Fearless Voices: Embracing Public Speaking with Warren Buffet's Blueprint

E228: 🎙️ Welcome back, Plus Member! In this exclusive bonus episode, join me, your host, Anna, for a candid conversation about overcoming the fear of public speaking. I share personal anecdotes and insights into the journey from crippling anxiety to confident communication, drawing inspiration from the legendary Warren Buffett.

🗣 😳 Discover how Buffett, despite once grappling with overwhelming stage fright, transformed into a master communicator and global icon. From avoiding presentations in college to commanding multi-million-dollar bids for lunch meetings, Buffett's story serves as a beacon of hope for anyone navigating the treacherous waters of public speaking anxiety.

⭐ ENGLlSH LIKE A NATIVE PLUS ⭐

Join English Like A Native Plus - a membership allowing you to access the bonus episodes, plus a weekly email with the most recent podcasts' transcript. Become a Plus Member here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2038858/subscribe

If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a rating/review - it is a simple, free way to support us.

Transcript

0:01

Hello Plus Member. Welcome back to another bonus episode. Thank you so much for joining and supporting this podcast. So today I wanted to have a little chat about fear. When it comes to speaking in front of others. Now this is something I do have a lot of experience in. I remember very clearly the first time that I stood on stage and did my first little performance as a grown up. So this was in college, I must have been about 16 or 17 years old, and I chose to be on the stage as an adult. albeit a young adult, and perform something I thought I wanted to do as a career. And I felt awful. I felt physically sick. I did not enjoy the experience in the slightest. It was really horrible. I remember sitting backstage after my first scene and thinking, why am I doing this? I don't want to feel like this every day of my working life. This is horrible. Now, luckily for me, I didn't give up at that point. I did persevere. And over time, that sensation of nausea and debilitating fear eventually faded away. Although I have to admit there are still circumstances where I feel anxious, I feel sick, I feel like I want to run away when I have to deliver something, when I have to present something or in a performance capacity. And there are reasons as to why I feel bad, and usually the reasons are because I'm in front of an audience I don't know. So an unfamiliar audience, or I'm unprepared or ill-prepared for what I'm about to do. So it might be that I've thrown together a presentation in a quite a haphazard way, which I rarely do these days, but you know, it does occasionally happen. I've run out of time to prepare and I'm going live in front of lots of people, all expecting value. And I don't feel like I've fully prepared the material in a way that I'm used to, in a way that I like to have prepared. And sometimes I'm doing things that I don't feel comfortable doing. So if I'm singing a song that I feel is out of my comfort zone, is out of my range, or, you know, could quite easily make my voice break and wobble, and I could sing out of key quite easily or some songs don't have an easy entrance. Like I played the character Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This was an immersive theatre version of the very famous film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And this was held at the Troxey Theatre in London, which is a beautiful venue. And I would start behind the curtain and I would start singing, with my microphone of course, and no one could see me initially until the curtain was dropped and there was this big reveal. But the audience out there were quite noisy. It wasn't like a theatre show where the audience is completely quiet. It was, you know, quite a hubbub. There was quite a lot of noise in the audience, people clinking glasses and they were all that little round tables. And so there was a lot of noise coming from the audience and the host tried to hush them ever so slightly and they would do this big announcement."The lady, the act you've all been waiting for..." And everyone would then cheer. So then there was this huge noise coming from the audience and I had a tiny little tinkle on the piano. And from that tinkle of the piano, I had to hit the right key. So that tinkle, if I didn't hear it, and the piano was in front of the curtain, so they couldn't see me, I couldn't signal to them,"Oh no, I didn't hear it. I haven't got my note. I don't know. I don't know what my key is." I had to just hear it. And from there I would start singing acapella. So with no music behind me, and then as the curtain dropped down, the music would come in. And that terrified me night after night after night, regardless of the fact that I did it for weeks and I felt completely comfortable by the end. I was comfortable in my performance. I was comfortable in the space. I was comfortable with what the audience were like, but I still felt uncomfortable with that initial entrance because it was just so unpredictable, or not unpredictable. It just felt so insecure. There was no guarantee. It was risky. So I didn't feel safe, basically. And so I can completely recognise when people say that they feel this fear when speaking in public, because I've had it too. And I continue to have it, even though I'm a seasoned performer, I'm a well experienced presenter, and I regularly weekly, daily, will go out and talk in front of people, sometimes more prepared than others. And, you know, I think this is quite a global thing. It's quite a universal thing. So many people struggle with this fear of speaking in public, which is, it's quite odd really, isn't it? Because we all communicate through speaking, through our voices. And yet many of us feel afraid to speak when more than one person is looking at us. Now, something that caught my eye recently was Warren Buffett's story. Now, if you think about Warren Buffett, you probably just think about this incredibly successful man, incredibly successful. He's always giving interviews and, you know, he's on the television, he's all over YouTube, he's being interviewed left, right, and centre. He's got a huge amount of wealth and yet he had terrible anxiety when it came to speaking. So let's dive into this story because I think it is fascinating. So many of you will recognise Warren Buffett as one of the wealthiest people in the world. Often he's seen captivating audiences with his wisdom when he's hosting meetings and giving his insights. His insights are actually so sought after that at one charity auction, which gave bidders the opportunity to bid to have lunch with Warren Buffett. He actually brought in 19 million dollars. Can you imagine someone paying 19 million dollars to have lunch with you because they just want to learn from you? Incredible. However, few people, including me, are aware of his once crippling fear of public speaking. It was a challenge he faced head on, transforming it into a cornerstone of his legendary success. Now, it's a well known fact that public speaking Apparently, I say a well known fact, apparently, I'm going to add that in, apparently, according to surveys, public speaking ranks as the number one fear among people. Number one, and guess what's number two? Death. So people are more frightened of public speaking than they are of death. Now this sentiment was echoed by Jerry Seinfeld, who humorously noted that at a funeral, most people would prefer to be in the casket rather than delivering the eulogy. Now Warren Buffett was no exception to this rule throughout his high school and college years. At the University of Nebraska, he meticulously avoided any course requiring presentations, going to great lengths to remain in the shadows. But Buffett's metamorphosis into a master communicator basically came when he had a profound realisation, when he realised the importance of communication for success, but in general, in life, communication is often the key to success and happiness. What good are ideas if you can't communicate them? What good is it meeting people if you can't be yourself around them? So Buffett's pivotal moment in his journey came when he decided to tackle his fear head on. He enrolled into a public speaking course, although he did initially back out due to overwhelming anxiety, but he eventually came to his senses and re-enrolled because he knew the critical importance of communication, especially because he wanted to realise his full potential. He wanted to be a success. Now, Buffett credits this course not just for his newfound confidence in speaking publicly, but as a transformative experience that reshaped his life. Buffett advocates fervently for personal development, asserting that the most lucrative investment one can make is in the mind. He famously suggests that honing effective communication skills could potentially enhance one's lifetime earnings by a staggering 50%. This perspective underscores the invaluable return on investing time and effort into personal growth and development. Now, I have to agree with that. I spent an awful lot of money and worked incredibly hard to pay my study fees to do my degree and then my master's degree, but that was money well spent and it was time and effort well spent because although I didn't end up in the career I'd originally envisaged for myself, it transformed me. And having this new understanding and control over my voice and this insight into how the voice worked, led to all sorts of other opportunities. It's one of the reasons I'm sat here now talking into a microphone and hopefully giving you some words of inspiration to focus on your own self-development. Your voice, it's like your hands, you would struggle in life without your hands, and you would also struggle in life without your voice, but so many people fail to use their voice to its full potential. For some reason, people don't feel that their voice is worth being heard. They don't like people hearing their voice. And yet your voice is a clear path to your mind, to your thoughts, to your ideas and your feelings. So Warren Buffett and I are on the same page with this. Developing yourself and working on yourself can have a profound impact on your earning potential. Now Buffett's advice extends beyond mere skill acquisition. He emphasises the necessity of stepping out of your comfort zone, which is so important. Following the completion of his course to avoid regressing to his former reticent self, Buffett began teaching. He believes in the power of deliberately placing oneself in challenging situations as a means to cultivate resilience and foster personal growth. And it's so true. Things are only uncomfortable for a short amount of time. It's only uncomfortable when you're doing it for the first time and the second time, and maybe a little bit the third time, but slowly and surely it becomes easier and easier and easier until suddenly you feel very comfortable doing that thing that used to scare you. Now Buffett's mantra of embracing discomfort serves as a blueprint for habit formation. It's really important for personal and professional development. Let's all embrace being uncomfortable. At the core of Buffett's message is the potent blend of overcoming fears, recognising one's inherent value, and embracing discomfort as a catalyst for growth. He challenges individuals to actively seek out daily opportunities to push themselves beyond their comfort zones, whether through active listening, volunteering for speaking opportunities, or giving your honest opinion about things. Sometimes even myself, I find it hard to express my true thoughts and feelings because I don't like to rock the boat. I don't like to upset people. So if I disagree with somebody, often I'll just nod and go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, rather than saying what I'm actually thinking, which is, no, I disagree. So I need to step out of my comfort zone more often and be more honest. Now, Warren Buffett's journey from a reticent individual to a global icon of effective communication is not just a testament to his resilience, but it really does serve as a blueprint for anyone looking to overcome their fears and unlock their full potential. Now, while following in Buffett's footsteps may not guarantee billionaire status, it will certainly set the foundation for a richer and more fulfilling personal and professional life. So think to yourself, how often do I speak out? How often do I speak my mind? And when I speak, do I feel confident in what I'm saying? Do I feel comfortable speaking out? And if not, ask yourself why and what you can do about that. As always, I'm here to help you in your English language development. So if there is something you need help with on the English language front, then do feel free to reach out to me and let me know what your obstacles are and what you're hoping to achieve, what your goals are. And I can let you know if there's something that I can, I can help you with there. I do hope that today's episode has been inspirational to you. I was honestly floored when I found out that Warren Buffett used to struggle with crippling anxiety, not just a general nervousness and dislike of public speaking, a crippling anxiety around public speaking. And when you look at him now, he seems so relaxed. And there are strategies that he uses in order to overcome his fear. And I can discuss them in greater detail in another episode. But for now, Just know that your voice does matter, your voice is important and it should be heard. So I hope that you'll raise it up and let people hear you. Until tomorrow, take very good care of yourself and goodbye.