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Taming the beast within
6 coaches share their secrets for
conquering speaking anxiety
By Mark Merritt
Year
after year, The Book of Lists ranks fear of public
speaking as the No. 1 bogeyman in people's minds, ahead of
such surefire nail-biters as death, disease and nuclear war.
Just last year, a Gallup News Service poll found that in
America, where people are free to be afraid of anything,
public speaking was second only to a fear of snakes.
Indeed, there's something about
stepping in front of an audience that is almost pathologically
frightening to many people, even professionals who do it every
day. About the only people for whom this is good news are
presentation coaches and consultants, who make a living by,
among other things, teaching people how to overcome their fear
of the podium.
Presentations
magazine recently talked to six of the nation's top
presentation consultants to find out how they teach their
clients to overcome speaking anxiety and take control of their
nerves. In the process, we found that there are as many ways
to tame the nervous beast within as there are speaking coaches
to teach you how. All use different techniques to help people
keep their inner coward at bay. And, in case you're wondering,
none of their methods have anything to do with envisioning an
audience in its underwear.
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Susan Peterson
Founder, Susan Peterson Productions,
Washington, D.C.
Susan Peterson specializes in
training, coaching and counseling professionals for
media interviews, speeches, presentations and crisis
situations. She is also the president of The
Communication Center and Susan Peterson Productions Inc.
in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at 202.463.0505
or her Web site, www.susanpeterson.com.
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Susan
Peterson founded her business in 1983, after 10 years as an
on-air correspondent for CBS and NBC news. In her opinion, the
biggest misperception about the fear of public speaking is
that people tend to believe their nervousness will last
forever, or that the fear will invade their body and ruin a
presentation.
"I try to teach the
difference between harmful anxiety and adrenaline rushes," she
says. In fact, she avoids using the term fear altogether. She
prefers using the term anxiety because fear implies something
unfixable and entirely debilitating, whereas anxiety is
something that can be managed.
Peterson's approach with her clients is
down-to-earth and practical. "Our approach is that this isn't
brain surgery or any sort of razzle-dazzle. We give people the
reassurance that 'we can fix this.'"
Before actual training sessions begin, clients are
urged to keep a log of exactly what happened during a speech
to cause their nervousness and what they did or didn't try to
get over it. By cataloguing their experiences, individuals
assess their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as areas in
which they need to improve. Possible solutions to their
problems are identified as well -- for example, deep
breathing, better preparation, a site visit before the speech
-- with the goal of creating an anxiety- control package,
which is a list of practical solutions for that individual's
specific problems. "Our method allows people to decipher what
solution suits their situation, which usually leads to a sense
of self-assurance and control," Peterson says.
A presenter also needs to identify
possible physiological factors that can result in an extra
dose of nerves. One of Peterson's cases involved the chief
financial officer (CFO) of a Fortune 100 company who delivered
weekly presentations to the company board and president. "He
was absolutely terrified, so much so that I was sent to his
office with only a few hours before his presentation," she
says.
She addressed his physical
self first, finding that he usually drank about six cups of
coffee before speaking, which multiplied his already high
level of anxiety. Switching to decaf settled him down
somewhat. They then concentrated on specific presentation
techniques. "[The CFO] was so intimidated he wouldn't come up
for air and look anyone in the eye," recalls Peterson. To
combat this common problem, she videotaped him speaking so
that he could see what he was doing wrong, then she addressed
how to get him to ease up in front of the audience. One
technique that helped was something Peterson calls "switching
paradigms," which, in this particular case, meant teaching the
CFO to switch the spotlight off himself and onto the audience,
to combat the feeling that his every movement was being
scrutinized.
Peterson's clientele
cover a wide spectrum of corporate managers, associates and
managers in government agencies. She's found that although
every case of anxiety is slightly different, most people have
one fear in common: admitting their vulnerability. "Oftentimes
it seems that [speaking coaches] are like therapists without a
license: We have to be tough with these people and remind them
they cannot skirt around the problem, since avoiding it is a
sign of an even more debilitating disease," she says. For
clients who already have a therapist, however, Peterson notes
that she works closely with psychiatrists to make sure her
program for dealing with a client's speech anxiety won't
interfere with their professional progress in other areas.
Robert Dickman
Founder, FirstVoice, Santa Monica,
Calif.
Robert Dickman has more than 15 years of
experience in training business professionals,
architects, writers, directors, performers and producers
in the techniques of storytelling. He has taught
workshops for clients as varied as Mattel Toys, the Ford
Motor Co., The Limited, The American Film Institute,
Morgan Stanley, UCLA and New York University. Dickman is
also the founder of FirstVoice in Santa Monica, Calif.
He can be reached at compel@earthlink.net or his Web
site at http://first-voice.com. |
 |
Having spent more than 20 years in the
entertainment business training actors, writers and directors,
Robert Dickman takes an organic, almost Zen-like approach to
the process of easing people's speaking fears. Dickman works
to bring speakers' attention "down into their belly" so they
can feel their weight on the ground and be "present" in mind
and body, as well as "authentic" in their delivery.
"When you're present, in your
breathing and in your body, your mind won't race with such
thoughts as, 'Oh my, the PowerPoint linkage isn't working,' or
whatever may take us out of the present," he explains.
Learning how to be present is
perhaps the most essential ingredient in speaking confidently,
says Dickman. But after you've connected with yourself and are
physically comfortable with your surroundings, you still have
to connect with the audience, which not only means being
comfortable in your own skin, but also being passionate about
what you are saying. "If you don't have passion about what
you're going to talk about, please, don't go out there," warns
Dickman.
Many people aren't
tremendously passionate about their subject matter, though, so
their task is to find something in their own experience that
can impassion them. For Dickman, this often means finding --
and telling -- a story. "You don't need a college degree to
tell a story, but in front of an audience people get amnesia
and freeze with fear," he says. To combat this fear, Dickman
teaches clients how to identify a compelling narrative in
their presentation, breaking it down into the elements of a
story: the beginning, middle, climax, resolution. Breaking a
presentation down into these familiar elements helps a person
remember the thread of her presentation, giving her confidence
and helping her develop passion for her topic through the
power of storytelling.
Dickman's
teaching philosophy doesn't try to eliminate people's fear and
nerves -- they are organic, too, after all -- but to transform
their fear into something else. "The fear never goes away, and
in most cases, if there's no fear, then nothing's at stake,"
explains Dickman. "The nervousness is like ice. You want to
heat the fear up to release this tremendous potential of
energy."
Presentness and passion
don't preclude the need for rehearsal, however. "Oddly,
because we're afraid, we'll procrastinate and bluff the
importance of the presentation," says Dickman -- a reaction
that is self-defeating at best. Dickman encourages clients to
think about presenting the way a great artist thinks about his
work and to approach it with the same sort of meticulousness
and perseverance. "Take [the work] seriously but joyously,"
counsels Dickman, and realize that every speaking opportunity
is a privilege and "a great opportunity to influence people."
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Sheri Jeavons
Founder and president Power Presentations
Inc., Brecksville, Ohio
Sheri Jeavons is a professional
speaker and communications consultant. Her specialty is
presenting a two-day seminar training corporate
professionals in speaking and communication techniques.
She is the founder of Power Presentations, a
Brecksville, Ohio, training company. Jeavons can be
reached at 440.526.4400 or her Web site,
www.power-presentations.com.
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People
think that to be good you have to either be born with talent
or spend a lot of time preparing. Neither is true," claims
Sheri Jeavons, a member of the National Speakers Association
(NSA) and the author of Tips for Your Talk. In her experience,
fear of speaking occurs because most people are highly
self-critical; the last thing they want is for others to see
their insecurities.
But getting
rid of speech anxiety can't happen in a vacuum, Jeavons
insists; it requires a group environment of instruction. "You
just don't say, 'Today I'm mastering my fear of public
speaking.' You need to learn the new skills of how to give a
presentation in front of a group," she says, and the only way
to do that is to participate in a group experience. "You need
to be an active participant, standing and presenting, with
videotaping, coaching and instruction in a group environment."
It's important for the participants to feel safe and positive
about the group (which is the coach's job), and when they do,
that's when people "start to thrive on learning."
One specific method Jeavons promotes
is beginning a group presentation by talking to one person in
the group at a time. "We tell them not to worry about the
group as a whole, but to go to one person and state your first
sentence, then calmly move your eyes and body to the next
person and so on." Once the person has connected with a small
pocket of people, he repeats the process, which Jeavons finds
makes the room appear to shrink, reducing the stress of
thinking that everyone in the room has to be spoken to all at
once.
Sam Del Brocco
President, PCI Communications Inc.,
Washington, D.C., and New York City
Sam Del Brocco is
a speaker and trainer on the subjects of organizational
communication and presentation training. His client list
includes AT&T, British Telecom, Duracell, IBM Corp.,
Lockheed-Martin Corp., MCI Group of WorldCom, Pfizer
Inc. and Sony Corp. His company, PCI Communications, has
offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City. He can
be reached at 703.823.1600 or the PCI Web site at
www.pcicom.com. |
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Sam Del Brocco has found that most public-speaking
anxiety is rooted in the fear of embarrassment, of coming
across as foolish or stupid. "People don't analyze the actual
possibilities of what could go wrong, but are immediately
shaken with the notion that they won't be respected or liked,"
says Del Brocco. To get past these fears, he prescribes one
sure-fire cure: practice.
Before
starting PCI Communications, Del Brocco trained as a
psychologist, then turned to an entertainment career as a
singer-songwriter, which deeply influenced his philosophy of
leadership communication. He aims his approach at the spirit
of the presentation, which, he says, is different than pure
technical coaching. "Presenters need to get into the spirit of
what it feels like to be a leader, and it has to come from the
soul," he insists.
"I'm a
believer in using what I call the communications muscles --
not only in public speaking but in all aspects of
communicating as a leader," he says. An athlete's muscles have
to be continually developed and exercised. Likewise,
developing one's presentation "muscles" requires exercising
them regularly. "If you want to rid yourself of fear of
speaking, the most effective way is to take every opportunity
you can to use those muscles," he claims. This doesn't simply
mean giving 20 speeches a month, but also practicing with "the
same kind of feeling and fear that you would confront during
an actual presentation."
A method
Del Brocco believes in, but many speakers and coaches do not,
is knowing the precise words you are going to use, not just
the essence of the subject or material. "You have to know not
only what you're going to say, but how, and to spend a great
deal of time working through the material," says Del Brocco.
Even if you're working from bullet points, familiarity with
the material -- anecdotes, transitions -- will produce more
energy, authority and confidence and go a long way toward
alleviating anxiety. "Most people don't appear this way
because they're fishing for their words, and they haven't
really dug to make the soulful connection with their
material."
Many executives fall
into this camp. Del Brocco recalls a senior-level executive
who "believed he was a fine communicator but would never spend
time with the words until the day of the presentation." On the
morning of one such presentation, Del Brocco listened to the
executive rehearse. The presenter's stammering, stutters and
what Del Brocco calls "not honoring thy punctuation" was
noticeable. "He put together these incredible run-on sentences
and would add a comma every two words," says Del Brocco. It
took an audience member to tell him that he didn't sound
sincere for him to start taking the development of his
presentation skills seriously.
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Melanie De Bond
Founder and president, Speaking Solutions,
Federal Way, Wash.
Melanie De Bond has more than 10
years of experience as a public speaker and presentation
consultant specializing in the treatment of speech
anxiety. She is a scholar in the field of instructional
communication and president and founder of Speaking
Solutions in Federal Way, Wash. De Bond can be reached
at 253.835.4565 or her Web site,
www.speakingsolutions.net.
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Public
speaking is not only something nearly everyone has to do, but
it's also something that can affect your career and
credibility or make and break companies," says Melanie De
Bond, founder and president of Speaking Solutions. De Bond
believes anxiety comes with the territory, but it can also be
a motivating force.
De Bond spent
years designing and teaching undergraduate public-speaking
courses at the University of Washington, including a course
specifically for students with speech anxiety. At Speaking
Solutions, she works with business executives, employees,
small-business owners and anyone who is crippled with this
fear and has a desire to get past it.
"There are quick fixes [that can reduce anxiety]
like abdominal breathing," says De Bond, "and there are
actually four well-researched methods within the
speech-communication discipline that have been proven to help
people reduce or eliminate anxiety."
One method is skills training, which involves
training that targets an area in which someone needs to
improve, whether it is believing that they are boring or
stumbling over and forgetting words. Another method is
visualization. "You begin at the point that makes you the most
nervous, which for some might mean the morning of the speech
or right before the walk on stage," she says. The presenter
then visualizes in great detail the entire presentation, all
the while imagining two things: that the speech is going well
and the experience is relaxing and enjoyable.
A third technique is cognitive
restructuring, which involves identifying all the illogical,
irrational beliefs people associate with public speaking --
such mental clutter as, "I can't do this," "I'll die if I have
to give a speech," or "They'll think I'm a fool." Says De
Bond, "We identify those fear-inducing thoughts and replace
them with more positive and constructive beliefs, such as, 'I
can do this' or 'It's not the end of the world if I make a
mistake.'"
The fourth method,
systematic desensitization, De Bond likens to Pavlov's
stimulus-response experiments. "Using deep-muscle relaxation
techniques, you train your body into relaxing in response to
public speaking," she explains. Clients create a top-10 list
of anxiety-provoking situations related to presenting. The
coaches then have a speaker visualize the first thing on his
list, which usually causes the body to become anxious and
tight, at which point the visualization is stopped, the client
focuses on tensing and relaxing specific muscles and the
process repeats until the subject can relax on his own.
True fear is difficult to conquer,
however. "One executive I worked with was of the opinion that
all good speakers have dynamic personalities or some innate
ability to present well," she says. "He felt he was boring, so
he would stand up, ramble off words and sit down as fast as he
could." De Bond had to reassure him that speech anxiety is a
real thing and anyone suffering from a high level of it knows
it's not as simple as calming down and practicing. "There are
nerves and butterflies," which most people have, says De Bond,
"but real fear takes more than a quick solution to
overcome."
Luanne White
Owner and president, Theatre Techniques for
Business People Inc., Atlanta
Luanne White is a speaker and
trainer on the subject of incorporating theatrical
techniques within the corporate world. The president of
Theatre Techniques for Business People Inc. in Atlanta,
her client list includes Coca-Cola Co., BellSouth
Corp.'s cellular division, Johnson & Johnson,
Hallmark Corp. and Brystol Myers-Squibb Co. She can be
reached at 770.913.0400 or her Web site,
www.energyspeak.com. |
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The techniques Luanne White teaches originally
developed from the performing arts world. White, who has
appeared in numerous stage performances and television shows,
believes people are fearful when it comes to presenting
because they don't know how their physical mechanism -- their
body -- works. "People can only get over their fear by first
going on a tour of this mechanism, taking command of their
'control room,'" she explains, "and then understanding what
performance energy is and how to get to that level, which is
where their best self will emerge."
Anxiousness, then, can be a powerful ally when
presenting, if it involves flowing adrenaline. If you want to
engage someone in conversation, for example, you have to do
more than look and speak; you have to direct your energy
toward them. "When you connect correctly, you get rid of your
fears and become engaged," White says. Transfer this idea to
speaking at a podium. You still need a level of engagement,
but you must direct an equal amount of energy toward the
audience. "Like an electrical current, think of any
performance you've seen where there's someone onstage who has
the high energy that fixates you," White suggests. "They
aren't the loudest people; they just have that performance
energy that captures you." When presenters realize their
potential and exercise their control-room switches, they will
have less fear, she says.
"Fear
starts when we're children, when we're humiliated," White
explains. "We're usually in [a state of] high energy and
having fun until something happens," causing us to be laughed
at or get in trouble. After that, she says, "your cellular
memory is developing negatively and conditioning [you] that
when in high energy with other people, [you'll] end up
embarrassed."
Fear of judgment,
humiliation and embarrassment are the big issues for
presenters. To fix this cellular programming, White teaches
people how to reprogram themselves to think the experience
will be good -- of benefit to the audience and themselves.
To accustom clients to the energy
level needed to be an effective speaker, White uses trigger
exercises to teach people how to get their energy up in a snap
-- exercises that will allow them to walk into a room and be
in command.
"One exercise I use
is to get a speaker to marry their physical energy with an
icon to create an association which will create relaxation
onstage," White says. She has clients raise their heart rates
until they are almost out of breath (using activities such as
running in place), then stop and close their eyes. "When this
cardiovascular energy is roaring through their body, I coach
them to be aware of it and to associate it with something -- a
firecracker going off, a gong sound or a volcano erupting --
coupling the high energy level with the image," she explains.
"I have them do it at least once a day for two to six weeks,
so when they do walk on stage, if the nerves are there, they
can click onto their energy by associating it with the trigger
icon." The beauty of this technique, says White, is that it's
available for the rest of their lives, in any situation.
Mark Merritt is a
freelance writer living in Minneapolis.
Originally
published in the March 2002 issue of Presentations
magazine. Copyright 2002, VNU Business Media.
Related article:
Bad advice that ought to be forgotten
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