How to stay calm when speaking

Managing stage fright, anxiety, anger AND distraction!

We all know the feeling.

The time comes when we hear ourselves being introduced, and it’s our turn to speak. Palms get sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. Or maybe, you’re already mid-presentation and “that guy” starts interrupting you to say absolutely nothing important at all; or you get asked a really difficult question and you don’t have the answer; OR your dog/kid/spouse/neighbour decides to make a sh*t ton of noise, and you can barely hear yourself think, let alone clearly and passionately articulate your ideas so your audience can understand and care.

There is, and it’s called mindfulness meditation. By the end of this article, I hope to convince you how important and valuable a mindfulness practice is, and give you the tools you need to start one or get back to it.

Before I talk about why mindfulness is so effective at dealing with the negative emotional states I mentioned, it’s worth understanding why they occur in the first place (you can read more in my article about the evolution of stage fright).

Emotions, particularly negative ones, evolved to help us survive. Over hundreds of thousands of years, when something in our environment presented itself as either a threat or an opportunity, our nervous systems learned how to kick into gear, either shooting us with adrenaline and cortisol to escape the woolly mammoth charging at us, or else flooding our brain with pleasurable dopamine so we learn and remember where this delicious patch of berries is. These intense hormonal experiences help us categorize the world into what we need to pay attention to, and what we don’t.

Notice however, that a threat is much more urgent than an opportunity. An animal attack needs more immediate attention than a potential food source in order to survive, therefore

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS SEEM MORE IMPORTANT AND FREQUENT THAN POSITIVE EMOTIONS.

Our brain is wired to prioritize negativity. This gets us in trouble in all sorts of ways, whether obsessing over the one negative comment on a social media post, worrying about everything that’s wrong with your business instead of what’s going right, or letting every little distraction or anxious thought derail your public speaking efforts. Today, we focus on this last issue, and what you can do about it. 

Whether you are nervous before or during speaking, anxious about how you look and sound, angry at interruptions or challenges, or distracted by noises, all of these are part of the same impulse: your body is trying to keep you alive. This may sound dramatic, but it’s true. All of the emotions above are all reactions to unconsciously perceived threats. If you think about it, it’s actually amazing that we have such sophisticated central nervous systems that can do this for us, but we have to find ways to send our nervous system a crucially important message, especially when about to speak in public: EVERYTHING IS FINE. WE ARE SAFE.

THAT is the power of mindfulness meditation. By relaxing our body into a comfortable position, we send signals via our muscles to our brain that there is no threat. By breathing deeply, we do the same. By focusing inward and paying attention only to our breath, our physical sensations, sounds in the room, observing our thoughts come and go, and maybe even repeating these messages out loud, we tell ourselves: EVERYTHING IS FINE. WE ARE SAFE.

The more often we do this, the easier it is to recall this message in times of stress. Mindfulness practice is shown to reduce distraction, improve anxiety, and increase cognitive function. If you automate the process of meditating (i.e. do it every day when you wake up, or before bed every night), eventually you’ll notice your body responds less anxiously to stimuli, and emotions like fear, anger and confusion become way less overwhelming. Automate your practice, then your body will automate responding calmly in a stressful situation like public speaking (this is what we teach in Act 5 of the OutLoud method: Automation). 

So please, if Zoom meetings, pitches and presentations are causing you any sort of stress, PLEASE START MEDITATING. Pick a time of day that works, and set aside 10 MINUTES (I recommend first thing in the morning). Here’s my routine:

• I get up every day, and after going to the bathroom, I sit on my living room floor on two cushions in a kneeling position (crossing my legs causes tension in my hips so I usually don’t bother). 
• I type in “guided meditation” into YouTube, and pick the first ten-minute video I like the look of (I really like the channel Great Meditation, or Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and the apps Headspace, 10% Happier, and Waking Up), and I follow the instructions. 
• If I want something without words, I type in “Bansuri music” or “yoga music” and pick usually one of two videos (Bansuri, Yoga). Then, I sit and pay attention to my breath and the music, letting my anxious thoughts come and go.

On days I successfully do this, my coaching, speaking appearances and meetings are WAY better. No question.

We are in the midst of a global mental health pandemic, right alongside our coronavirus one. Mindfulness meditation will not only make you a better public speaker and entrepreneur, but it could also save your life. I can say without exaggeration that it helped save mine. 

If you need any help starting a Meditation for Stage Fright practice, then DM me or send me an email to [email protected]. Hope this helps you, and please share if you think it could help someone else!