Kyler Shumway Of Deep Eddy Psychotherapy On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Learn to be yourself. Too many speakers get on stage and try to be Tony Robbins or Brene’ Brown. But speaking isn’t acting — speaking is sharing. The audience is there to hear you speak — not Tony or Brene’ — you. Some of the greatest impact you can create as a speaker will happen when you are able to be vulnerable and share stories from your life. Consider sharing stories or details from your personal life as they connect to your content, and you will come across as much more relatable and real. Let your human foibles shine. If you snort when you laugh, if you have a toothy grin, or if you like drinking diet Pepsi on stage, then more power to you. I know one speaker who refuses to wear dress shoes on stage because they dislike how they feel, even though they frequently speak to professional audiences. Remember, the audience is there to hear from you — so make sure you are the one they see on stage.
At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Kyler Shumway, psychologist and CEO of Deep Eddy Psychotherapy.
Kyler is a bestselling author, TEDx and frequent keynote speaker, psychologist, and CEO of one of the largest psychotherapy practices in Texas. He has been featured by Forbes, The New York Times, CNN, and more for his work in combatting the loneliness epidemic. His mission is to help people learn to love themselves and others, build satisfying and meaningful relationships, and find their place to belong.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I’m from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. And as a kid, I was a lot like most other kids. I grew up on a farm out in the country. I had a mom and a dad, three younger sisters, a younger brother, and a puppy. I loved playing video games and fantasy adventure, and I used to go out into the woods near my house with a broom handle (which I pretended was a sword) and I would pretend I was a brave, valiant knight protecting the realm. So yeah, I was a bit weird, but mostly, I was a lot like you.
But one thing that made me different from most kids is that I had a really hard time being around others. Starting from a really young age, I quickly discovered that people terrify me. I used to get so bunched up, tense, and nauseous when I needed to do anything social. I’d do whatever it took to avoid going to school, church, or even sleepovers and those sorts of things. I even played sick so that I could skip out, which led to my parents not believing me, which led to me puking all over the place during worship at church one Sunday. Although anxiety does run in my family, things became so much worse for me because of the bullying I experienced growing up. But that’s a story for another time.
See, what I didn’t know then that I know now is that I was suffering from unmanaged and out of control social anxiety. Each interaction felt like a performance, like I was being judged and criticized by everyone around me.
This impacted my life in so many ways. Any time I had a class that required a presentation, I would drop out. Anytime I looked into a career path that required socializing, I’d avoid it. I was an athlete, and a pretty good one — good enough to get a full ride scholarship at Duke University to throw shot put. But each time I needed to perform in front of a crowd, I would panic. My mind would race faster than my frantic heartbeat, and all those years of practice would suddenly leave me, causing failure over and over and over again. I never reached my full potential as an athlete because my anxiety held me back.
I didn’t reach out and make friends. I spent most of my time alone, playing video games or lifting weights. And in those moments of isolation, my anxiety would fade and be replaced by loneliness. And the more I withdrew and avoided, the worse things got for me.
Fast forward a few years. Here I am now, a full-time psychologist whose day job involves talking to people for hours on end. Not only that, but as the CEO of one of the largest therapy practices in the state of Texas, I serve as the chief spokesman and leader for a team of more than one hundred clinicians and support staff. I’m also a keynote and TEDx speaker, and I’ve given talks at conferences across the nation as well as spoken on live television. I have a wife, awesome friends, and so many fond memories of togetherness and connection.
So, how did I get from then to now?
As cliché as it may sound, I had to learn to face my fears to fully live the life I wanted. I went to therapy and began to understand my anxiety for what it was. I learned that avoiding the situation reinforces the fear — each time we avoid, we feel relief, which causes our minds to amplify the anxious feelings the next time the situation arises.
What worked for me will also work for you. You have to learn to have the anxiety without the anxiety having you. This means choosing to do the things that you value (or that will help you get there eventually), even if it’s uncomfortable. Just like going to the gym and exercising your muscles, you have to experience the strain of being social in order to get stronger and better at it. And just like how it’s easier to work out with a buddy, consider working with a therapist who can support you along the way.
And this is hard work! You have to purposefully put yourself in situations, over and over and over again, where your social anxiety will show up. Does this mean sign up to start giving presentations in front of large crowds? Not necessarily. You have to start small. If all you can handle is 5 minutes of small talk with a stranger each day, start there. As you build up a tolerance for those anxious feelings, you’ll quickly discover that not only do the feelings tend to fade, but that you are capable of doing more than you thought. And even if the anxiety doesn’t fully go away, at least you can live the life you want.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
Sweat oozed through my suit jacket as I nervously picked my fingernails to the point of bleeding.
“What am I doing right now?” I thought to myself. “Why did I say ‘yes’ to this? Stupid, stupid Kyler!”
An audience of women and mothers had filled the church gymnasium the point of standing-room-only. The Salem, Oregon chapter of Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) gathered from far and wide to hear the wisdom of my supervisor — a licensed clinical psychologist and expert on perinatal issues — to speak about women’s mental health.
Instead, they got me.
My supervisor fell ill to strep throat the day before, and so I was assigned a fate worse than death.
It was my first major speaking gig.
I had 24 hours to prepare a 90-minute talk. On women’s issues. To a group of mothers. As a man, with no children of my own.
This was exactly the sort of situation that I wanted to avoid at all costs.
See, social anxiety and I are lifelong partners. The dragon of racing hearts and frantic thoughts liked to rear its ugly head in any scenario involving social performance — and so, I became the master of avoidance.
As a child, I played sick to get out of school, church, sleepovers, you name it. Even during my undergraduate years, I dropped any course that required a class presentation. So, not only did I suffer from crippling stage fright, but I also had very little practice with public speaking.
It was a completely avoidable nightmare.
And normally, I would have tried to come up with some excuse or illness that would allow me to escape the discomfort of that stage. Except, I was in graduate school, learning to become a psychologist, and my classmates and I had just learned about experiential avoidance.
It was time to face my dragon.
The event organizer began reading my introduction before I went on stage, and my heart was pounding a hole through my sternum.
Maybe if I have a heart attack, they’ll let me go home?
“We are thrilled to have local mental health expert, Mr. Kyler Shumway, here with us today to talk about perinatal mental health. Let’s give him a warm welcome!”
I stood up, wiped a bleeding thumb inside my jacket pocket one last time, and forced a smile as I took the stage.
It was not an amazing performance. I read off my slides, I stammered and used lots of “ums” and “uhs,” and I had a few jokes that fell very flat. I also ran over my time by ten minutes and left no opportunity for questions.
To this day, I have no idea how I survived that first talk.
But I did. And little did I know that my life was about to change forever.
After the talk, a few mothers approached me to thank me, share their stories of hardship and depression, and tell me that they were ready to get help.
I couldn’t believe it — my bad talk helped someone! My soul soared through the sweat-deluge that was my physical form.
See, I’m not the world’s most natural, gifted speaker. Those people have it easy.
Instead, I’m someone who has fought tooth-and-nail to share from the stage. I went from avoiding speaking like the plague to being featured as a keynote speaker at conferences, guest-starring on live television, and sharing my story with the world. I built my speaker-self up from nothing — and now, this is one of the most rewarding aspects of my professional career.
If I can do it, so can you.
Speaking is so much more than managing the butterflies and remembering your lines. It’s more than having flashy slides and using a fancy clicker.
Speaking provides healing intervention, one that can change and even save lives.
Speaking instills insight, inspiration, and calls others to action.
But perhaps most importantly, speaking is freedom. Freedom to share your story. Freedom to break the silence. Freedom to unlock your highest potential as a person with a message to share.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
My best friend and colleague, Dr. Daniel Wendler (I call him Dan) and I are frequently invited to give co-led talks about friendship. One of our favorite things to do is open the talk with some special entrance that captures our playful dynamic while also ramping up the audience energy. Long story short, one of our first talks together involved galloping in with coconut shells like we were a couple of knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Just imagine two dudes, supposedly “respectable” professionals, skipping through the audience to the sound of “clickity clack” as the Monty Python theme blasts over the sound system.
Well, the first time we tried this, I made one crucial mistake — I forgot that leaping around and pretending to ride an invisible horse tends to ramp up your heartrate. And when you are socially anxious, an elevated heartrate can turn into a panic attack… which is exactly what happened next.
We galloped up on stage to tune of roaring laughter and applause, and my head was spinning. I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was dying. My heart was pounding a hole in my chest. As I gasped for air, Dan noticed what was happening and stalled by doing our introduction solo.
Thank goodness I was training to be a psychologist, and thank goodness I was paying attention in our panic attack lectures.
I planted my feet, slowed my breathing, and started naming items in the room. Red chair. Black microphone. White laptop.
Breathe.
It took a minute or two, but I was finally able to settle. I turned on my mic, told the audience that they should always consult their doctor before engaging in Monty Python, and the rest is history.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My friend Dan is a “natural” speaker. He gave his first TEDx talk when he was still in high school. He can spin up a speech on the fly that will make you laugh, cry, and clap at the end. I say “natural” because Dan is also autistic, and for some folks on the spectrum, sharing ideas isn’t always easy. But ever since we became friends, I’ve looked up to him like the older brother I never had.
I still remember going to hear him speak at a conference very early in our friendship. After he finished and stepped off stage, he said, “You belong up there too, man. I know you can do it.”
Dan has always believed in me, long before I believed in myself. Every aspiring, socially anxious speaker deserves a Dan.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
People sometimes set themselves up for failure — not because they want to fail, but because they set their sights on the wrong definition of success. Does success mean you get a huge standing ovation at the end of your talk? If so, then seated applause will feel like a failure. Does success mean you deliver the perfect talk, line by line? If so, even the smallest mistake will feel painful.
Instead, set your goals around consistent practice, improvement, and controllable opportunities for impact. You can’t control whether the audience will laugh at every joke, but you can control whether you learn from the jokes that don’t land. You can’t control whether you’ll be invited to every speaking gig you want, but you can control how many applications to speak you submit.
What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?
I gave a talk at a conference in Georgia a few years ago, and during the Q&A at the end someone said, “I wish I would’ve known this when I was a kid!”
I wholeheartedly agree with them. I wish I could’ve known then what I know now. And it’s not like I’m always sharing unique ideas and concepts — sometimes the simplest messages make the biggest impact. “You belong.” “You deserve love and kindness, just like everyone else.” “You can reduce anxiety by avoiding caffeine.”
Every time I speak, I think to myself, “If my words help even one person here, all of this was worth it.”
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
Currently, I’m focused on growing my practice. Texas was ranked #2 for worst access to mental healthcare, and I hope to help change that by recruiting effective clinicians to serve our community.
Aside from that, I’m also working on rewriting my first book — The Friendship Formula — which was written while I was in grad school, and I’ve learned a great deal since then that I’d like to share. I continue to speak at conferences, about one per month and sometimes more, and am excited to start attending in-person events again.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have two! One comes from my childhood hero, Fred Rogers:
“Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.”
The other comes from the epic film Gladiator, where General Maximus speaks to his army as they prepare for battle:
“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.
First, and most important, every effective speaker needs to embrace a growth mindset.
The growth mindset (Dweck, 2015) is all about believing that our traits and abilities can be improved upon and developed, that with hard work and a strategic approach, we can accomplish new heights. Someone with a “fixed” mindset believes that some people have it while others do not, that success is something you are born with, and that some things cannot be changed. If you believe that you just aren’t cut out for speaking, that you’ll never improve, you are probably right. But, if you can push yourself to have a growth mindset, if you can believe in your ability to adapt, change, and overcome, then who knows how far you’ll go? Instead of “I’m just not cut out for this,” tell yourself, “I’m just not cut out for this… yet.” After all, if speaking was an inherent trait, why would I waste my time trying to help people learn to do it? Be open to new experiences. Be enlivened by the idea of a challenge. Stay focused on making progress.
Second, learn to be yourself.
Too many speakers get on stage and try to be Tony Robbins or Brene’ Brown. But speaking isn’t acting — speaking is sharing. The audience is there to hear you speak — not Tony or Brene’ — you. Some of the greatest impact you can create as a speaker will happen when you are able to be vulnerable and share stories from your life. Consider sharing stories or details from your personal life as they connect to your content, and you will come across as much more relatable and real. Let your human foibles shine. If you snort when you laugh, if you have a toothy grin, or if you like drinking diet Pepsi on stage, then more power to you. I know one speaker who refuses to wear dress shoes on stage because they dislike how they feel, even though they frequently speak to professional audiences. Remember, the audience is there to hear from you — so make sure you are the one they see on stage.
Third, learn the art of mindsight.
Speaking should feel intimate. The best speakers are tuned into their audiences, fully present and connected with them. To do this, we must learn to enter their headspace and let ourselves connect with their experience. Our minds are capable of what psychologist Dr. D.J. Siegal calls mindsight — the capacity to understand someone else’s thoughts and feelings at any given moment. For example, we feel afraid during scary movies because we can imagine what the character might be feeling, which then recreates their experience in us. It’s a lot like empathy, except you can use mindsight to imagine the future and how someone might think or feel. You can develop stronger mindsight by getting in touch with your own emotional world through reflection, journaling, or even psychotherapy. And, as you learn to make friends with your thoughts and feelings, you’ll better understand the thoughts and feelings of those around you.
Fourth, passionately craft your content.
The mark of a powerful speaker is the ability to create powerful, creative, and relevant content. Your content is the active ingredient, the meat of the stew, the core of your presentation. People who are good at creating content can write excellent talks on virtually any topic and can fill the time with ease. (I once listened to a lecture on computer programming that kept me riding on the edge of my seat.) The more you know about a topic, the easier it will be for you to create content around it. Do this by writing, reading, and seeking inspiration in the world. Listen to other speakers and learn from their strengths. Refine and re-refine your message until it carries the weight you want.
Finally, fifth, is to seek feedback.
Feedback is absolutely essential for career success as a speaker. You need to know what the audience thinks of your work to improve it. A word of caution — not all feedback is helpful or even accurate. You may receive harsh criticism from an audience member who is feeling particularly salty for being forced to attend, for example. Or, perhaps worse, you may receive unearned praise and false affirmation. Like most mothers, mine was the poster woman for that kind of thing. Mom’s job is to make you feel good about yourself and what you do, and you are going to have some “moms” in the audience who will praise you no matter what. Conversely, feedback that keeps you up at night, makes you want to quit, or makes you feel dehumanized or less-than, disregard it completely. Triangulate your feedback and consider credible only what comes from multiple sources. Identify patterns and themes of positive and negative criticism. Make a gameplan to improve, keep your chin up, and focus on what matters most — the message, and your chance to make the world a better place.
As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?
I was a sophomore in college, sitting in the office of Duke University’s head sports psychologist to get help with my performance anxiety.
I told him about the all-too-familiar pattern of somatic, emotional, and psychological anxiety symptoms that always came up during competition but never during practice. I shared the intense discomfort I experience around others, in crowds, and when being observed. I even told him about how I would drop any class that had mandatory presentations.
I asked him to make it go away.
“Well, I can’t do that. You have a social anxiety disorder.”
This was not news to me. After all, I was taking Psych 101, so I knew everything. But then he said something I’ll never forget:
“I might not be able to make it go away, but you can.”
It was not what I wanted to hear.
Also, it wasn’t completely true. Anxiety doesn’t just “go away.” In fact, when we try to push those feelings down, much like a beach ball held underwater, they tend to uncontrollably explode above the surface. And, even after all these years of public speaking and learning to cope with my feelings, anxiety continues to be a faithful attendee at my performances.
However, my psychologist was correct. I needed to take ownership, confront my fears, and learn to push through the discomfort — no one else could do it for me.
Some of you struggle with anxiety as I do, and I wrote what follows specifically for you. Unfortunately, this chapter alone cannot make your fears “go away.” You are the only one with that power — but I believe in you.
I went from completely avoiding the stage to becoming a national keynote speaker, a live television expert, and a courageous confronter of anxious fears.
If I can do it, I know you can. And here’s how.
First, you need to inoculate yourself from some of the most common irrational beliefs about public speaking. And second, you need to set aside the time to rehearse, master the content, and prepare to give a stellar presentation.
A brilliant study conducted by Jackson, Compton, Thornton, and Dimmock (2017) used an information inoculation technique to help undergraduates manage anxiety during a required class speech. Before the big day, students in the experimental condition were sent a brief handout designed to refute some of the most common irrational speaking anxieties people experience, resulting in decreased pre-speech anxiety, fewer somatic anxiety symptoms mid-speech, and improved post-speech attitudes regarding the impact of anxiety on their speaking ability compared to controls.
So, you can potentially manage your speaking anxiety by arming yourself with knowledge! Check out the fears and beliefs listed below and think about which ones might apply to you. I have included the ones included in the research by Jackson et al., as well as a few others.
Irrational Belief #1 — The Audience Will See My Nervousness
This belief comes from a psychological phenomenon called the “illusion of transparency,” which is the inaccurate assumption that others can tell what we are thinking and feeling.
People constantly tell me they would “never guess” I have social anxiety. I take it as a compliment, but I also think it has to do with how we perceive anxiety in others. Research has shown that audience members are not very good at guessing what speakers are experiencing internally (Savitsky & Gilovich, 2003).
Your heart might be pounding, your armpits might be drenched with sweat, and your cheeks might be twitching involuntarily, but the audience is probably none the wiser.
Irrational Belief #2 — The Audience is Judging Me
Known as the “spotlight effect,” this is the fear that others are judging and hating on how we look and act.
I believe this goes back to our need for belonging (as well as some narcissistic tendencies). We crave approval, we want others to love us, and we need a mechanism to alert us when those needs are in jeopardy. So, we are all too preoccupied with ourselves to notice those around us. Research has also shown us that people tend to be more focused on themselves than they are whoever is on stage (Gilovich, Kruger, & Medvec, 2002).
True, you are on stage and “in the spotlight.” However, you are probably overestimating the level of judgment being passed. Give yourself some compassion, keep your chin up, and focus on giving your best performance you can.
Irrational Belief #3 — My Anxious Feelings Will Ruin the Performance
Apparently not! The impact of anxiety appears to have more to do with how the symptoms of physiological arousal are interpreted by the speaker (Brooks, 2014). If your heart is pounding, breathing speeds up, and temperature rises, you could take those sensations as indicators of anxiety or excitement (or maybe some of both!).
The time and energy you invest in trying to push the anxiety away could be much better spent improving the content and preparing for success.
Irrational Belief #4 — I’m Going to Run Out of Time
Have you ever felt rushed during your talk? Did you speed up to make up for time? Did you run out of content much, much sooner than anticipated?
The experience of onstage anxiety tends to distort one’s sense of time (Bar-Haim, Kerem, Lamy, & Zakay, 2010). Some of us speed up and speak quickly in an effect known as “tachypsychia,” a rapid increase in processing speed to help us make rapid, adrenaline-fueled decisions in the pursuit of survival. My theory is that the speakers who ramble on and on past their time limit have little anxiety and conscientiousness.
Rehearsal will certainly help you stay on track and keep a good time table. However, you should try to remind yourself in those moments when you feel rushed to take a deep breath, check the clock, and focus on giving a good performance. If you go over time, the audience should at least enjoy it.
Irrational Belief #5 — If I Mess Up, My Speaking Career is Over
Depends on what you mean by “mess up.” If you get on stage and belt out a vulgar, racist, sexist rant, possibly strip naked, and assault an innocent bystander while the scene unfolds on live television, then yes: your speaking career is over.
Otherwise, your career as a speaker is over when you say it is over.
None of us give perfect talks. All of us stutter, forget the next line, click to the wrong slide, and give sloppy answers to audience questions from time to time. Messing up is part of the process. Learn as much as you can from your mistakes and mishaps, but don’t let them keep you up at night.
Once you’ve inoculated yourself from these beliefs, the other most important anxiety-reducing strategy is rehearsal.
Many early-career speakers will firmly agree with the following statement:
“If I could just manage my anxiety better, I would be an amazing speaker.”
Try replacing the word “speaker” with “heart surgeon.”
Just like doing a good job in heart surgery, doing a good job on stage requires much more than staying calm and collected. Often, speakers will feel anxious before and or during the performance because they are underprepared. Think about how you might feel if, and I’m assuming you aren’t a surgeon here, you were told to perform heart surgery in the next few hours. Furthermore, think about how you might feel during said surgery as you cluelessly poke around with tools and hope for the best.
The key to confidence is preparation.
The Greek poet Archilochus once said that “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” The more you prepare, the closer you will be to performing at the level you hope to achieve.
Heart surgeons probably feel anxious the first time they swing the scalpel, but by the time they perform an actual surgery, they know the routine frontwards and back. Why? Because they rehearse. Over and over and over, they rehearse the process. They practice each step ad nauseum. And even when they finally reach that point of flawless performance, they keep practicing. If you want to feel as confident as the heart surgeon in operation, you will need to practice like one.
Rehearsal provides anxiously wired people like us with an outlet. In fact, anxiety will fuel your fire. Anxiety will make you work harder than everyone else. Anxiety will keep you passionate, determined, and focused. If you were able to take it all away, you might not care as much.
So, how should you rehearse? Let’s dive in.
Rehearsal Tip #1 — Achieve Happy Birthday Level of Memorization
TED speaker Jim Urban once wrote about achieving “Happy Birthday level of memorization” when it comes to giving a talk. If I were to ask you to set this book down for a moment and sing everyone’s least favorite annual hymn, you could probably do it, word for word, without mistakes. You know the lyrics so well that you could probably improvise and sing it to a Reggae beat, change some of the words, and add in a few dance moves.
You want the content of your talk to be so ingrained, so well-rehearsed, that you can mindlessly spout out every word. This level of memorization allows you to improvise and be flexible at the moment. Speakers who memorize their content do not have to devote any of their attention to remembering the next slide or talking point, which gives them the ability to be fully present with and attuned to the audience.
Ultimately, the only way to learn the lyrics of Happy Birthday is repetition. You will have to put in the time to go over and over the content until it sticks. Jim Urban suggested you will know you have made it when you can give your talk while doing some other unrelated activity, such as cooking or cleaning. Put in the hard work up front, and your future onstage self will thank you for it.
Rehearsal Tip #2 — Script, Bullets, Blind
The first thing you should do is write out your entire talk as a full-length script. You will notice several benefits from scripting out the talk, such as being able to identify areas that need to be adjusted for length, but the greatest benefit comes from being able to polish your wording and pre-edit before memorization begins. Practice reading the script out loud while you time yourself to get a sense of how your talk fits within your allocated slot.
After a few scripted rehearsals, you can try editing your script down to a series of bullet points. Spend more time looking up from the page, practice the delivery, and how you might use your body to communicate the message. You might notice yourself stray from the original script on occasion, and you can use those moments to practice returning to your next bullet.
Once the bullet point rehearsals feel more comfortable, try moving on to the blind rehearsal. No notes, no script, just you and the imaginary audience. Feel free to transition from script to blind rehearsal in whatever way and at whatever pace feels best for you — some people will get creative by drawing it out using images on a whiteboard or voice record themselves reading the script and then listen to it on their commute.
Rehearsal Tip #3 — No More Do-overs
High-octane speakers typically do not pause mid-talk and say, “Whoops, I messed up, let me jump back five minutes.” Once the performance begins, the show must go on. Similarly, once you have the talk fairly well-memorized, you should give every rehearsal as if you were on stage. No more do-overs, no going back to restate something you messed up. Not only will this prepare you for some of the stage anxiety, but also it will help you practice improvisation and how you might pick yourself back up after a fall.
Rehearsal Tip #4 — Invite the Anxiety
According to my smartwatch heart rate monitor, the most anxiety-producing moments for me are at the beginning of the talk and the Q&A section at the end. My body doesn’t have those same anxious reactions during rehearsal, though, and so I would also feel caught off guard on stage, thus making the performance that much more difficult.
Just as you should practice with the content of your talk, you should also practice with the context. You need to practice performing with anxiety if you tend to get anxious on stage. So, ask a friend or family member to listen to your talk. Give sections of your talk at Toastmasters. You can even video record yourself to prompt some of those same “I am in the spotlight” thoughts and feelings. I sometimes even practice elevating my heartrate by doing pushups or jumping jacks to simulate the physiological symptoms during those high-stress moments. If you can push through your content with a pounding heart and labored breathing, the stage will feel like a walk in the park.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would want to spur people to embrace radical compassion and love in the face of hate. I recently gave a TEDx talk on this — here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O-xEWq2tcI
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Harrison Ford! He also struggles with social anxiety, and he’s someone who really models what socially anxious folks can do, even though they feel scared and want to withdraw.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
I’m on LinkedIn and Twitter.
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Kyler Shumway Of Deep Eddy Psychotherapy On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
