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In this podcast, we talk about how to overcome your fear of public speaking.

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So Michelle and I get to do it all the time now, but we share our tips and tricks on how

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to overcome those initial nerves that you may have. We also talk about techniques for remembering

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the presentation and just different ways of applying your story and your craft. That wasn't

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a very good introduction, so I'm going to stop the record. No, I'll keep going. Sometimes you

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make mistakes when you're presenting. Who cares? Just tell your audience that you made a mistake

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and move on. So I hope you enjoy this podcast. There's some pearls of wisdom in there that can

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help you with your next presentation or speech. Cheers. Why did it count backwards?

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We're now recording. What? Hello, Captain.

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What do I say? Come fly with me. Let's fly. Let's fly away.

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What are we going to talk about? I don't know. So leadership, life and everything else.

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And we're live from the Gold Coast. We're recording from the Gold Coast.

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Okay, we're recording from there. Hey, Michelle, how are you doing? Good. How are you? Yeah, very

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good. I got to watch one of your keynotes yesterday. Oh, I think it was amazing. Yeah,

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you had them right from the start. It was brilliant. And so it got us thinking about what

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topic we could do a podcast on and we came up with? Yeah, the fear of public speaking.

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And I had yesterday, people were coming up to me and asking me, how could I do it and not be

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nervous, not be anxious, not shake and things. And so yeah, it got us thinking. Yeah, I get that all

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the time. Oh, I couldn't do what you do. But what they don't realize is that I started out with a

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morbid fear of public speaking. That's right. You do. Anyway, so we're going to talk about

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our techniques for overcoming fear, how we, what we do and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And what's

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actually happening when you have that fear of public speaking standing up in front of a crowd.

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That's it. All right. So after watching you yesterday, you look so poised and elegant and

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in control on stage. Tell me your secret. What do you do? Oh, so because they're my stories, I

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actually am in the story when I'm telling it. So I don't have to memorize anything because I see it

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as a movie. And yeah, I'm just telling the movie as I see it where I am. So it's like the audience

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become my friends and it's just a conversation. So the analogy I use rather than being in the

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spotlight, which that would make me nervous that if I had to stand up and perform and I thought

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that everybody was looking at me and judging me, scoring me, that would make me anxious. That would

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make me nervous. However, I have more of the thought that I am a lighthouse and not saying I'm a beacon,

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but I'm telling my story and it's landing on the audience and they're then creating the story in

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their own mind. So they're becoming part of that story. So they're not actually judging me because

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they're hearing the story and then that story becomes a movie in their mind. I like it. So

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you're not in the spotlight, they're in the spotlight. That's it. So you're sending the story out there,

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which is the light. And then they get to choose how they see that light. Is that what you're saying?

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Yeah, that's right. And so yeah, they're no longer seeing me, they're putting themselves in that

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story. And I'm just the one that's projecting that story, telling that story. Well, it really

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resonates because people aren't really thinking about you on stage. They're thinking about themselves

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through your story. Most people think that when you're up there that you're being judged and you're

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in the spotlight and all that sort of stuff, but it's the opposite. People are listening to you

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and putting your information into their own story, into their own life, into their own perspective.

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So I like that analogy. You're the lighthouse at the front and the spotlight is the story. And then

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they get to choose how they see that light. Yeah. And look, I understand. Actually, we were discussing

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it a little while ago and you were saying about the chemicals that are released. It's that the same

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sensations, the same chemicals are released in the brain, the same physical responses are triggered,

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whether it's anxiety or excitement. Yeah. So they're very similar. So when you're feeling fear

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and your body produces adrenocorticotropic hormone and... Yeah, I was saying that yesterday and

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stumbling over it, but so were the audience. It's not an easy word. Adrenocorticotropic hormone.

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Yes. But the same sort of chemicals come into your body when you're feeling fear as you do when you're

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feeling excitement. It's maybe in different levels, et cetera. I don't know the exact science behind

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it, but for many, many years, I've been saying to people that those feelings that you're feeling,

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they're the exact same chemicals that you get when you're feeling excited. So just label it as

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excitement rather than labeling it as fear and then let your body move towards it rather than

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moving away from it. So instead of a fight or flight response, you move towards it because

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you're excited to do it. Yeah. Well, the adrenocorticotropic hormone.

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Well done, you did it. So adrenoadrenaline, cortico, cortisol, and what it is. So adrenaline,

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you know, we get excited and what adrenaline, its job is in the body is to agitate the body

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and focus the mind. Yeah. Get you moving away from danger quickly. That's it. So your laser

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focus on getting away from danger and your limbs are ready. They're, you know, a fight or flight.

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Yeah, the blood going to your periphery. That's it. So, you know, if you're in a line and you have to

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say your name and then something about yourself, if you're at the beginning of the line, one of the

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first, it's kind of easy because there's no expectation, but the further along the line,

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it's building up in your mind. That's right. You're not listening to what the other people

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are saying because you're trying to remember what's my name, what's my name. You know your name.

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You know what you do, but as the anxiety is building and if you think about the adrenaline,

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your body is armed and it's been armed for so much longer. And so it's almost this,

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I can't, I've got to keep concentrating. I've got to keep concentrating.

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Can we do a little sideways, what do you call it? A little segue off to the side. I went to a

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workshop recently where I was a participant rather than the facilitator. And at the end,

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we do a big circle and we share our insights, what we got out of it and all that sort of stuff. And

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me many, many years ago would have been doing exactly that whilst everyone else is giving their

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feedback and what they got out of the workshop. I'd be thinking about what am I going to say?

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Am I going to sound intelligent? Am I going to look poised? And I'd spend the whole time,

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if I wasn't going to be the first, if I was the last person, thinking about what I was going to

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say and not listening to the other participants. But I found it really interesting. This was only

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a couple of weekends ago, I was sitting there in the circle and as people were telling their stories

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and what they got out of the workshop, I was really present with them. And I was doing this

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intentionally because I could feel that old me coming out and trying to say, hey, you've got to

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prepare for what you're going to say. You're up soon, you're up soon. But I was able to just sit

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there and listen to each person's story and reflect on what they're getting out of it. And I also

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learned from their takeaways. So I'm now taking more out of the whole workshop because I'm listening

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to their stories and I was really present with them and feeling and hearing what they're saying.

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And when it came to my turn, because I hadn't really spent so much time building it up inside

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myself, what came out of me was exactly what I would have wanted to have said, because I was

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just present with the thoughts and the feelings and the emotions in the time. So yeah.

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Delaying the start of the line to you.

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Yeah, exactly. It started with me. No, it didn't start with me. But I got to listen. I got to

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listen and pay attention to everyone else and being present in that moment. So I love when

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you're on stage and you're telling your stories, because I look around the audience and I see them

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really going on that journey with you. And you can see that their eyes aren't 100% focused all of the

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time on you. They're actually in their head thinking about their own lives and what your

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lessons can give them. And so people aren't really focusing on the speaker. They're focusing on

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themselves and themselves within the speaker's story.

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Yeah. And when I see the eyes glaze over, I initially thought, oh my goodness, I'm boring

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them to tears. And they're just like thinking about what they've got to do next week or their

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shopping list. But the feedback that I receive after the talk is people say, I relate to that

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because this happened to me or this. And so I've realised that, okay, there may be some who are

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thinking about their shopping list, but mostly, and I like to think that they are putting

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themselves in that story, in that situation relating.

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And that's a good thing to think about when you're going into your presentations, when you're

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going into your speeches or whatever it is you're doing, that people aren't going to be really

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looking and thinking about you. They're looking and thinking about themselves through you, which is a

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great mindset to go into.

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So I love your lighthouse analogy. I guess it's probably the same thing, but the way I describe

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it is when I'm on stage or in a classroom, it's not about me. So I'm there and I'm the

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conduit of the information. So I focus on the information, the information coming through me

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and out to the audience. And what I'm thinking about the whole time is how do I make this

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relatable to the audience? And I focus on the information. So I'm just there to be the channel,

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the conduit through which the information passes, whether it be learning or my story or

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whatever it is. And so that my job is to get the information into a format that the audience can

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resonate with, take in, learn their lessons. They've got the context that's required.

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And that's all I'm focusing on. And it's interesting, having done it for a while now,

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I can actually- Over 30 years, yes.

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Oh yeah. I'm old. But I sit there and I've got this, and this happened because of COVID. I did

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a lot of meditation through COVID. I'm talking. I can hear myself talking. I'm observing myself

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talking. I'm also at the same time thinking about what I'm going to say in a couple of sentences

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time. But I'm also then thinking about what does the audience need? And so what context

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that they need to understand the messaging or whatever it is. And I've found that that over

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time has become a really lovely experience to be so outside of-

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In tune as well? Yeah. I don't know.

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Yeah, maybe in tune, but just out of my ego. It's not about me. I'm not even there. I'm just

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observing the information that I'm sharing, the lessons. So if I've read a great book and I'm

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passing on that knowledge, or if I've listened to a fantastic speech somewhere else and I want to

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share that story, or if I'm sharing my story, I'm really just focusing on the information. So the

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information is just flowing through me and I'm trying to put it into a way that the audience

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understands. And that has freed me up. I've been doing this for a long time. I don't feel

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fear anymore. I feel nothing but pure excitement. But that's why I do it. So I'm going to maybe

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start using your lighthouse analogy. You're the lighthouse. You're just sending the information

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out there. You're shining the information onto the audience and then the audience gets to take that

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in and everyone's lives are different. So they're all going to be taking it in in different ways.

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Yeah. Well, I still get nervous in those days. Excited. That's right. I do get excited. But I

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now, and I have a bit of a routine, which I know other people do. A friend of ours, she has one

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particular song that she uses to hype herself. I have basically Pitbull. Any Pitbull songs. I just

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yeah, kind of dance around. Which one? Which Pitbull song? Oh, all of them. I just have the

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playlist going whilst I'm getting ready. And it reminds me of when I was younger getting ready for

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B&S balls in the country. And we'd have music playing and you'd get hyped and you'd be,

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then we'd have to get in the car and drive for an hour and a half up to four hours to the B&S ball.

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Playing music the whole way. Playing music the whole way. But you were-

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Aren't you exhausted by the time you get there? Four hours later?

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Yeah, pretty well. But it was, yeah, because there were a group of us, always a car load or a

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ute load going up. And it was fun. And you were just so pumped and psyched by the time you got

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there. And that was yesterday, getting ready. I had my Pitbull playlist happening and I was

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getting dressed and jumping around and then doing sound checks and jumping around and hyping up the

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other people in the room as well. Because then that energy, as soon as the delegates come in,

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they can feel the energy and its excitement rather than that, oh, getting comfortable and

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maybe going to sleep. Yeah. So you were talking about Heidi there, weren't you?

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I was. Yeah. So one of our friends, Heidi, she's a fabulous keynote speaker. And so she,

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in the green room when she's getting ready to go up on stage, she's dancing around and she's very

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energetic. And we were talking to her. She's got a technique that we teach is that before you get to

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the front of the stage, start talking. So you don't talk when you get to the front of the stage. You

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start talking as you're going onto the stage. We're now calling it doing a Heidi, don't we?

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Doing a Heidi. So that's the technique. So yeah, you start talking before you get there. And so it

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feels like you're just having a conversation as you're walking up onto stage. A lot of people,

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what they do is they walk out to the center of the stage or wherever they're going to be doing their

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presentation at work. And they're silent and the audience is silent. And then it's building up

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that tension and then they stand there and they're looking at the audience. Whereas Heidi,

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and I didn't know I did this for years, you just start talking. As soon as you're standing up,

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you start talking, hey, hey, hey, everyone, how you doing? And then it's a conversation rather than

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a point at time where you're starting a presentation. Yes.

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Do you have any other techniques or confidence boosting stuff? I like using,

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we've spoken about Amy Cuddy before on the podcast. She did a fantastic TED Talk on

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body language and how body language relates to the power pose and all that sort of stuff.

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Tony Robbins does it as well. Yes. So I always use my body language to make myself feel confident.

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So I never sit down looking at my notes. I'm always walking around standing up. In fact,

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I try and stand off to the side when people are introducing me and just be as tall as I can be so

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that when I get on stage, I'm already feeling confident. Do you do something like that?

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Yeah. My mom is a trained kinesiologist and she always, well, she told me about a technique

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where you have your two fingers, two, four fingers and you put it at your hairline basically for

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those that have hairlines that are at the back of the head. Basically four, four. What if you're a

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Ken? If he listens to this, I think I'm in trouble. So basically four fingers up from your eyebrows.

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Yeah. Two fingers on that point and then your thumb on the absolute apex of your skull.

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And if you hold that for 10 seconds, whether it's real or not, this is in kinesiology,

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this is, and it channels you. And so it's almost like a grounding. So your scattered thinking

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ceases. And again, it's a technique. There are different techniques.

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I've got another technique similar to that. It's not putting your fingers on your head,

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but you take a big, deep breath and you ask yourself. So this is when you just want to get

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centered. You just want to get the internal chatter out. You take a big, deep breath and you

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ask yourself this question. I wonder what thought my brain is going to bring forward next. And

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because you've asked that question and you're now wondering what the next thought is, no thought

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comes in. Because what you're doing is you're sitting there waiting for the thought and then

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no thought comes in and it just removes the chatter. It's something I only learned in the

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last couple of years. I saw somebody say it online once and I thought, I'll give it a go.

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I tried it and I just took a big, deep breath and I centered myself and said, all right, what

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thought is going to come into my brain next? That's a good technique.

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It just didn't. And my brain just went silent. It's almost like I'm expecting something

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and it doesn't come in. Yeah. I like that.

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What else can we talk about with regards to overcoming fear of public speaking? Because

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Jerry Seinfeld's got that famous joke. Have we told that one on the podcast? Possibly. We can

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tell it again. It's quite appropriate now. Nothing like repetition. Yeah. So he had this famous

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joke about, you know, public speaking is the number one fear of human beings. Number two is

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death. So he said that means that if you're at a funeral, you'd prefer to be in the coffin

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than giving the eulogy. That's it. Well, a segue on what you just said is that

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when you... One way to diminish the anxiety is to practice. So even when I was flying,

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you would armchair practice. You could visualize you were going through the motions of what you

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needed to say, what you needed to consider your hands, which switches they were flicking,

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et cetera. Mental preparation. Mental preparation. So if you do the same and you practice,

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that doesn't mean practice to death word by word. You could write it long form if that's your style

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and then bring it back to point form. But if you can... For me, I put it in a movie in my head.

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So I see the visual of it. And that way I don't need to remember the words necessarily unless

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it's a specific fact that I'm trying to convey or get across. Like Adreno cortico tropico.

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Adreno cortico tropico. That's right. And I keep going Adreno cortico tropico or tropical.

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That's because you're about to end and you're thinking about some cocktail that you made years

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ago. Well, I'm thinking convergence zone. So you know, on the equator there. So that's how I

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remember it. But yeah, so... I'm going to wait for you to say Adreno cortico convergence zone

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in the future. This is going to be fun. But that's... So yeah, the preparation.

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Yeah. The mental preparation. Just on that, because a lot of people

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I've trained over the years, what they do is they write out word for word their speech,

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but then they leave it like that and they read it a thousand times. That's a big mistake because

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if you write out your speech word for word and you keep reading it over and over and over again,

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you're telling your brain that this is exactly how it has to happen word for word in that order.

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That's very dangerous because you're putting under pressure on yourself. Remembering something word

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for word takes months of rehearsals to be able to do that. So actors do this. Actors recite their

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lines again and again and again over a long period of time so that they're saying those exact words.

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Good actors know how to change and adjust, et cetera. But what you're best off doing,

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if you are going to write it out word for word, do that, read it a few times, but then distill it

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down into the key points because when you're speaking from points, you're going to flow.

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Yes. Yeah. You're more relaxed. It's like yesterday when you were in your story. I was

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just watching you. I was watching the audience. They were captivated because you weren't thinking

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about the exact words that you needed to say. You were just seeing the story in your head and that

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got you into flow. I was watching all of these people just with their eyes wide open, their mouths

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slightly open, listening to your story. It just kept on reminding me of what we've already spoken

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about on this podcast is that storytelling is the most powerful way to share information with other

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people because when you were in the story and you were in your zone, the audience was in there,

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and everyone was captivated. I loved watching that. And so too many people write out word for word

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what they want to say and forget about them turning it into just a bullet point list of stories that

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they're going to say. Yeah. I think also recording it. So when you practice just on your phone,

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voice record with your points. And I don't like the sound of my own voice, but you get to hear,

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maybe not that, or I waffled here. What message am I actually trying to convey that doesn't,

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you know, it's really hard for someone to find it in amongst whatever I've just said. So it's,

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yeah, it's a great technique to hear yourself and to really tighten it up. To, yeah, maybe hone the

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craft of what message, or maybe you can see that you're not actually delivering a message. It's

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just a story. Yeah. How do you remember your presentations? Do you have any techniques?

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I do. I have, actually, I was just thinking of that. So, and I know you do the same. We have

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our slides have images. They're just pictures. They're just pictures. Are there any words?

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That's right. So attaching, so again, the movie, I am very visual, especially with my art training.

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I, a picture is, you know, tells a thousand words. And that's, if I see the image, then I know the

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story. You remember the story. Yeah. I love your images, you know, all of the pictures from up in

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the, up in the plane and looking at through the cockpit and stuff. Yeah. I love those. I use a,

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I use the slides as well. So I've got a lot of pictures, you know, just images, photos, but I

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also do a similar thing using a memory technique. So let's say I have to remember nine small stories

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in a presentation. I did this recently. I did a 10 minute kind of, not so much a keynote, but a

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speech, a story. And I'd split it up into little chunks. And it was very much like a detective

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story where you had to pin clues to a board and then link them with string. And I wanted to muck

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around with it. You saw it. Yeah. And so each story I had a little picture for, and then I

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attached that picture to a part of my body. There's other techniques you can use. So for example,

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let's say you're talking about your very first kiss or something like that. You might put a big

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set of red lips on the top of your head and just imagine that there's a big set of red lips on top

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of your head. So you think, all right, I'm talking about my first kiss. And then in that particular

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story, I spoke about that I was in a circus, right? And so I put some juggling balls on my

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eyebrows and then I might have next spoken about how I was a unicyclist. So I'd balance a unicycle

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on my nose. And so now when I'm doing the presentation and I want to tell those stories,

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I just look on the top of my head, inside my mind, oh, there's a pair of lips. Oh, I'm going to talk

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about my first kiss. And then, you know, on my eyebrows, oh, there's some juggling balls. I'm

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going to talk about juggling. And then on my nose, look, there's a unicycle I'm going to talk about

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when I was a unicyclist. So you can actually attach things to your body, start from the top,

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go down to your feet. And you could do a presentation, I do this all the time, but

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a presentation for five hours and just go from your head to your eyebrows to your eyes to your

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nose to your ears to your mouth to your shoulders to your chest to your waist. And you can just put

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random things there and just see it, see the lips on your head, see the unicycle hanging off your

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nose or whatever it is. I think the more ridiculous as well and not logical that

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it's easier to remember. And that suits me because I'm silly all the time. So if you want to remember

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a presentation, don't write it down. Just whack pictures on your body. Or you could do something

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in your house. So there's an old technique called the Roman Rue method or the loci method where,

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you know, just go into your lounge room, pick five things in your lounge room and stick five random

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things in those locations. So if you've got a couch, put the pair of lips on the couch. If you've

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got a television, whack some juggling balls on top of the television so you can do the same thing in

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the house. Unicycle in the fishbowl. That's it. Yeah. Or see your fish riding the unicycle. Yeah.

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So anyway, there's a technique that a lot of professional speakers use. They use a visual

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technique to remember. That's a great one. I like that.

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Well, before we wrap up this podcast, any other tips you can give speakers from your perspective?

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Water. Water. Lots of water. Yes, lots of water. Brain juice. Brain juice. Yeah, I agree. So this,

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that story that I was just telling you about where I broke it up into little things,

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because it was the first time I've done it, I was really excited and the same chemicals come into

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your body when you're excited to when you're nervous. And I found my mouse going dry for the

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first time in about 10 years while I was speaking. That's good. I actually enjoyed that. I enjoyed it.

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My body's going, hey, this is new. Let's make this fun. So I was very excited doing it, but yeah,

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water. Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel it just, yeah, it's a lubricant for your brain. Yeah.

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If you speak a lot, I've also found that cold water's not a good idea. When I first started

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training many years ago, I started to lose my voice on say day three or day four of training

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every day in a row. And so what I started to do is drink either warm water with lemon, if you want

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to give it some flavor, or just weak cups of tea. If it was coffee, I'd be jittery. I'd drink a lot

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of coffee, but that'd be too much. So yeah, just warm water because cold water constricts your vocal

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cords. Yes. Okay. That's a good tip. I maybe should have used that yesterday because after I did the

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keynote, I then did a workshop. And so yeah, I was talking a lot, but yeah. Maybe some warm water,

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a cup of tea. Maybe I need to bring the tea to you next time. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Cool. All right.

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So in summary, you're a lighthouse. I'm a lighthouse. Yeah. I'm a conduit of information. And

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hopefully, any of these tips might make you feel more comfortable. The leaders that we're talking

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to, more comfortable about getting up and giving a presentation or calming the nerves, changing your

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perspective from anxiety to excitement. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's a gift to be able to

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be up on stage or in front of a group of people and share information. Well, it would be bad luck

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if the information that you have, you weren't able to gift to your audience. So yeah, everybody has

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a story in them. Everybody has information and something that somebody wants to hear. So yeah,

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just don't feel that you're on the spot, but you're helping other people by telling your story.

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Exactly. Now Bollinger, we're still waiting. We're still waiting. We do enjoy your bubbles,

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but where's the email? Bose, we spoke about you recently. Bose, come on, get in touch.

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At the moment, I think we're being sponsored by coffee.

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Yes, I'd say we are. More dogs. Or we sponsor coffee.

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More dogs. We think the world would be a better place with more dogs.

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Absolutely. I'm wearing the t-shirt now.

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We have merchandise if you're interested. You can go to our website at

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captainandtheclown.com.au. Where you can buy t-shirts and caps.

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I think it's dot com. Is it dot com? Yeah, it's dot com.

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Yeah, we didn't do the dot au. We're global. We're global, Michelle.

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Captainandtheclown.com. Yeah. Well, great to see you again. And

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thank you for letting me watch your keynote yesterday. That was enthralling.

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You're welcome. Thanks for coming. Okay. Have a great week.

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Bye. Cheers.

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Well, that was fun. That was fun.

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You're such a clown. The Clown. Lady Captain.

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And who's going to listen to this? Maybe our moms.

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Thanks, mom.