Chapter 1
You’ve Got Some Nerve
According to most studies, people’s number-one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.
—Jerry Seinfeld
Stage Flight
Public speaking is the great equalizer. Just ask Hollywood movie director Michael Bay. Bay’s numerous films, including the Transformers franchise, have grossed almost $8 billion at the box office worldwide.1 Yet, even with this formidable experience “calling the shots,” the famous director fled the stage at a 2014 Las Vegas electronics show after getting flustered during a presentation for the media. Bay blamed a faulty teleprompter and later wrote on his Website: “I just embarrassed myself.”2 We’re not sharing this story to pick on Bay. But his mumbled fumble goes to show that even titans can topple under public speaking pressure. The truth is that effective public speaking is scary no matter who you are or where you’re from. Sure, parts of public speaking (preparation or performance) might come easier for some, but no one is born with a silver tongue in their mouth. Effective public speaking is a learned skill. And when you reach your potential as a speaker, life can be a lot more interesting and rewarding.
Career experts will tell you that strong public speaking skills give you an edge in the workforce. Even if you work in a field like IT or engineering, at some point, you will be asked to give a presentation.3 But what if you were proactive and volunteered? Promotions, bonuses, and leadership positions come to those fearless few who can speak up in public. Obviously, Michael Bay’s encounter with stage flight didn’t hurt his directing career. However, quite possibly, it did reinforce his deepest fears about public speaking and will discourage him from taking to that kind of stage again. That being said, Bay is certainly not alone when it comes to stage flight. In fact, public speaking is the #1 fear in America.4 We can talk about this fact all day long, but the real question should be: Why do we get so freaked out?
It turns out that we’re programmed to panic.
Relatively Speaking
Three might be a crowd, but for our ancestors, it also meant not becoming a happy meal for a hungry pack of giant kangaroos.5 Yes, carnivorous kangaroos used to prey on early humans. Humans also needed to fend off predatory hyenas, pythons, lions, tigers, and bears. Oh, my! Traveling in a pack reduced the chance of an attack. And you thought your commute was hairy.
The story goes something like this: Until about 12,000 years ago, our distant relatives were nomadic and spent a lot of time foraging for food.6 They traveled in small groups, which was a necessity for survival. It allowed for some of the folks to look for food, while others kept an eye out for danger. The emphasis was on the tribe as a unit. And because these were the only people you knew on earth, it was imperative to keep one’s individual tribe membership in good standing. The bottom line: If you were banished from your bunch, you became a kangaroo’s lunch. To avoid this feast of fate, members adhered to social norms (not stand out), respected hierarchy (not stand out), and played nice with others (not stand out). You might see a pattern here. “Standing out” means the prospect of rejection. Rejection can lead to tribe ejection.
Oh, and forget about switching tribes if you’re banished. Nothing doing. Evolution took care of that by equipping us with our very own “stranger danger” device. This funky feature saw anyone outside our group as a threat. So, if you did happen to run into another human, it’s likely they would be highly suspicious of you—especially if you were traveling solo.
So what does this have to do with you and public speaking? After all, you probably aren’t traveling in a pack, foraging for food, and fending off beasts. However, part of your brain still thinks you are. Okay, we’ll explain. But before we get a-head (pun intended) of ourselves, you need to know something about your noggin.
Head Start
Our brains are remarkable in many ways, but there is one area that hasn’t really evolved in 300 million years. It’s appropriately called the primitive brain. How primitive is it? Steel yourself. Our own nerves, and the way they communicate, are comparable to the most ancient multi-organ animal on the planet: the jellyfish.7 To put this in perspective, jellyfish have been around for, give or take, 700 million years. That’s three times older than when the first dinosaurs roamed.8
The primitive brain’s purpose is both singular and critical. To put it bluntly, it keeps us alive. It’s the control center for our bodily functions, regulating breathing, heart rate, body temperature, digestion, elimination, reproduction, and balance.
The primitive brain also acts as our body’s Department of Defense against outside threats. When we sense danger, it prepares us to fight, run (flight), or freeze (play dead).
Brain Trust
When the primitive brain detects fear it automatically switches us into fight, flight, or freeze mode. While in high alert, it also disconnects from the thinking part of the brain. This is actually a good thing, especially for those of us who have a hard time making decisions. Can you imagine bumping into a tiger and having your thoughts paralyze your progress?
“Hmm. Is that tiger looking at me or the mouthwatering antelope behind me?”
“Wait, is this a friendly tiger, or the one that ate my entire village last week?”
“Gee, I wish I had paid more attention in How-not-to-get-eaten-by-a-Tiger Class.”
Okay, you get the idea. Although tiger run-ins are a rare scare, remember the primitive brain treats all threats (real or perceived) the same way. In other words, a modern version of a tiger attack just wears different stripes. For example, have you ever had a romantic crush on someone? They don’t know you exist, but you know where they’ll be at 3 o’clock on Tuesday. Yes, that kind. So what would happen if you ran into your crush unexpectedly in a supermarket aisle? Instantly, your primitive brain has you turning on your heels to get the heck out of there while your thinking brain has bolted to the bread section. At this point, the primitive brain is working in your favor because you can’t remember your name, let alone know how to say something cool to your crush. What’s the threat in this scenario? Rejection: “If I say something stupid, she/he will hate me forever!”
Although this all sounds like a pretty good deal (except for not getting a date), there is one drawback. Remember the primitive brain hasn’t evolved much. Let’s just say there haven’t been a lot of new ideas flowing through it, like ever. Come to find out, evolution can be both industrious and totally lazy. In the case of the primitive brain, there was no need to “fix” something that wasn’t broken. As far as evolution was concerned, the system was working, you’re still alive, so why adapt beyond the basics?
We’re about to sound really ungrateful here. So, don’t get us wrong; the primitive brain does a great job of keeping us alive. However, it can’t discern between the anxiety we feel when chased by a tiger and infinitely less dangerous fears like public speaking, closed spaces, and flying on an airplane.
Yes, for the primitive brain, fear is one size fits all. There is no internal “think tank” deciding if you are about to become a delicious tiger snack or, if you’re a fearful flyer, boarding a plane to Pittsburgh on a snowy evening.
Fear of flying or, brace yourself, pteromerhanophobia is one of the top 10 fears for American adults.9 Despite statistics showing commercial airline travel is overwhelmingly safer than all other ways we get around10, this phobia keeps some of us permanently grounded. One would assume fearful fliers are afraid of the airplane crashing. Seems logical, right? If we’re talking logic, however, many fearful fliers will tell you they know the fantastic safety record but still freak out. That’s irrational behavior. So what else could be going on here? Scholars who study social phobias might tell you it is about survival, but perhaps not entirely how you would expect. A psychologist who treats anxious fliers recently revealed that two thirds of his clients are more terrified of freaking out and “alienating” other passengers than of crashing.11 These same clients reported being scared of appearing “weird” to others. In other words, they were afraid of rejection from the group.
In this case, the anxiety is compounded. Not only does our primitive brain assume the crash position, it is terrified our nervous behavior will make us stand out in a group. And as our ancestors knew all too well, rejection could lead to tribe ejection. So, in a sense, “death” comes by way of exclusion rather than an accident.
Public Threat
Now that we know what the primitive brain can do, and what it fails at miserably, let’s talk about how your brain reacts to public speaking.
First, public speaking means physically and figuratively standing out from a group. In doing so, our modern self gets sent danger signals from our ancestral past. It shouts:
“Hey, idiot, what are you doing? This group is going to reject you and your stupid speech. You want to die? Turn around slowly, then run!”
But wait, there’s more. Lucky us, we also fear strangers. Though this might continue to benefit us in some respects, it’s not so helpful when it comes to speaking in public. When looking into a crowd of unfamiliar, unsmiling faces, our evolutionary stranger danger device goes berserk. Now our ancestor self is screaming in our head:
“You don’t know these humans. They may be dangerous. Don’t trust them. And, by the way, they think your suit looks cheap. Run!”
So as these fear fireworks blast off in your head, what happens? Your primitive brain is in full-on survival mode. Biological buzzers are going off throughout your body. Your mouth is so dry you can’t swallow. You suddenly feel light-headed and your face turns beet red. Your hands turn ice cold or your palms are slick with sweat. Oh, and of course, just when you need it most, your “thinking” brain is disconnected. Chances are you have experienced one or more of these reactions at some point. You’re in good company. These are common physiological responses triggered by our primitive brain and what we typically refer to as nerves. Guess what? We all get them to some degree when it comes to public speaking. Sure, some people call them jitters, butterflies, apprehension, stage fright, or anxiety, or dress them up as “anticipation,” but they all mean one thing: You’re human.
In a later chapter, we’ll explain why, despite our natural fears, when it comes to public speaking, audiences are seldom your enemy. In fact, we’ll turn your primitive brain on its head and open up your mind to the notion that they actually want you to succeed. Take that, primitive brain!
In Be Twain
Samuel Clemens, better known by the pen name Mark Twain, famously said, “There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”12 In other words, we all get nervous. Twain himself gave more than 1,150 public speeches in his career13 and knew what he was talking about. Frankly speaking, anyone who claims they can “cure” your public speaking nerves is talking out of both sides of his or her mouth. One public speaking book by a major publisher released in 2014 gives the impression it can do just that.14 The title assures that you will Never Be Nervous Again. Let’s be clear here: It’s impossible to eliminate all nerves. Most jaw dropping is how the title seems to disempower the reader. Let’s assume this author has a secret method for reversing at least 200,000 years of human evolution15 and can make nerves disappear forever. After reading the book, inevitably a speaker will continue to get nervous. So who is to blame for this failure? After all, the book held all of the secrets to never being nervous again. It must be reader’s fault when it doesn’t work. That’s really the only conclusion. The silliness of this “sale” confounds us. Though we applaud the writer for wanting to help people, it’s like a cookbook author promising that if you follow his recipes, you will never be hungry again.
Why do we bring this up? Because we don’t want you to buy into the false notion that there is magic cure to get rid of nerves or even that nerves are bad.
Make Nice With Your Nerves
As you have learned, nerves keep us alive. They keep you from having a picnic in the middle of the freeway or wandering down a dark alley at night. That can hardly be something you should be eager to get rid of. So, why not work with your nerves, instead of against them?
It’s time to make nice with nature.
Let’s go back to what happens to your body when you get nervous. It’s usually the same symptoms (sweaty palms, the good old leg shake, or something equally annoying) and it drives you to distraction, right? You’ve tried to control nervous symptoms and even attempted to medicate them. Yet, they keep showing up every time you get anxious about something like public speaking. But let’s stop here for a minute. We want you to consider something. If you know what your nervous symptoms are, and they occur every time you get nervous, then why are you so surprised every time they show up? It’s like this: You know your hands get sweaty when you speak in public, yet when it happens you’re thrown for a loop. Suddenly, all your focus is on your sweaty palms. It’s time to start expecting the expected. Once you begin to expect and accept nerves when they do happen, you can start to acknowledge their primitive role and move past them.
White Out
We’ve had people tell us that despite understanding nerves are a natural part of public speaking, they still worry about going blank at some point during the speech. We call this a “White Out,” where suddenly you’re in some hazy fog and not sure which way to turn. In the next chapter, we’ll talk about the power of visualization and the importance of positive self-talk. This should be helpful to avoid the White Out scenario altogether. Generally speaking, another way to tackle this is with a lot of preparation and practice. Nothing beats it. You can’t cram for a public speech. Well, not if you really want to shine. However, if you still find yourself in a White Out wipe out, we’ll shed light on how to get you out of a fog.
First, don’t assume the audience knows you’re in one. Unless they wrote the speech, they have no idea what’s supposed to come next. So, you’re in charge, even when you feel like you’re not. Second, freeze. We probably don’t have to tell you that because you may already be there, but what we mean is don’t fidget or start talking if you don’t know what’s going to come out. Most importantly, do not apologize or acknowledge your nerves! Again, the audience doesn’t know you’re experiencing technical difficulties. This is a tough thing to do, but it’s critical.
Next, think of the last thing you said or remember saying. Then, turn whatever you said into a question for the audience. It can be rhetorical or if the situation is appropriate, you can actually pose a question. Asking questions is one of the most powerful ways you can engage an audience, while buying yourself time. Here’s why: When you ask a question, even a rhetorical one, the audience goes into “answering” mode. They start thinking about the question, pulling focus away from you. This brief moment gives you time to catch your breath and get back on track. Let them ponder your question. No need to jump back in right away. If you have prepared and practiced, hearing the question out loud and taking this extra beat will likely lift the fog.
For example:
The last thing you remember is telling a story about a woman who found a wallet, turned it in, and received an unexpected reward. After that, you went into White Out mode. You might ask the audience any number of questions, including:
“So ask yourself: Would you have rewarded the woman? Aren’t we expected to do the right thing?”
Or, “Have you ever found something valuable and considered keeping it?”
Or, “Have you ever lost something and it wasn’t returned?”
Or, “Do you think the woman should have accepted the reward?”
Or, “What can we learn from this story?”
Or, “What does this story say about our society?”
Or, “How many of you have been in a similar situation?”
Get the point? There are numerous questions you can pose while you pull yourself out of the fog. It will not only buy you time, but will also engage your audience and they will assume it is part of your speech.
Physical Education
Public speaking is a physical activity and your body has much more of an influence on your mind than you may be aware of. This is a body, mind, and spirit effort. Runners, would you ever consider just hitting the path without stretching? All athletes know how important the mind-body connection is, as well as how to coax the best performance out of their bodies while avoiding injuries. It’s really the same for speakers, or should be.
As we know already, public speaking causes all kinds of physiological changes. Anxiety causes our muscles to contract as the primitive brain is preparing us for fight, flight, or freeze, so this is where you need to adapt where evolution hasn’t. Think about it. Standing with your muscles contracted and your jaw clenched tightly shut is not exactly the most relaxing way to give a speech. Not to mention that your body is sending a threat message to your mind. Other physical reactions to stress include: muscle tremors, twitches, difficulty breathing, rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, chest pain, headaches, nausea/vomiting, vision problems, thirst, hunger, dizziness, excessive sweating, chills, weakness, fainting, and fatigue.16
Have you ever been really nervous and someone tells you to “just relax, calm down!” Did it work or did it just make you want to slap them? As if you wouldn’t have “just relaxed” or “calmed down” if you could! Do people really think that, of all things, just relaxing is the thing we can’t remember to do when we’re nervous? If it were only that simple! The reason we can’t just relax is because the anxiety is not just in our minds; our bodies have gone into fight or flight as well, so thinking “just relax” doesn’t work. We need to help our body calm down so it can begin to tell the mind, “We are not in danger anymore and we can relax.” Stretching, or moving your arms and legs, gives your nerves more space, reduces the tightness in your muscles, and allows your body to stay more fluid and flexible.
A bit of neuroscience for your reading enjoyment: The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve that starts from our brain and connects to different parts of our body, creating a sort of communication highway. This is the reason we feel “butterflies in our stomach” when we are about to speak in public or our “heart breaks” when we get a heaping helping of “Let’s just be friends.” Interestingly enough, for our public speaking purposes, the communication lines between the brain and the body are disproportional. Twenty percent of the communication goes from the brain to the body and 80 percent travels from the body to the brain. This, by the way, explains why telling yourself to “relax” doesn’t work. What happens in vagus stays in vagus. It’s because the wiring sending that message only has 20-percent signal strength. So while you’re telling yourself to relax, if your heart is beating fast and your breathing is shallow, your body is telling your mind that you are in danger. It would be like pitting a dial-up modem against high speed Internet. This means that changing our body posture can really influence the way we feel. Brain science says so!
Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist at Harvard Business School, studied exactly this and found that “Our nonverbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves. Our bodies change our minds.”17 She came up with the idea of power posing, which is adopting the physical stances associated with power, confidence, and winning: head held high, chest pumped out, and arms either lifted up in the Rocky Balboa pose or fists on the hips a la Wonder Woman. Cuddy suggests that everyone should spend two minutes in the power stance before heading into a job interview, giving a big speech, or competing in a sports activity. This power stance exercise can change your attitude right before a speech from nervous and scared to confident and powerful!
You need to make your body do your bidding, not the other way around. Be hands-on and wake it up. Although stretching won’t eliminate your nerves, it will keep your body from tensing up, thus calming your mind. Adopting the power stance will tell your mind “we’ve got this.” Between these two techniques, your brain is getting the message: I’m relaxed and confident. Both are necessary ingredients to ensure rocking your speech!
The Stupidest Public Speaking Advice and Why It Makes Us Crazy
If anyone has ever told you to “imagine your audience naked,” it doesn’t make them a bad person. It just makes them wrong, and perhaps a little creepy. Variations abound on this advice, sometimes allowing your audience to wear undergarments. Whatever the undress code, we can’t think of anything more distracting than picturing an audience au naturel. We’ll leave it at that.
Of course, the idea of this “clothing optional” approach is to somehow give you more confidence. With your audience reduced to their skivvies (or less), they are supposed to be scary-free. Maybe, but this advice emotionally “distances” you from the audience. Public speaking is about engaging a group of people, not pushing them away or fantasizing what they would look like nude. It’s not that kind of engagement, people.
Our second-favorite-worst piece of advice is to “look above your audience” so that you don’t have to catch anybody’s eye. If the eyes are really the windows to the soul, the person who came up with this recommendation likely doesn’t have one—a soul that is, not a window. Here’s why: Humans look at each other. Eye contact builds connection and trust. Your eyes also communicate a heck of a lot of information. It’s really that simple. If you aren’t looking at your audience, you lose this extremely valuable communication tool. If you’re still considering avoiding eye contact this way, try out this little experiment first:
The next time you meet up with friends or family, don’t look them directly in the eyes. Instead, look above them. Act normally in every way, with the exception of giving them any direct eye contact. See how long it takes for someone to say, “Hey, dude, what’s wrong with you?!” Why? Because it’s really weird to look over someone’s head when you’re talking to him or her. It’s the same thing with public speaking, but in this case there are a lot more people wondering what you find so interesting on the wall above them.
I Will Survive
We learned in this chapter why public speaking is somewhat of a head game. First, thanks to evolution, we’re programmed to panic. When we feel threatened, our primitive brain goes into action, preparing us to fight, flight, or freeze. This causes physiological changes in our body, often identified as nerves. While all of this is happening, our “thinking” brain disconnects so we don’t waste time contemplating our next move, which could cost us our life. This is also why your mind goes blank sometimes when you’re nervous. Our ancestors also passed on another gift to us—and it wasn’t just gab. As nomadic people, traveling in tribes instilled a terrifying fear of rejection and a fear of strangers. This manifests today in social phobias like the fear of flying and public speaking. Fundamentally, it’s all about survival.
Understanding where our fears come from allows us to see that a) nerves are natural and b) we should work with, not against them. One fairly simple way to begin working with anxiety is to warm up your body before any public speech. Athletes do it to perform at their best and to avoid injuries. Public speaking is a physical activity, so we should do the same. Additionally, realizing that our bodies speak louder to our brains than our words, saying, “Relax, you’ve got this” to yourself before speaking in public, is not as powerful. Instead, before your speech, adopt a power stance for two minutes. Finally, we shared two of our favorite worst public speaking tips. Please don’t picture your audience in undergarments or naked; that’s just awkward. We also advise looking at, not over your audience. Both of these terrible tips defeat the basic purpose of public speaking: connecting with others to share an important message.
Try and Apply
Expect the Expected
Next time your nerves come on (and they will), the first thing to do is to acknowledge them. Don’t try to fight your primitive brain. It’s not smart and it doesn’t have a heart so it won’t respond to cajoling, reason, arguing, or tears. Instead, tell yourself:
“Of course, my palms are sweaty. They’re always sweaty when I’m nervous. No surprise here.”
This seems almost too simple, and to be honest, there’s no mystery to it. However, by acknowledging that nerves are natural and allowing them to do their evolutionary job, you begin working your nerves, not the other way around. Suddenly, you will find that your nerves are no longer at the top of your mind. In fact, your “thinking brain” will come back online because you’re, um, thinking.
Stretch Out
When you feel nervous, your body gets tense. This signals your brain that you are in danger, and you already know what happens when the body’s Department of Defense gets activated: fight, flight, or freeze. Stretching allows the nerves to spread out and have more room; your body will thus feel more relaxed.
Adopt a Power Stance
Take two minutes before your speech and either stand like Rocky Balboa or Wonder Woman. These two power stances will tell your brain: We are confident, in control, and are going to knock this out of the park!
Key Notes
1. Expect the expected: Your brain is programmed to view public speaking as a threat so expect to get nervous. This will decrease the shock and help you focus on your speech.
2. Wipeouts: If your mind goes blank, ask a rhetorical question; it engages the audience and buys you time to get back on track.
3. Power posing: Right before your speech, do a superhero stance for two minutes. Your body will tell your mind, you got this!