoken" before a large audience before. I've performed in plays, concerts and live solo skits, though. Never had any anxiety over it. You usually can't even see the audience due to the stage lights, but if you can; I'd hope you'd be paying more attention to what you're doing than the audience is, even if you're riffing off them. And if you are riffing off them, then they're part of your performance and should easily be assimilated in your "flow" anyway.
That said, I assume public speaking requires a greater level of audience interaction (perhaps less than skits). But the audience you'll be interacting with is probably a bunch of suits eating their lunch, so my advice is...don't do it on an empty stomach. 
After twenty years of teaching I’m still nervous about speaking to adults. I can talk to children all day but when I have to talk in front of adults it can be nerve racking.
robio said:I'm not really scared of doing them these days. My fear of public speaking days are behind me. My only rule is to try not to over prepare, and just keep things to bullet points. If I'm familiar enough with the subject, that's all I'm going to need. over the years of doing it, I've learned that the more I prepare the more will go wrong and I will only panic is I try to find my place or get back on script.
That's good advice. I was going to go overboard, but I think I'll stick with just recording the speech and listening to it on my commute. That has worked wonders in the past.
Dvader said:This gets a big NOPE from me. I’m terrified of it. Good luck!
travo said:After twenty years of teaching I’m still nervous about speaking to adults. I can talk to children all day but when I have to talk in front of adults it can be nerve racking.
That's the reaciotn I get from a lot of people, ranging from uncomfortable to absolute nightmare. I guess we're al made different. I just love talking to people, even thought I am an introvert. I guess, as long as I have a "role" I am comfortable in any situation. But if it's me, just me, at a party or anything I really get anxious about it (until I can develop a role for the situation).
Foolz said:I don't think I've ever "spoken" before a large audience before. I've performed in plays, concerts and live solo skits, though. Never had any anxiety over it. You usually can't even see the audience due to the stage lights, but if you can; I'd hope you'd be paying more attention to what you're doing than the audience is, even if you're riffing off them. And if you are riffing off them, then they're part of your performance and should easily be assimilated in your "flow" anyway.
That said, I assume public speaking requires a greater level of audience interaction (perhaps less than skits). But the audience you'll be interacting with is probably a bunch of suits eating their lunch, so my advice is...don't do it on an empty stomach.
But I always have an empty stomach! I was thinking maybe having a couple of drinks before hand (it's an afternoon speech (yes in front of a bunch of suits).
I would be scared of telling a controversial joke or observation that would get me in trouble.
I don't have to speak before a public often, but I have found that I'm more nervous speaking before people I know than before strangers.
Through the years I have also learned that it serves no purpose to be nervous for anything, no matter how bad it seems. Whatever said thing is, it'll take only a few minutes, or an hour, or a day, ... and in the end life just goes on afterwards. That doesn't mean I can't be nervous for something the day when it's due, but I can honestly say that I'm never nervous anymore for days on end.
^Great part about getting old. You realize nothing matters. When I said that when I was 16 I was an nihilist. Now I'm zen for saying the same thing.
Guiseppi Verdi, "All the world is a joke, we're all idiots" (Fallstaff). Not that some dude who writes opera knows it all, and I hate myself for loving opera, so well, you know, cut me some slack dudes.
I think a lot of the games people enjoy are operatice - metal gear solid, devil may cry, bayonetta. All good opera in my eyes.
aspro said:^Great part about getting old. You realize nothing matters. When I said that when I was 16 I was an nihilist. Now I'm zen for saying the same thing.
Guiseppi Verdi, "All the world is a joke, we're all idiots" (Fallstaff). Not that some dude who writes opera knows it all, and I hate myself for loving opera, so well, you know, cut me some slack dudes.
I think a lot of the games people enjoy are operatice - metal gear solid, devil may cry, bayonetta. All good opera in my eyes.
2 thoughts: when you're sixteen you're supposed to be naive and optimistic. When you're as old as you are now, it's ok to already have given up on everything.
Secondly, I've had an itch to go watch an opera myself. What could you recommend as an entry point into the wonderfull world of opera?
aspro said:^Great part about getting old. You realize nothing matters. When I said that when I was 16 I was an nihilist. Now I'm zen for saying the same thing.
Guiseppi Verdi, "All the world is a joke, we're all idiots" (Fallstaff). Not that some dude who writes opera knows it all, and I hate myself for loving opera, so well, you know, cut me some slack dudes.
I think a lot of the games people enjoy are operatice - metal gear solid, devil may cry, bayonetta. All good opera in my eyes.
l believe this is what they mean when they say people grow more conservative as they age.
Games as opera, absolutely. This is precisely why philistines 1) arbitrarily separate gameplay movements from narrative 2) and as a result do not understand how good videogame melodrama often is.
SupremeAC said:2 thoughts: when you're sixteen you're supposed to be naive and optimistic. When you're as old as you are now, it's ok to already have given up on everything.
Secondly, I've had an itch to go watch an opera myself. What could you recommend as an entry point into the wonderfull world of opera?
Not going to the opera but listening to and/or watching some classic performances instead. Billy Budd is by far and away the greatest modern opera, and the film version was overseen by Britten; there are also two recordings conducted by him, both of which are worth listening to, but if you can only listen to one, then go for the later one featuring his revised the composition. I can also recommend versions of Carmen, Don Giovanni and The Barber of Seville if you're interested, but I don't know how widely available they are today.
Also, I'm not Aspro, and none of this really answers your question, so my apologies.
So in about 2 weeks I have to get up in front of about 200 people and give a 30-40 minute presentation (people I don't know).
Now my podcasting experience helps here, and quite frankly, I've always enjoyed a public stage, so it's not entirely consuming my every silent moement, but in fact, I've been struggling coming up with my material for this audience.
If it were gaming related, I'd probably riff for that amount of time, but again, it's not like my partner podcast host Foolz is there with me to help carry the weight, so I've been kinda stressed about it. I've only this weekend started to massage the speech, and feeling about 30% better about it.
The reality is when I am in front of an audience I come up with improvised thoughts and jokes that I otherwise could not have anticipated, and the audiences lap it up. But I never factor that in when preparing for a speech.
So what are your experiences with doing stand-up performances? And if you have not, what's been the thing that you fear about them?