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Video Transcript

In the summer of 2020 I found myself sitting at a friend's rehearsal dinner. It was the middle of the pandemic so there was just a few of us spread out across a couple of tables. We knew each other fairly well, so the conversation was flowing, we were having a good time laughing and having good conversation. Toward the end of the meal my friend and his fiancée felt like they should stand up and that they should thank everyone a little bit more formally for attending. As they stood up I watched something happen to them and I watched with great empathy because I know exactly what it feels like and I bet you do as well.

They went from being so comfortable sitting around that table to as they stood up, I can tell those butterflies started to flutter in their stomach, their palms started to get sweaty, their hands started to shake, their voice started to quiver, and as I watched that I wonder to myself why is it that this happens to us? It happens to me, it happened to them. My guess is that happens to you. Why is it that we can be so comfortable sitting and talking with people, but when it's our turn to stand up and speak, even if it's the exact same group of people, we get so nervous.

My name is Brian and I'm a public speaking trainer and coach and I spend quite a bit of time helping people overcome their anxiety when it comes to public speaking. And if you're watching this video this is session one of four videos as to how you can overcome public speaking anxiety and manage your nerves. If you're watching this video, I'm just going to guess that fear around public speaking is something that you deal with.

I want you to know two things today. First of all you're normal, just relax for a moment, you're normal and second of all, you're a little weird, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna get to that weird part in a moment.

First, let's focus on the first part. I want you to know that if you struggle with fear and anxiety when it comes to public speaking, you are normal. I take comfort in the fact that some of the best known speakers and celebrities and performers dealt with stage fright throughout the entirety of their career. It's well documented that Steve Jobs would get quite nervous before his big presentations and the story goes that John Lennon would get so nervous before his performances that he threw up backstage every single time. And there's something about that, to be honest, that makes me feel a little bit better about myself when I get nervous as well.

And the reason so many of us struggle with this, the reason that so many of us feel this is because our body is wired to perceive threat. Your brain is wired to perceive threat. In fact, some studies say that the brain is five times more likely and puts five times more energy toward perceiving a threat than perceiving non threatening situations. And so that's very helpful when you or I are in a threatening situation. But it's not very helpful when our body is perceiving a threat when we're in a non threatening situation. So often for us when we are public speaking, that's exactly what is happening, we stand up to speak and our brain begins to take in visual cues. Our brain notices that were the only one standing and everyone else is sitting and all eyes are on us. And all those visual cues go straight to the amygdala in our brain, and that amygdala is at the center of the fear and threat detecting area of our brain. And so when the amygdala sees that we're standing all alone and that there's a bunch of eyes looking at us all of a sudden, it sets off the warning sirens and red lights start flashing and the brain begins to say threat, threat, threat, we're under attack, we're under attack.

Now, that's really helpful if it's nighttime and you're standing on train tracks and a bright light starts to come around the bend. It's really helpful if you're in the middle of the wilderness and you look around and all of a sudden eyes start appearing in the bushes. But our body having that exact same reaction to what is a much less threatening situation which is standing up in front of the boardroom, standing up on that stage and having all eyes on us. It can, if we're not careful, really derail us.

And so I want you to know that you are normal, that your body is just having a natural reaction to what it perceives as a threat. What you and I have to do is we have to learn to remind our body, remind our brain that what we're experiencing when it's our turn to speak is not something that is threatening at all. It's something that may be high stakes, it's something that may have a lot of impact on things, but it's not a threatening situation.

The prefrontal cortex of your brain is the part of your brain that's designed to check the amygdala. It is designed to draw a giant question mark over the amygdala's conclusions. And so over the next couple of videos, I'm going to help you learn what it looks like to tap into your prefrontal cortex and we're going to do that by learning to give ourselves CPR. The moment you start having that panic attack, your breath gets short, your heart starts to beat, the butterflies are active, your palms are sweaty, and your voice is quivering I want you to give yourself CPR.

Over the next few videos, I'm going to tell you exactly what that means. Now, just a couple of minutes ago I said that your normal, which you are, if you struggle with anxiety around public speaking, but I also said you're a little weird, here's why you're a little weird, even though the vast majority of people struggle with fear and anxiety when it comes to public speaking, less than 10% of those people actually do anything about it. Less than 10% of those people actually take the time, energy and effort to learn to manage that fear. So if you're watching this and you struggle with anxiety around public speaking, your normal your brain is doing what it was designed and built to do. But you're also a little weird and that's a good thing because you're one of the few people that's investing in yourself and doing something about it so that you can increase your value as you learn to speak with greater confidence.

If you click on the link and download it, there's a workbook that goes along with this with some homework assignments, some questions for you to think about. I hope you'll take advantage of that and I'll see you back here in a little bit for session two as we discussed what that "C" in CPR means. I'll see you then.

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