True confidence isn’t empty. It’s not “brass ones” or ego or faking it. Confidence lies in getting down to business. It’s in focusing on your purpose for being there. Confidence comes in forgetting yourself, in forgetting all the fears and judgments you worry* others are making about you, and in connecting strongly with your purpose.

Connect your purpose to the audience through the message, and allow your anxiety to fall by the wayside. This involves listening, parsing, knowing your audience and desired results, until your message has real purpose. When your presentation is truly all about what you need to achieve for that audience, the spotlight’s not on you anymore and the confidence flows.

Take the focus off the project of presenting and the stress of being the presenter, and put it into what needs to be said. Connect soundly with what needs to happen. What needs to be heard? What needs to be done? Believe that you are the one to say it. Own that, and let go of your fears about your personal success and failure.

What you’re trying to achieve is way more important than “how you do” at presenting. Be confident about your purpose for being there, and let the rest follow.

*They probably aren’t making the judgments you *think* they are, and frankly, your fears themselves create most of the insecurity and perception that you’re being judged.