In this podcast, we talk about how to overcome your fear of public speaking.
So Michelle and I get to do it all the time now, but we share our tips and tricks on how
to overcome those initial nerves that you may have. We also talk about techniques for remembering
the presentation and just different ways of applying your story and your craft. That wasn't
a very good introduction, so I'm going to stop the record. No, I'll keep going. Sometimes you
make mistakes when you're presenting. Who cares? Just tell your audience that you made a mistake
and move on. So I hope you enjoy this podcast. There's some pearls of wisdom in there that can
help you with your next presentation or speech. Cheers. Why did it count backwards?
We're now recording. What? Hello, Captain.
What do I say? Come fly with me. Let's fly. Let's fly away.
What are we going to talk about? I don't know. So leadership, life and everything else.
And we're live from the Gold Coast. We're recording from the Gold Coast.
Okay, we're recording from there. Hey, Michelle, how are you doing? Good. How are you? Yeah, very
good. I got to watch one of your keynotes yesterday. Oh, I think it was amazing. Yeah,
you had them right from the start. It was brilliant. And so it got us thinking about what
topic we could do a podcast on and we came up with? Yeah, the fear of public speaking.
And I had yesterday, people were coming up to me and asking me, how could I do it and not be
nervous, not be anxious, not shake and things. And so yeah, it got us thinking. Yeah, I get that all
the time. Oh, I couldn't do what you do. But what they don't realize is that I started out with a
morbid fear of public speaking. That's right. You do. Anyway, so we're going to talk about
our techniques for overcoming fear, how we, what we do and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And what's
actually happening when you have that fear of public speaking standing up in front of a crowd.
That's it. All right. So after watching you yesterday, you look so poised and elegant and
in control on stage. Tell me your secret. What do you do? Oh, so because they're my stories, I
actually am in the story when I'm telling it. So I don't have to memorize anything because I see it
as a movie. And yeah, I'm just telling the movie as I see it where I am. So it's like the audience
become my friends and it's just a conversation. So the analogy I use rather than being in the
spotlight, which that would make me nervous that if I had to stand up and perform and I thought
that everybody was looking at me and judging me, scoring me, that would make me anxious. That would
make me nervous. However, I have more of the thought that I am a lighthouse and not saying I'm a beacon,
but I'm telling my story and it's landing on the audience and they're then creating the story in
their own mind. So they're becoming part of that story. So they're not actually judging me because
they're hearing the story and then that story becomes a movie in their mind. I like it. So
you're not in the spotlight, they're in the spotlight. That's it. So you're sending the story out there,
which is the light. And then they get to choose how they see that light. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, that's right. And so yeah, they're no longer seeing me, they're putting themselves in that
story. And I'm just the one that's projecting that story, telling that story. Well, it really
resonates because people aren't really thinking about you on stage. They're thinking about themselves
through your story. Most people think that when you're up there that you're being judged and you're
in the spotlight and all that sort of stuff, but it's the opposite. People are listening to you
and putting your information into their own story, into their own life, into their own perspective.
So I like that analogy. You're the lighthouse at the front and the spotlight is the story. And then
they get to choose how they see that light. Yeah. And look, I understand. Actually, we were discussing
it a little while ago and you were saying about the chemicals that are released. It's that the same
sensations, the same chemicals are released in the brain, the same physical responses are triggered,
whether it's anxiety or excitement. Yeah. So they're very similar. So when you're feeling fear
and your body produces adrenocorticotropic hormone and... Yeah, I was saying that yesterday and
stumbling over it, but so were the audience. It's not an easy word. Adrenocorticotropic hormone.
Yes. But the same sort of chemicals come into your body when you're feeling fear as you do when you're
feeling excitement. It's maybe in different levels, et cetera. I don't know the exact science behind
it, but for many, many years, I've been saying to people that those feelings that you're feeling,
they're the exact same chemicals that you get when you're feeling excited. So just label it as
excitement rather than labeling it as fear and then let your body move towards it rather than
moving away from it. So instead of a fight or flight response, you move towards it because
you're excited to do it. Yeah. Well, the adrenocorticotropic hormone.
Well done, you did it. So adrenoadrenaline, cortico, cortisol, and what it is. So adrenaline,
you know, we get excited and what adrenaline, its job is in the body is to agitate the body
and focus the mind. Yeah. Get you moving away from danger quickly. That's it. So your laser
focus on getting away from danger and your limbs are ready. They're, you know, a fight or flight.
Yeah, the blood going to your periphery. That's it. So, you know, if you're in a line and you have to
say your name and then something about yourself, if you're at the beginning of the line, one of the
first, it's kind of easy because there's no expectation, but the further along the line,
it's building up in your mind. That's right. You're not listening to what the other people
are saying because you're trying to remember what's my name, what's my name. You know your name.
You know what you do, but as the anxiety is building and if you think about the adrenaline,
your body is armed and it's been armed for so much longer. And so it's almost this,
I can't, I've got to keep concentrating. I've got to keep concentrating.
Can we do a little sideways, what do you call it? A little segue off to the side. I went to a
workshop recently where I was a participant rather than the facilitator. And at the end,
we do a big circle and we share our insights, what we got out of it and all that sort of stuff. And
me many, many years ago would have been doing exactly that whilst everyone else is giving their
feedback and what they got out of the workshop. I'd be thinking about what am I going to say?
Am I going to sound intelligent? Am I going to look poised? And I'd spend the whole time,
if I wasn't going to be the first, if I was the last person, thinking about what I was going to
say and not listening to the other participants. But I found it really interesting. This was only
a couple of weekends ago, I was sitting there in the circle and as people were telling their stories
and what they got out of the workshop, I was really present with them. And I was doing this
intentionally because I could feel that old me coming out and trying to say, hey, you've got to
prepare for what you're going to say. You're up soon, you're up soon. But I was able to just sit
there and listen to each person's story and reflect on what they're getting out of it. And I also
learned from their takeaways. So I'm now taking more out of the whole workshop because I'm listening
to their stories and I was really present with them and feeling and hearing what they're saying.
And when it came to my turn, because I hadn't really spent so much time building it up inside
myself, what came out of me was exactly what I would have wanted to have said, because I was
just present with the thoughts and the feelings and the emotions in the time. So yeah.
Delaying the start of the line to you.
Yeah, exactly. It started with me. No, it didn't start with me. But I got to listen. I got to
listen and pay attention to everyone else and being present in that moment. So I love when
you're on stage and you're telling your stories, because I look around the audience and I see them
really going on that journey with you. And you can see that their eyes aren't 100% focused all of the
time on you. They're actually in their head thinking about their own lives and what your
lessons can give them. And so people aren't really focusing on the speaker. They're focusing on
themselves and themselves within the speaker's story.
Yeah. And when I see the eyes glaze over, I initially thought, oh my goodness, I'm boring
them to tears. And they're just like thinking about what they've got to do next week or their
shopping list. But the feedback that I receive after the talk is people say, I relate to that
because this happened to me or this. And so I've realised that, okay, there may be some who are
thinking about their shopping list, but mostly, and I like to think that they are putting
themselves in that story, in that situation relating.
And that's a good thing to think about when you're going into your presentations, when you're
going into your speeches or whatever it is you're doing, that people aren't going to be really
looking and thinking about you. They're looking and thinking about themselves through you, which is a
great mindset to go into.
So I love your lighthouse analogy. I guess it's probably the same thing, but the way I describe
it is when I'm on stage or in a classroom, it's not about me. So I'm there and I'm the
conduit of the information. So I focus on the information, the information coming through me
and out to the audience. And what I'm thinking about the whole time is how do I make this
relatable to the audience? And I focus on the information. So I'm just there to be the channel,
the conduit through which the information passes, whether it be learning or my story or
whatever it is. And so that my job is to get the information into a format that the audience can
resonate with, take in, learn their lessons. They've got the context that's required.
And that's all I'm focusing on. And it's interesting, having done it for a while now,
I can actually- Over 30 years, yes.
Oh yeah. I'm old. But I sit there and I've got this, and this happened because of COVID. I did
a lot of meditation through COVID. I'm talking. I can hear myself talking. I'm observing myself
talking. I'm also at the same time thinking about what I'm going to say in a couple of sentences
time. But I'm also then thinking about what does the audience need? And so what context
that they need to understand the messaging or whatever it is. And I've found that that over
time has become a really lovely experience to be so outside of-
In tune as well? Yeah. I don't know.
Yeah, maybe in tune, but just out of my ego. It's not about me. I'm not even there. I'm just
observing the information that I'm sharing, the lessons. So if I've read a great book and I'm
passing on that knowledge, or if I've listened to a fantastic speech somewhere else and I want to
share that story, or if I'm sharing my story, I'm really just focusing on the information. So the
information is just flowing through me and I'm trying to put it into a way that the audience
understands. And that has freed me up. I've been doing this for a long time. I don't feel
fear anymore. I feel nothing but pure excitement. But that's why I do it. So I'm going to maybe
start using your lighthouse analogy. You're the lighthouse. You're just sending the information
out there. You're shining the information onto the audience and then the audience gets to take that
in and everyone's lives are different. So they're all going to be taking it in in different ways.
Yeah. Well, I still get nervous in those days. Excited. That's right. I do get excited. But I
now, and I have a bit of a routine, which I know other people do. A friend of ours, she has one
particular song that she uses to hype herself. I have basically Pitbull. Any Pitbull songs. I just
yeah, kind of dance around. Which one? Which Pitbull song? Oh, all of them. I just have the
playlist going whilst I'm getting ready. And it reminds me of when I was younger getting ready for
B&S balls in the country. And we'd have music playing and you'd get hyped and you'd be,
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.
Playing music the whole way. Playing music the whole way. But you were-
Aren't you exhausted by the time you get there? Four hours later?
Yeah, pretty well. But it was, yeah, because there were a group of us, always a car load or a
ute load going up. And it was fun. And you were just so pumped and psyched by the time you got
there. And that was yesterday, getting ready. I had my Pitbull playlist happening and I was
getting dressed and jumping around and then doing sound checks and jumping around and hyping up the
other people in the room as well. Because then that energy, as soon as the delegates come in,
they can feel the energy and its excitement rather than that, oh, getting comfortable and
maybe going to sleep. Yeah. So you were talking about Heidi there, weren't you?
I was. Yeah. So one of our friends, Heidi, she's a fabulous keynote speaker. And so she,
in the green room when she's getting ready to go up on stage, she's dancing around and she's very
energetic. And we were talking to her. She's got a technique that we teach is that before you get to
the front of the stage, start talking. So you don't talk when you get to the front of the stage. You
start talking as you're going onto the stage. We're now calling it doing a Heidi, don't we?
Doing a Heidi. So that's the technique. So yeah, you start talking before you get there. And so it
feels like you're just having a conversation as you're walking up onto stage. A lot of people,
what they do is they walk out to the center of the stage or wherever they're going to be doing their
presentation at work. And they're silent and the audience is silent. And then it's building up
that tension and then they stand there and they're looking at the audience. Whereas Heidi,
and I didn't know I did this for years, you just start talking. As soon as you're standing up,
you start talking, hey, hey, hey, everyone, how you doing? And then it's a conversation rather than
a point at time where you're starting a presentation. Yes.
Do you have any other techniques or confidence boosting stuff? I like using,
we've spoken about Amy Cuddy before on the podcast. She did a fantastic TED Talk on
body language and how body language relates to the power pose and all that sort of stuff.
Tony Robbins does it as well. Yes. So I always use my body language to make myself feel confident.
So I never sit down looking at my notes. I'm always walking around standing up. In fact,
I try and stand off to the side when people are introducing me and just be as tall as I can be so
that when I get on stage, I'm already feeling confident. Do you do something like that?
Yeah. My mom is a trained kinesiologist and she always, well, she told me about a technique
where you have your two fingers, two, four fingers and you put it at your hairline basically for
those that have hairlines that are at the back of the head. Basically four, four. What if you're a
Ken? If he listens to this, I think I'm in trouble. So basically four fingers up from your eyebrows.
Yeah. Two fingers on that point and then your thumb on the absolute apex of your skull.
And if you hold that for 10 seconds, whether it's real or not, this is in kinesiology,
this is, and it channels you. And so it's almost like a grounding. So your scattered thinking
ceases. And again, it's a technique. There are different techniques.
I've got another technique similar to that. It's not putting your fingers on your head,
but you take a big, deep breath and you ask yourself. So this is when you just want to get
centered. You just want to get the internal chatter out. You take a big, deep breath and you
ask yourself this question. I wonder what thought my brain is going to bring forward next. And
because you've asked that question and you're now wondering what the next thought is, no thought
comes in. Because what you're doing is you're sitting there waiting for the thought and then
no thought comes in and it just removes the chatter. It's something I only learned in the
last couple of years. I saw somebody say it online once and I thought, I'll give it a go.
I tried it and I just took a big, deep breath and I centered myself and said, all right, what
thought is going to come into my brain next? That's a good technique.
It just didn't. And my brain just went silent. It's almost like I'm expecting something
and it doesn't come in. Yeah. I like that.
What else can we talk about with regards to overcoming fear of public speaking? Because
Jerry Seinfeld's got that famous joke. Have we told that one on the podcast? Possibly. We can
tell it again. It's quite appropriate now. Nothing like repetition. Yeah. So he had this famous
joke about, you know, public speaking is the number one fear of human beings. Number two is
death. So he said that means that if you're at a funeral, you'd prefer to be in the coffin
than giving the eulogy. That's it. Well, a segue on what you just said is that
when you... One way to diminish the anxiety is to practice. So even when I was flying,
you would armchair practice. You could visualize you were going through the motions of what you
needed to say, what you needed to consider your hands, which switches they were flicking,
et cetera. Mental preparation. Mental preparation. So if you do the same and you practice,
that doesn't mean practice to death word by word. You could write it long form if that's your style
and then bring it back to point form. But if you can... For me, I put it in a movie in my head.
So I see the visual of it. And that way I don't need to remember the words necessarily unless
it's a specific fact that I'm trying to convey or get across. Like Adreno cortico tropico.
Adreno cortico tropico. That's right. And I keep going Adreno cortico tropico or tropical.
That's because you're about to end and you're thinking about some cocktail that you made years
ago. Well, I'm thinking convergence zone. So you know, on the equator there. So that's how I
remember it. But yeah, so... I'm going to wait for you to say Adreno cortico convergence zone
in the future. This is going to be fun. But that's... So yeah, the preparation.
Yeah. The mental preparation. Just on that, because a lot of people
I've trained over the years, what they do is they write out word for word their speech,
but then they leave it like that and they read it a thousand times. That's a big mistake because
if you write out your speech word for word and you keep reading it over and over and over again,
you're telling your brain that this is exactly how it has to happen word for word in that order.
That's very dangerous because you're putting under pressure on yourself. Remembering something word
for word takes months of rehearsals to be able to do that. So actors do this. Actors recite their
lines again and again and again over a long period of time so that they're saying those exact words.
Good actors know how to change and adjust, et cetera. But what you're best off doing,
if you are going to write it out word for word, do that, read it a few times, but then distill it
down into the key points because when you're speaking from points, you're going to flow.
Yes. Yeah. You're more relaxed. It's like yesterday when you were in your story. I was
just watching you. I was watching the audience. They were captivated because you weren't thinking
about the exact words that you needed to say. You were just seeing the story in your head and that
got you into flow. I was watching all of these people just with their eyes wide open, their mouths
slightly open, listening to your story. It just kept on reminding me of what we've already spoken
about on this podcast is that storytelling is the most powerful way to share information with other
people because when you were in the story and you were in your zone, the audience was in there,
and everyone was captivated. I loved watching that. And so too many people write out word for word
what they want to say and forget about them turning it into just a bullet point list of stories that
they're going to say. Yeah. I think also recording it. So when you practice just on your phone,
voice record with your points. And I don't like the sound of my own voice, but you get to hear,
maybe not that, or I waffled here. What message am I actually trying to convey that doesn't,
you know, it's really hard for someone to find it in amongst whatever I've just said. So it's,
yeah, it's a great technique to hear yourself and to really tighten it up. To, yeah, maybe hone the
craft of what message, or maybe you can see that you're not actually delivering a message. It's
just a story. Yeah. How do you remember your presentations? Do you have any techniques?
I do. I have, actually, I was just thinking of that. So, and I know you do the same. We have
our slides have images. They're just pictures. They're just pictures. Are there any words?
That's right. So attaching, so again, the movie, I am very visual, especially with my art training.
I, a picture is, you know, tells a thousand words. And that's, if I see the image, then I know the
story. You remember the story. Yeah. I love your images, you know, all of the pictures from up in
the, up in the plane and looking at through the cockpit and stuff. Yeah. I love those. I use a,
I use the slides as well. So I've got a lot of pictures, you know, just images, photos, but I
also do a similar thing using a memory technique. So let's say I have to remember nine small stories
in a presentation. I did this recently. I did a 10 minute kind of, not so much a keynote, but a
speech, a story. And I'd split it up into little chunks. And it was very much like a detective
story where you had to pin clues to a board and then link them with string. And I wanted to muck
around with it. You saw it. Yeah. And so each story I had a little picture for, and then I
attached that picture to a part of my body. There's other techniques you can use. So for example,
let's say you're talking about your very first kiss or something like that. You might put a big
set of red lips on the top of your head and just imagine that there's a big set of red lips on top
of your head. So you think, all right, I'm talking about my first kiss. And then in that particular
story, I spoke about that I was in a circus, right? And so I put some juggling balls on my
eyebrows and then I might have next spoken about how I was a unicyclist. So I'd balance a unicycle
on my nose. And so now when I'm doing the presentation and I want to tell those stories,
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
about my first kiss. And then, you know, on my eyebrows, oh, there's some juggling balls. I'm
going to talk about juggling. And then on my nose, look, there's a unicycle I'm going to talk about
when I was a unicyclist. So you can actually attach things to your body, start from the top,
go down to your feet. And you could do a presentation, I do this all the time, but
a presentation for five hours and just go from your head to your eyebrows to your eyes to your
nose to your ears to your mouth to your shoulders to your chest to your waist. And you can just put
random things there and just see it, see the lips on your head, see the unicycle hanging off your
nose or whatever it is. I think the more ridiculous as well and not logical that
it's easier to remember. And that suits me because I'm silly all the time. So if you want to remember
a presentation, don't write it down. Just whack pictures on your body. Or you could do something
in your house. So there's an old technique called the Roman Rue method or the loci method where,
you know, just go into your lounge room, pick five things in your lounge room and stick five random
things in those locations. So if you've got a couch, put the pair of lips on the couch. If you've
got a television, whack some juggling balls on top of the television so you can do the same thing in
the house. Unicycle in the fishbowl. That's it. Yeah. Or see your fish riding the unicycle. Yeah.
So anyway, there's a technique that a lot of professional speakers use. They use a visual
technique to remember. That's a great one. I like that.
Well, before we wrap up this podcast, any other tips you can give speakers from your perspective?
Water. Water. Lots of water. Yes, lots of water. Brain juice. Brain juice. Yeah, I agree. So this,
that story that I was just telling you about where I broke it up into little things,
because it was the first time I've done it, I was really excited and the same chemicals come into
your body when you're excited to when you're nervous. And I found my mouse going dry for the
first time in about 10 years while I was speaking. That's good. I actually enjoyed that. I enjoyed it.
My body's going, hey, this is new. Let's make this fun. So I was very excited doing it, but yeah,
water. Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel it just, yeah, it's a lubricant for your brain. Yeah.
If you speak a lot, I've also found that cold water's not a good idea. When I first started
training many years ago, I started to lose my voice on say day three or day four of training
every day in a row. And so what I started to do is drink either warm water with lemon, if you want
to give it some flavor, or just weak cups of tea. If it was coffee, I'd be jittery. I'd drink a lot
of coffee, but that'd be too much. So yeah, just warm water because cold water constricts your vocal
cords. Yes. Okay. That's a good tip. I maybe should have used that yesterday because after I did the
keynote, I then did a workshop. And so yeah, I was talking a lot, but yeah. Maybe some warm water,
a cup of tea. Maybe I need to bring the tea to you next time. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Cool. All right.
So in summary, you're a lighthouse. I'm a lighthouse. Yeah. I'm a conduit of information. And
hopefully, any of these tips might make you feel more comfortable. The leaders that we're talking
to, more comfortable about getting up and giving a presentation or calming the nerves, changing your
perspective from anxiety to excitement. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's a gift to be able to
be up on stage or in front of a group of people and share information. Well, it would be bad luck
if the information that you have, you weren't able to gift to your audience. So yeah, everybody has
a story in them. Everybody has information and something that somebody wants to hear. So yeah,
just don't feel that you're on the spot, but you're helping other people by telling your story.
Exactly. Now Bollinger, we're still waiting. We're still waiting. We do enjoy your bubbles,
but where's the email? Bose, we spoke about you recently. Bose, come on, get in touch.
At the moment, I think we're being sponsored by coffee.
Yes, I'd say we are. More dogs. Or we sponsor coffee.
More dogs. We think the world would be a better place with more dogs.
Absolutely. I'm wearing the t-shirt now.
We have merchandise if you're interested. You can go to our website at
captainandtheclown.com.au. Where you can buy t-shirts and caps.
I think it's dot com. Is it dot com? Yeah, it's dot com.
Yeah, we didn't do the dot au. We're global. We're global, Michelle.
Captainandtheclown.com. Yeah. Well, great to see you again. And
thank you for letting me watch your keynote yesterday. That was enthralling.
You're welcome. Thanks for coming. Okay. Have a great week.
Bye. Cheers.
Well, that was fun. That was fun.
You're such a clown. The Clown. Lady Captain.
And who's going to listen to this? Maybe our moms.
Thanks, mom.