93. Q&A: How To Overcome Presentation Anxiety w/ Michel Shah

Upskiller Flora Xue chats over a Q&A session with Michel Shah, President & Founder of UpSkill, about overcoming presentation anxiety. She gives her advice on:

• overcoming fear of judgment
• decentering
• the HBLT method 

Over the last few weeks, we have been talking about pitching: how to prepare a pitch and how to deliver a pitch. Check out the series in previous episodes 86-89:

86. 5 Step Method To Prepare A Perfect Pitch For Founders, Leaders & Storytellers (Part 1)

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Transcript

0:03

Over the last few weeks, we have been talking about pitching, how to prepare a pitch, how to deliver a pitch. In today's conversation, I am speaking with Flora Shuey and we are going to be talking about Presentations. What do we need to do to have a good quality presentation? Flora and I are going to answer the questions that you may have about effective presentations. Welcome to Upskill Talks, I'm your host, Michelle Shaw, lead Upskill at Upskill Community. Upskill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact. Lead themselves and others in every episode through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenges and opportunities real leaders face in today's everchanging workplace. We will present you with real strategies. For you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin. Welcome to the conversation, Flora. So, Flora, when you think of presentations, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Scary. Ha, ha, ha, ha, scary. A lot of people. Feel the same way. Very scared. And how do you, how do you deal with that when you have to make a presentation and you're feeling scared? How do you deal with that? For me personally, the more I practice and rehearse the presentation, the more confidence I feel in it. Um, also if it's to an audience that I feel like there are high stakes, like it's an audience that I'm really nervous to or a big group of people, I get more nervous. Uh, how do I deal with it? A good question. I think that's why we're talking about it today. I just kind of rehearse to myself as much as I can. And I, sometimes I try to do breathing exercises to calm myself down, but I could use your advice on this topic. So you're hitting some of the things that are really important. I heard you say preparation. So preparation is absolutely vital to reducing our nerves when we are more confident about what we're going to prepare. What we're going to present, it's more likely for us to feel confident. However, as you said, it depends on the presentation. It depends on the audience. It depends on the stakes and that, and it depends on the person presenting the, the nerve is a real part of this, the presentation anxiety. And so how about we look at some strategies? One of the strategies that, that, um, a lot of the literature talks about it's humanizing the audience. It's imagining the audience wanting you to succeed, imagining the audience cheering you on. They call it stage fright, but a lot of people have it in the extreme nausea, feeling shaky, sweaty hands, cold hands. Did you know that they say don't have coffee before? No, I didn't know that and I didn't see why. That makes sense. Actually, I get all of those symptoms too, that you were just talking about it. I get really nervous. But there's a part of this where being nervous is completely normal and natural and most people who care about their presentation feel some kind of nerve. It's really not about not feeling nervous. It's about what are the strategies that you use, the strategies that work for you when you feel nervous. And so for you, deep breathing, having water close by, making sure you're wearing comfortable clothes. It's also making sure you have a hairstyle that does not exasperate the nervousness, like have you flicking your hair and this also for men with longer hair, anyone who wears longer hair, it's you're flicking your hair. You're pushing your hands in your pockets. You're leaning up. It's about understanding the mannerisms and the body language that's necessary to not give away to everyone how nervous you are. And so these are some of the things that we have to pay attention to when we are out to present, and most of all, to think about the audience needs what you are going to present. The audience is there to learn from you, to laugh with you, to be entertained by you. Whatever the purpose of your presentation, to recognize that the audience is there for you. The audience is not a mandatory audience. They don't have to stay there. If they're sitting there, they are staying to listen to you, to hear from you, to watch your performance, to share your jokes, to listen to you sing, whatever it is that you do. And so always remember that the fact that the audience is in front of you, they're celebrating you. They're wanting to hear from you. That means they value you and that can help you to reduce your nervousness. I have a counter perspective. It does. It does. But sometimes for me personally, if I know that people are listening, it makes me more nervous. And something that I tell myself sometimes is nobody cares. Everybody is focused on themselves. Like, if I mess up here, nobody really cares. And that is something that helps me too. Um, I really like what you said about the hairstyle. Like, like body language. Giving away that you're nervous. Even if I feel nervous, I can keep my composure. And, like, doing these things. Like, I, I've even read things about, like, crossing your arms. Like, the position that you stand in, it gives away. How you feel another interesting thing that I've been practicing myself is a story that you tell yourself about your physical reactions. So for example, I, I know I'm about to go on stage or present and I feel my heart beating faster. We take it as a sign of nervousness, but I've heard advice that tell yourself that that's actually your body preparing you and that you're so excited. Your body is helping you instead of like you telling yourself, Oh, I'm so nervous and I'm going to mess up, you think to yourself, okay, I'm ready. My body is getting me ready for it. So, and that's actually a very good strategy and it works for some people. And there are some other people who cannot at all. Get to that place where they tell themselves that anything positive, they're, they're stuck in that negative mindset and that negative, like, you know, this is, this is, oh boy, and not another presentation. Even people who have to give presentations frequently sometimes have this kind of reaction. One of the things, as you said earlier, which I want to flag up is you say, nobody cares. There is some truth in that. And it's that nobody cares that you missed out a little piece of what you planned to present. Nobody cares that it wasn't perfect. Nobody cares that it is not exactly what you had planned because they were not part of the planning with you. So nobody actually cares. In fact, I recently attended a wedding and the bride was saying it should have been half a dozen candles over there. I'm not sure why it was five. And actually, nobody else knew how many candles were supposed to be there. And that is really a good example of what happens when we prepare and we know what we were supposed to say. There was supposed to be an and here. And there is no and, and you feel like the audience knows that you missed the and. The audience doesn't know there was supposed to be an and there. The audience is just listening and perhaps absolutely elated with what you're presenting. So we are our worst critics. And when you're thinking about presenting, whatever you're presenting, whether it's comedy, information, um, singing, dancing, whatever it is that you're presenting, it's really recognizing that people want to celebrate you and you're not allowing yourself that. There are some people who speak and you say that was great and they go, no, no, that sucked. They can't even take the compliment. Even if you say that, that went really well. I don't think so. And so we, it's that mindset around sort of holding ourselves up to a standard that nobody else is holding us up to. And so we have to work on ourselves to be, to be a little bit more graceful to ourselves and gracious and allowing. others to celebrate us and to receive the content and the quality and not just living that negative mindset where we're stuck into believing it's not good enough. It's not going to be good enough. They're not going to like me. They're not going to like it that they are liking it. And even when they tell you that they like it, you were like, it wasn't that good. So how it's really about moving ourselves out of that space. So I want to give some strategies when we're given the presentation, just some tips to think about. One of the strategies for presentations that I really like is called the HBLT. It's the hook, book, look, took. It's like, sounds like a type of burger. It sounds like a burger, HVLT is the speech burger, the presentation burger. And it really says, whatever you're doing with the audience, start by connecting with the audience. So if you're connecting with the audience, you're focusing on the audience and less about yourself. So if you're able to decenter yourself and think about how can I connect with this audience? How can I. Okay. Thank you. Hook them. That's what the H is for the hook. How can I, but the hook is not a superficial hook. It means how can I authentically connect with this audience? How can I make sure they see that I care about them? I took time to understand them and I'm here to speak with them directly. Like they mean something to me. When you are focused on the audience in that way, then it's less about you and more about them. And it will reduce the nervousness in some way. What do you think? I agree. Like my nervousness is most of it comes from, Oh my God, me, me, me, I'm going to mess up. I think something that helps also is talking to somebody like seeing your responses, seeing people nod, making eye contact. It's like reaffirming that like, okay, I'm, I'm just talking. I'm not like presenting in front of a big, you know, like judgmental group. Right. You're decentering yourself. You're getting authenticated. Someone is validating you. They're nodding. They're smiling. They're laughing. Whatever it is, they're chairing, whatever it is that you're presenting, they're participating with you. They're engaging with you. They're connecting with you. And when you do that, when we're thinking about the other person, we're less nervous. We are laughing. We are acknowledging. We're focusing, we're listening. We're not nervous that time. It's when we have to go and present and make sure our content sounds right. And we're saying things that make sense and people are going to judge us. That's what we're really fearful of. They're going to judge us and it's not going to be positive. They're going to judge us negatively. And we never give any space that perhaps the judgment will be a positive one. Someone will evaluate us in a really positive. Enlightening way. We're always thinking, Ooh, they're going to see that one spot on our face. They're going to notice the one thing about us. That's not perfect today. And it is that perfection mode that we live in that makes stage bright and performance anxiety. So tremendous. It's not that most presentations are terrible. It's because most of us hold ourselves up to a standard that not even our audience holds us to. I actually have a story from when I was a kid. My parents used to enroll me into, like, Chinese poetry. I was in Chinese school, and then you have to memorize the poem and recite the poem. And it was a competition. So then the winner would get first place, second place, and you get these little plastic trophies. But, yeah, there was like, on the presentation day, there was like 30, 40 kids sitting in a room, and each person would go up and recite the poem that they memorized. And leading up to this, for, like, a couple weeks before, I would have to, like, memorize the poem every day, I would memorize it, so I had it down, but I remember, this is, like, one of the most mortifying moments of my life. Is I went up there to the stage when it was my turn and I was fine before, you know, I was just sitting in the audience, but the moment that I went up and I opened my mouth, I just forgot the words, like I was one line in and I forgot everything. And then I was just there for maybe like 10 seconds and it's like crickets, silence, and I had to ask to restart. Because I messed up and then it happened again. This happened two or three times where I had to restart over and over again until I got it. But it was the most mortifying experience of my life. Because mind you, I was maybe like 10 years old, so this was very like a detrimental thing. It was mortifying. So yeah, I've had stage fright really bad when I was a kid and it would make me freeze up and forget like my mind would go blank. And I've worked a lot in presenting now, where now I can, like, I've gotten Like, that's never happened to me since, right? But it was something that I was like, okay, I need to get good at public speaking because I can't live like this. This is too embarrassing. It makes me want to run away and move to an island and never show my face again. Um, yeah, that's the story. I have a question because clearly, you know, you say that was the most mortifying experience for you. You want to run away, go to a place, never show your face again. How did the audience react to that? I actually don't know. But now I tell myself the audience was just, well, there was the judges who were the teachers who were probably like, she's not winning the competition, but they could care less because it's like their Saturday and they're volunteering. And the audience is just full of other kids who are also nervous. So they're not thinking about me. That's what I think that imagine that imagine that and they they probably the interesting thing is probably no one from that day remembers that but it sits so deeply with you and it just shows that we we it's about us. It's really about us and the, the, the extent to which we can de center ourselves, can give ourselves wiggle room, space to mess up, space to make mistakes, because the audience is giving us that space, but we're not accepting it. The world is willing to give us some space to make a mistake, but we hold ourselves to a place where we can't make a mistake in our presentation. Every word has to be perfect. And we live now in a special time where It's not just that we're having stage fright, we, we also have fright about with the, the words we use, how we pronounce it, we are just scared in general to speak today. And so this is a really important thing, how do we rebuild that confidence and understand that the community, the people around us are willing to support us when we're speaking. And it's okay that we don't need to be perfect because the speaker before you isn't perfect. The one after you isn't perfect. The last comedian wasn't perfect. The next one won't be. The dancers aren't perfect. The athletes, there's no one who is perfect. And if we hold only ourselves to a perfect standard, we set ourselves up to never get beyond performance anxiety. Do you have any actionable strategies for somebody who is suffering with stage fright or maybe a fear to speak right now in this moment? So one of the things that we say is don't start big, start small. Don't set yourself up for the very big presentation being the first presentation. Today I'm better at giving presentations because I have been given many, many presentations. But when I gave the first presentation, it wasn't even my presentation. I prepared the speech for someone. Who had terrible stage fright and fainted before the presentation and I went and did the presentation I was in a worse condition because I had to witness that so I was already. Scared of what I saw and then I had to go on the stage in front of a podium and present something that no one was expecting me. I don't have the credibility to deliver the content and so they're expecting the person who is not well and I had to go and deliver it. I'm, I have no authority to deliver this content and so that, that's what was with me. They're not going to think I should be here. I don't belong here. Why am I here? I'm meant to write the speech. I'm not supposed to be giving the speech. And I held on to the podium and it shook for the entire time that I spoke. And I think that was definitely not a speech. I think it was the fastest reading of my life. I literally just read everything that I had written down. Obviously, I knew the content. I had written it, but it was not a presentation. It was a fast reading. And so I know that we need to build our credibility. We need to feel like we belong. In front of that audience that we, we, the audience will receive us positively. And I think it means that starting small. So if you want to become a speaker, join a group, start, um, practicing your speech, whether that's. At school, at work, take that opportunity to present if it's spaces like this at Upscale Community where you can come and actually have a chance to speak. These are great opportunities to practice. Practice in low stakes environments. Practice with people you're comfortable with before you start going into high stakes environments with people you're not comfortable with. Take feedback. And that's hard to take. It sounds easy, take feedback, but really open yourself to the feedback. Take it, incorporate it, practice. Ask again, did I incorporate that feedback well? What are your thoughts now? How did I do this time? Keep going back at it. Don't give up. That's the bottom line. Communication is an important skill. I think it was Steve Jobs that said it's a killer skill. That we take into the world that gives us an almost unfair advantage. So we want to develop the skill. We want to get really good at the skill. So one practice before you practice presenting it, make sure your preparation is proper. That means, you know, that the content is good. The H B L T. The hook is that interaction, that connection, that engagement with the audience, that making the audience know that you're here for them and them alone. That piece. The B is the book and that's what you have prepared. Making sure that your content is solid. Making sure of that. That's going to build your confidence and as the audience interacts with you, you're going to feel better. The look. H B L T. The L is for the evidence. Making sure that whatever you're doing, whether it's quantitative or qualitative that you're providing, you're backing up what you're saying. You're using research or evidence or authority figures or experts to support what you're saying and the took is making sure you have something that they can take away. It is possible to get very good at this. Many years ago, I had a student who really struggled with presentations and didn't do well at anything, but had a really good quality preparation. And when I acknowledged the quality of the prep, Preparation, it builds the confidence sufficient for the student to stand in front of the class, not to do a great presentation, but just the acknowledgement that what you've prepared here is top quality, built to the confidence to be able to stand up for the first time. Wasn't able to go up before, even though they had been doing a great work. So knowing that you have great preparation is something that builds your confidence enough to move you one step forward. What I have learned is that student ended up being someone who. Worked in fitness programs and actually sent me a picture of, of, of himself leading a class of 40 people and said, I know you thought I'd never get to it, but look at me today. I'm in front of these 40 people teaching them how to do this. So I finally got it. It's taken a while, but I'm here. And what that story tells me is that you need to start and lean into the discomfort, knowing that this discomfort will over time turn into greater and greater comfort and you will be able to do presentations as long as you're willing to decenter yourself and focus on the good that you're going to offer, the value that you're going to add to others and how you can make other people's lives better by what you do rather than thinking they're going to be looking at me. They're going to see that my hair isn't combed. They're going to see that my ears are off. They're going to see that I didn't get a shave. They're going to see that my shirt isn't ironed. They're going to see that I gained weight. All of these things that we say to ourselves cause us to hold ourselves to a standard that nobody else notices. Nobody else is paying attention to, and that's not why they're there. They're there to get the value that you have to offer. So just try to remember. I bring value. I'm here to serve their needs. I'm going to make their lives better with what I'm saying, doing, singing, performing. I'm going to make somebody's lives better. And when you know you're going to make somebody's life better, it should motivate you and inspire you rather than make you feel nervous. I think that's a good takeaway, even for things that aren't necessarily altruistic, like from a first glance, like, let's say it's for an interview. Like I'm pitching myself or if I'm a founder or an entrepreneur pitching my business, just thinking like, like, yes, you're making someone else's life better. But like, I don't know, like, it's a very kind of like, this is me. I'm talking about myself. So let's say. Actually, yeah, this is my question. Like if I'm talking about why I'm so great, how is that making someone's life better? Because it's not why I'm so great. It's I'm bringing value to you. So for instance, you're not saying I am so great. You're saying what I bring can add serious value to you. So as you touched on being in an interview, it's not, Oh, I'm great. I'm great. It's. It's understanding what the needs of the organization is. That's the connection. That's the connection, right? The connection to the audience, to the, the interviewer, to the company. I understand that you need a great customer service people here. I have. Amazing customer service skills. I understand that your customers are among the most picky customers. I know how to deal with picky customers. I've had experience doing this before. In fact, last year, I had this particular experience of a very picky customer, and this is how I dealt with it. I'm really, so this shows you that I have the skills to come in and support your pickiest customers. So it's important for you to see yourself as not coming in going, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. Pick me, pick me. But to say here, here are the ways in which I can truly add value to your life. It's like a don't chase. Yeah. What did you say? It's like a don't chase, like attract. Yeah. But it's, yeah. And it's how you, it's how you frame it. It's how you frame it in your mind and how you're thinking about yourself. So if you're thinking about yourself as, oh, I'm going into this interview, I, I wonder if they'll pick me. I hope they'll pick me. Instead of saying, okay, I really have the skills that they need here. I'm going to make sure to demonstrate to them very clearly. How I can help them move this forward, how I can really bring great customer service. I'm really amazing at sales, at closing, at helping customers understand the value. I'm a really great person to add to their sales team. If you are thinking about that, I'm a great professor to support my students. I'm a great friend, whatever it is. If I'm helping out with your party, I'm someone that's really good at helping to set up. If you're moving, I'm really good at packing. I can add value. So it's again, coming back to that self awareness piece of knowing who you are, knowing what your strengths are, knowing what you bring. Knowing how you can add value to others. And if you're thinking really clearly about whether it's your business, that's actually what the value proposition is that you're pitching. It's how can I add value to you? If it's a startup, here's how the startup is going to add value to the customers, to the end user, to the world. Anything that we're doing, we're really thinking about how can we add value. And so if we. Think about being in front of an audience and saying, I have an idea that's going to add value to you. You will feel better. You're giving now. You're serving. We're not usually nervous when we're serving. So if we come from that humble place of, Oh, wow, I'm going to be on the stage, all eyes on me. They're going to be judging me instead. Let's think about, I'm going to bring an idea that's very innovative. I'm going to share something interesting with them. I'm going to make their evening. They're probably coming tired and exhausted. I have a good set of jokes tonight that's going to make them laugh. I'm going to sing a song. I know I'm not the best singer, but I'm going to really entertain them. I just went to a wedding last weekend and it's a mixed race wedding and at the reception. One of the bride's family members said, I'm going to sing a song for you. And she says, we're Punjabi and I'm going to sing a song for you. This large audience of people, most were not Punjabi. And she sang that song in Punjabi and everybody wept. I was crying. I didn't know what the words were. Everybody wept. And I'm pretty sure she may have thought about, how do I go sing a Punjabi song to an English audience? Most of them won't understand the words. Will they even listen? Will they think it was good? Can you imagine all that she may have gone through or that she could have thought about? Yet, most of us had no idea what one word in the song was. But the song hit us so emotionally, everyone wept. And I think if we bring that understanding that the audience is there to receive something, the audience is there in a receptive state of mind, the audience is sitting, hoping to receive something of value. And if you can identify and point that thing of value to your audience, it's going to land. It's going to land rather than being self centered. And thinking about yourself, think about how can I add value to this audience that will land and that will make you less nervous and that will make you more, more, more successful in whatever it is when you start thinking about woe is me. I hope they see that I'm this, I hope they don't notice this about me. When you get into that self centered mode of all eyes on me, everybody's noticing me, they're going to notice this, that, that when we come from that egotistical space, we cannot actually do ourselves any justice. And 90% of the time we hardly support or serve the audience in front of us. So the number one tip. Trick, guideline, best practice for managing performance anxiety is to de center yourself and center the audience that you are here to serve. Think about the value that you add to them and how whatever you're going to do can help to improve their lives in some way or another. If you think about that, we're not usually nervous when we're serving. We're nervous when we're self centering. thank you for listening to this episode of Upskill Talks. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe. Leave a five star rating and a written review at Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify, Google podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Don't forget to share Upskill talks with other leaders like yourself, so they too may gain the skills and insights to produce amazing results. Please go to upskill community.com to review show notes, and learn how you can join a community of leaders from across the globe. Collaborating to lead in a more meaningful and impactful way. I'm your host, Michelle Shaw, and again, thank you for joining me on this episode of Upscale Talks.