panic embarrassed exposed no that's not how I'm right now mostly those are the feelings I had as a 14 year old boy on the very first day of high school my English teacher mr. Meredith had each of us stand up and introduce ourselves when class was over he called me over and said hey Matt you're really good at this talking thing I need you on Saturday to show up at the speech contest doing as I was told I prepared a 10-minute presentation on karate it was something I was passionate about and it was pretty easy
to do now that cold September Saturday morning when I showed up I was shocked the room was much larger than I had expected there were many more people there my friends my friends parents who were serving as judges and the girl I had a crush on at that moment I felt tremendous anxiety in the first 10 seconds of my 10-minute presentation my life changed forever you see I started my presentation with a karate kick I was told to do this because it would engage the audience and get their attention but because of my anxiety I
forgot to put on my special karate pants you know the ones with a little extra room down there you get where this is going I ripped my pants from belt loop to zipper in that moment I learned the impact of anxiety on communication and from that moment I have dedicated my life to helping others learn to address this fear each of us has stories to share input to give and ideas to spread if we allow anxiety to get in the way of that we miss out society misses out and we lose valuable diverse voices now
I am NOT alone in my anxiety in communication if you have ever given spontaneous feedback given a presentation spoken up in a meeting or even asked somebody on a date you know what this anxiety feels like research shares with us that 85% of people feel anxious in high-stakes speaking situations and quite frankly I think the other 15% are lying I think we can create a situation in which they would feel nervous too so we must act to manage our anxiety so we can accomplish our communication goals now I use that word managed very carefully I
don't think we can ever truly overcome our anxiety nor would we want to anxiety is actually helpful it gives us energy it helps us focus it tells us what we're doing is important but we must manage it so it doesn't manage us and it's not just to help us feel more confident it helps our audience as well how do you feel when you see a nervous speaker communicate some of you might like to watch people suffer but most of us don't most of us feel very uncomfortable in awkward in fact I call this second hand
anxiety the communicators anxiety makes us feel nervous as an audience and therefore we're distracted and we can't pay attention to the message so we need to manage our anxiety not just to help ourselves as communicators but to help our audience get our message before I introduce you to some techniques that can help us manage our anxiety I think we need to spend a few moments understanding where this anxiety comes from I believe it's hardwired in us it's based on evolution we are wired to be very concerned about our relative status to others now I'm not
saying who drives the fanciest car or who has the most likes to a post they've just put up I'm talking about the status that existed when our species was first evolving and we were hanging out in groups of about a hundred and fifty people your relative status there meant everything Ament access to resources food shelter reproduction it was absolutely critical that you had status within that group it was a matter of life or death so this constant surveillance and understanding of our status is something that we carry forward to this day yet we can manage
it but we have to take a two-pronged approach we have to first address the symptoms as well as the sources the symptoms have to do with what goes on in our body physiologically and what goes on in our mind psychologically and sources are things that actually make our anxiety worse so let's get started for some of us when we start communicating in high-stakes situations we feel our heart pound maybe we get a little shaky maybe we perspire or blush we can manage these symptoms take a deep breath before you start the kind of breath you
would do if you're doing yoga or Tai Chi or Qi Gong that'll calm you down if you shake gesture broadly big broad gestures they can really help that adrenalin go somewhere most nervous people make themselves small and tight and they hold it in and shake if you perspire a blush hold something cold in the palm of your hand it'll cool you down much like putting a cold compress on your forehead or the back of your neck if you have a fever holding something cold reduces your core body temperature reduces the perspiration reduces the blushing you've
all experienced this in Reverse on a cold day have you ever held hot coffee or tea and felt how it warmed you up we're just doing the opposite there are things you can do to manage the physiological symptoms you have around anxiety now what about the cognitive symptoms the thing that makes people really nervous cognitively is their own anxiety it works something like this you're sitting in a meeting and your turn is about to come up and as you're sitting there you start getting a little shaky you might have some beads of perspiration on your
brow and you start thinking to yourself oh my goodness this is really important I should have prepared more I can't believe I'm in this situation why am I doing this I'm not my colleague this sucks that's your anxiety making you more nervous there is a way that you can short-circuit this instead of running away from your anxiety greet it say to yourself this is me feeling nervous it makes sense that I'm nervous I'm about to do something of consequence and importance and by giving yourself permission to feel anxious you actually give yourself a sense of
agency you can take a breath walk around the building this will help you feel composed rather than as if your anxiety is spiraling out of control we can do things that manage our physiological and psychological symptoms but we also have to address the things that make our anxiety worse the sources the number one fear I hear from people is I'm afraid I'm going to forget I'm gonna blank out a great way to manage this is to have a map you can't get lost if you have a map a map is nothing more in communication than
a plan a structure a design there are many structures that can help you with your communication my favorite is the what so what now what structure you start by talking about what it is you're communicating could be your idea your plan your product a process you then explain why it's important to your audience how do they value from what you're saying and then finally you explain what is next what comes afterwards by having a structure like what so what now what you are less likely to forget and by the way it helps the people you're
speaking to remember what you're saying as well now another big accelerant to anxiety has to do with the valuation in judgment we feel the audience is doing on us a great way to manage this is to redirect their attention have them focus on something else so if you're giving a presentation show a video clip take a poll if you're in interpersonal communication ask a question pass around a hand out these distract people from paying attention to you it gives you an opportunity to calm down and the cool thing is it gets them more involved and
engaged it's a true win-win the last source I'd like to talk about has to do with how we see our communication raise your hand if you have done one of these four things before in your life has anybody done any singing dancing acting or played a sport everybody in each of those activities there's a right way and a wrong way to do it you're performing if you're an actor and you miss speak your line at the wrong time in the wrong place you've made a mistake not just for you but the audience and the other
actors if you're an athlete and you don't do what your sport requires at the right time in the right way you've done it wrong in fact some sports keep track of the errors you make we carry this mentality of right or wrong into our communication I am here to tell you as somebody who has been doing this for a long long time there is no right way to communicate there are better ways in worse ways certainly but no one right way so we need to replace the way we see communication as a performance as something
else and I'd like to suggest we need to reframe it as a conversation how do you do that first and foremost put your attention on your audience you're in service of their needs with this audience centric approach it makes it more conversational second use conversational language words like us you and we that involves people and finally ask questions questions by their very nature are conversations there to weigh in so doing you make the interaction less stressful for you and more engaging for your audience so taken together there are things that we can do to manage
our anxiety by addressing both symptoms and sources now this isn't necessarily easy it takes time it takes persistence we're fighting against ingrained anxiety and years of learned behaviors and habits but with a little self kindness in patience we can learn to manage our anxiety I see it happen all the time let me share a story with you I met Erma who is a 72 year old grandmother a couple years ago Burma like me had a very traumatic experience in high school she contributed some comment in class and her English teacher looked at her and said
that is the absolute worst communication I have ever heard from that moment on Burma actively avoided communicating with others so much so that she chose the profession as a research librarian specifically so she wouldn't have to talk to many people but one day her granddaughter who she loved very much asked her to give a toast at her wedding Burma wanted to fulfill this request and that's where our paths crossed I'll never forget the look on Irma's face when she told me of her goal it was a combination of sheer terror and complete determination now I
am thrilled to share with you that Burma after three months of hard work and a little encouragement gave an amazing toast the joy on her face is something that I will never forget like Burma we all can learn to manage our anxiety regardless of if you're presenting at a wedding or in a meeting if you're pitching or protesting you can learn to feel more confident when you communicate and we all benefit from the stories you're going to share the input you're going to give and the ideas that you're going to spread I so look forward
to your speaking up without freaking out thank you [Applause] [Music]
