It's hard

Tyla Wynn is a porn star. On Jan. 8 she won an award for "excellence in a multi-person scene” at an adult film industry convention in Las Vegas for Too Hot to Handle, one of 150 movies she made in 2005 in which she presumably did all manner of things with all manner of folks while wearing little or no clothes.

But when it came to accepting the award on stage (fully clothed) before 3,000 people, Wynn was clearly nervous. "Speaking in front of people is hard,” she told a reporter. I’ll avoid the obvious pun here but suffice to say it’s not easy even for, ahem, professional performers to speak before crowds of people.

Wynn isn’t alone. Rapper turned business executive Jay-Z had to give a presentation to a group of recording industry executives last summer. "When you’re on stage it’s like, ‘What’s up Cleveland? Wave your hands in the air, say ho,’” he told a reporter afterward. "But to stand in front of people and give a speech and talk about the things you’re trying to do, it’s not easy.”

No it’s not but as Jay-Z steers his $1 billion record label and ponders taking the helm of Island/Def Jam Records he’s going to be giving a lot of speeches.

I’ve coached hundreds of business executives – and the occasional celebrity – in the past several years and it’s safe to say that people at all levels of the corporate and entertainment worlds have the same fears and often make the same mistakes when speaking publicly.

The good news is that there’s an easy cure and it involves two things many people possess: commitment and a video camera.

If you want to give a fabulous speech you have to practice early and practice often. Some people can wing it and succeed, but chances are you will have to work at it, and videotaping your practice sessions does two valuable things.

1. It lets you see yourself as others see you – an often humbling experience that sanity checks both messages and messenger. It can be extremely tough to watch. But there’s nothing like it for making your speech better.

2. It’s also a terrific note taker that allows you to capture stories, analogies, and examples, and arrange them in a logical flow. We’re all better speakers when we’re telling stories.

It’s perfectly natural for you to prefer crawling across a bed of nails than watching yourself on tape. Get over it. Because ultimately it’s arrogant to think that video can make everyone better except you. It’s not complicated, but as rappers, actors, and porn stars well know, some things in life are just hard.

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