Confidence is often shaped by the environment you're in. The way you feel, behave, and perform shifts depending on your surroundings. So how can you develop belief in yourself, no matter the environment?
The key is exposure. By visiting as many environments as you can, especially those that pressure you, you start to build comfort within them. You don’t need to conquer every situation—just focus on the ones that generate the most pressure. Once you're comfortable in the most intense environments, the lower-pressure situations will feel like a breeze. If you only practice in safe, familiar spaces, you'll struggle when faced with a hostile or unfamiliar environment.
This shift in performance is rooted in perception. The issue isn’t about getting better at speaking; it’s about learning to maintain your level despite a change in environment.
To perform under pressure, you need to stop thinking and start trusting yourself. Flow is about losing yourself in the moment and acting without hesitation. You've been speaking your entire life; you don’t need training to speak—you need training to speak under pressure.
When people blank while speaking, they often don’t know how to recover. The goal is to reach a point where it doesn’t matter if you’re speaking to a CEO or a family member—you respond with ease. This is where Ultraspeaking comes in. It’s a sport, and like any sport, it requires practice. You have to practice starting sentences before you know where they’ll end, pausing under pressure, and navigating the adrenaline rush. The more you practice these skills, the more you convince your brain that it can handle the unknown.
Confidence isn’t just a feeling—it’s built from your past experiences. It’s the ability to say, "I’ve got this," and actually believe it, because you’ve proven it to yourself time and time again. Confidence is earned by putting yourself in challenging situations, experiencing failure, and learning to recover. After enough repetitions, you can say, "I’ve got this," even in the toughest situations, and your body and mind will step out of the way.
To feel more comfortable under pressure, your practice must mirror your competition. If you want to get better at public speaking, you can’t just read about it—you have to practice speaking under pressure. Simulate competition in a safe environment, and when the real moment arrives, it won’t feel any different. Treat every speaking opportunity, whether it’s a casual conversation or a high-stakes investor pitch, with the same mindset.
One simple but effective skill is ending strong. People remember the end of experiences more vividly than the beginning. When gymnasts finish a routine, they stand confidently, regardless of what happened during the routine, because that strong finish influences how the audience perceives their performance. Similarly, when you end a speech, end with clarity and confidence. Even if you feel uncertain inside, the audience will only see the confidence you project.
In Ultraspeaking training, it’s critical to never break character, even if you feel lost. The games are designed to challenge you, and if you give up, you miss the opportunity to recover. The ability to recover when things get tough in training builds the same resilience for when you’re under pressure in real situations. Stay in character, and on game day, no matter how challenging it gets, you’ll recover.
When you feel like you’re about to lose control, pause. Take a breath. Pausing gives you time to reconnect with your message and settle your mind and body. This habit is hard to develop because we’re so accustomed to speeding up when we feel uncomfortable, trying to rush through the difficult moment. But confident speakers pause. Silence is powerful, and when you pause, it allows the audience to digest what you’ve said and build their own mental world around your words.