John McDougall: Hi, I’m John McDougall and welcome to Authority Marketing Roadmap. Today my guest is Jill Diamond, President and founder of ACCENT ACE. Today we are talking about how to overcome public speaking anxiety. Welcome Jill.
Jill Diamond: Hi John, thanks for having me.
John: Yeah absolutely. Is it common to have a public speaking phobia?
Jill: I think so. I don’t know if you have ever heard the statistic that more people are afraid of public speaking than they are of dying. Have you ever heard that?
John: Oh, really? No.
Jill: And just to take it one step further, which I think is funny — Jerry Seinfeld has a joke and he says, “Well, if that’s true, that means that more people are afraid of giving the eulogy at a funeral than they are of actually being in the coffin itself”, which is kind of funny.
John: Nice. Rather die than have to get up there and speak in front of people.
Jill: Exactly.
John: In our site workingdemosite.com/authority, it’s all about thought leadership and getting experts out there. So that’s a problem, right?
Jill: Absolutely.
John: People trying to get their name and brand out there, there is a lot to be gained by public speaking.
Jill: Absolutely, because if you are an expert at something, it doesn’t mean you know how to communicate that. It can get lost at that very important moment whether you are giving a presentation, or giving an important meeting that you are leading.
It’s essential and I think too many people don’t really understand the benefits of it and how much…Listen to this statistic, Albert Mehrabian is a PHD and he did a study back in 1967 that looked at the elements of verbal communication, being the nonverbal component, the voice and the content. The verbal, the actual words you use.
Once you are an expert, provided that you are that expert, 55 percent of the message is influenced by nonverbal elements, and 38 percent is influenced by the voice. So it actually only leaves 7 percent once you get to that point of communication.
I think really working and developing on delivering skills, how to deliver that message, is underrated. It’s really, really essential to being an authority.
John: Sorry, what was the 7 percent left over part?
Jill: The content. The information itself.
John: That’s what I thought. Your tone, your body language, your vocal quality is basically the vast majority. If you are not confident and clear, then the message is just going to get buried.
Jill: Absolutely.
John: There is a difference between experts and authorities. Experts could be a guy in a garage or a girl in a garage that is really knowledgeable about something, but if they’re not out there in public and in their community getting recognition, then they’re more of an expert and less of an authority.
It’s great if you can take your expertise up into a public authority level. How can experts and entrepreneurs overcome public speaking anxiety?
Jill: If they do have anxiety, they have to look at how important it is for them to become that authority. If it’s important, it’s always about motivation. If you want to get better at golfing, you have to be motivated. If you want to take that expertise and become an authority, then you have to take a class.
You have to work with an expert, an authority if you will, in that field who can help you. I will tell you just as a tip to how to overcome that. One of the biggest ways to manage the anxiety is by focusing on your breathing. I think people don’t understand that, or they’ve never done it before.
But when you actually take focused breaths, you can slow down your metabolism. It’ll help you to focus, so your brain will work for you. Just start with breathing, that’s just the first thing that comes to mind.
John: I went to the Tony Robbins personal power type of conference a few years ago. It was awesome. I did the whole walking on fire.
Jill: Oh, cool.
John: It was great. I was always curious, “Jeez, is Tony Robbins really that great? Everybody talks about him, and he has a huge following”. In fact, I was really impressed, I really enjoyed it. One of the things he said was, “Stress is largely a breathing problem,” and he said, “You’ll be amazed. You get into stress, just start breathing.” That’s a great tip.
Jill: Absolutely. Let me take that one step further. In the days that I was an actor, one of the things that we always talked about is, you can develop a character by starting with how the character breathes. That I think goes very well with being a public speaker because in a way you have to take on that confident character, right?
You have to have everything it takes to make people believe that you know what you’re talking about. As in acting sometimes the actor starts with the breath.
John: Right, right and again if you’re not confident, they’re not going to get to that seven percent of the actual content. You’re not going to get your message out there, so slow yourself down, take deep breaths, and know that that’s really important. Not to add pressure to people in a way, right?
Jill: No, no, quite the opposite. You talked about slowing down, and that’s another really important technique or tip. It’s a technique called “thought chunking”. When we speak, we quite often leave out the punctuation in our voice, so where is the comma? Where is the period? When is that next new idea about to start?
And shouldn’t the pauses all be different lengths depending on where you are in your communication? It’s something that I think doesn’t take a whole lot of study. It just takes paying attention, and it takes listening to people who do it well.
Every good speaker has their own style, their own rhythm if you will, to that phrase. So that’s another tip, it’s called “thought chunking” — pausing and pacing as you speak.
John: If you are steamrolling over your sentences because you’re all excited, and you’re up there and waving your arms — and I do that, I know, and you’ve helped me with this — I get up there and I’m pretty confident, and I enjoy it, and I do a fair amount of public speaking, but you can then fall into the trap of you’re almost tripping over so many ideas. You’re getting them out there, and you’ve got all this great stuff, and you’re sharing it.
But if I understand you correctly, you have to be very intentional about “get an idea out there and pause”. Get an idea out there and pause a little bit, right? A little more, is that what you’re saying?
Jill: Absolutely what I’m saying. It’s two‑fold. It’s important for the audience members because when you pause, hopefully you’re pausing on a very key word, or an idea, so it gives them time to digest what you’re saying. That’s number one, it’s good for the audience.
Number two, it’s amazing how a millisecond of pausing will help you as the speaker, to check in, “How am I doing? Oh yeah, I was going too fast,” or “Maybe I’m not emphasizing what I really want to emphasize.” It gives you that instant to look at somebody in their eyes if you’re in a live setting to see, “Are people following me?” It helps the audience and it helps you.
John: They pick up that you’re confident from that even if you thought you were confident, again just using myself as a little guinea pig here. I’m out there being confident, and rolling, and rolling on all these ideas, but some people might even pick up on that as, “Whoa. This guy’s a little nervous or too much caffeine”.
Jill: For sure.
John: You want to check in on that, and a more powerful speaker has more intentional pauses.
Jill: Yes. They do, absolutely.
John: Awesome. What about building confidence? How else can people build confidence in public speaking?
Jill: I think a lot of times people underestimate the importance of practicing out loud. You spend all this time building your deck, having your meetings, making sure you’ve got all the information you need. Again, have you taken the time to outline what you’re going to say in such a way that it’s easy for you to grab your idea and say it?
The best way to be ready for those moments is to practice out loud because it always sounds really good in our head. But until we start talking to the wall, and using our voice, and moving across the room, we don’t know, “Wow. I’m not sure I’ve got this material yet.”
John: It really has worked well for me. One of my most recent talks was at Brandeis University. It was on authority analytics. I went a little further than I normally do to practice out loud. I think I did it four times. Now it’s an hour talk, so four times actually going through the entire thing is a good amount of time.
And maybe people do a lot more than that, I don’t know. For me, usually I’ll do it two or three times. And sometimes I’ll flip through the slides and not give the whole thing, but really envision what I’m saying as I go through each slide. That’s as I get to the tail end.
I made a greater effort to really give a good number of full out loud — one to a friend of mine, and several alone, but out loud. It really builds my confidence. When I go in feeling like I really know every slide, what I’m going to say, how I’m going to transition — oh man, my confidence goes way up.
Jill: Oh, you can ad‑lib. There’s so many things you can do when you know it cold, but I want to address a point. That is, that some people may be overwhelmed by the thought of, “Four hours just to practice it four times out loud, I don’t know, that seems like a lot. Right?” OK, you don’t have the time, you’re not ready for that commitment yet.
How about practicing the opening until it is something you can do in your sleep? Because it’s true when you start strong you have that confidence you need. I think that if you don’t have time to practice the whole thing, get the opening. Then may be work on some transitions, some really key transitions. Making sure that you like them and you know them because that will just make you feel better when you get there.
John: That’s a really good tip, definitely. What about public speaking quotes? One of my favorites is something along the lines of, “If you are nervous you are being egotistical, and really focusing on yourself when you should be there to serve people.” When I remind myself of that right before I go up to the podium it helps. Because it’s not really all about me here, I am here to give people a clear message. And that relaxes me a bit.
Jill: I think that’s really good, John, because we do get nervous. It’s all about how can we use that nervousness as a tool for energy to drive our enthusiasm, and our communication, which brings me to one of my favorite quotes.
When I was growing up, I was in a contest and I had to perform. My father had just finished a course in public speaking. He told me one of the things he learned which was to say right before you go out, “If you think enthusiastic, you will be enthusiastic.” Just to repeat that again and again, and it’s stuck in my head up to this day. I still say that to my clients because enthusiasm is contagious.
Enthusiasm shows up in your voice when you are speaking, and people get more interested in what you are saying when you are enthusiastic. For me that’s really an important thing to remember. That it’s not just about confidence but it’s about your passion and showing that.
I think what you brought up about the ego and focusing on the other, so often we forget that we are talking to human beings. We are going out there — it’s about building relationship, having rapport with these people.
So if you remember, one, to look at them in the eyes while you are talking, and bring that enthusiasm, and that confidence, and that pausing, and pacing of your speech. All of those things are going to take you away from your ego and yourself and put the attention on the other.
So I think those two things combined are really great for your audience today to keep in mind.
John: You can definitely learn this skill, right, public speaking? Not everybody is a natural born public speaker and they might feel, “I am nervous, and the best public speakers didn’t even start nervous”, but that’s not true, right?
Jill: That’s absolutely true. Jerry Weissman who wrote a book called “Power Presenter”, he makes it so clear that even if you were born with some kind of talent at public speaking, really you were not born as that expert speaker, it’s learned.
He has in some of his books — one of his books, Power Presenter — he has a lot of videos with the book that show, “Look at Bill Clinton when he wasn’t so great at public speaking and he couldn’t really manage the room, and now look at him when he can. Look at somebody like George Bush Jr. who maybe some of us didn’t think that he was such a great speaker. But he became more skillful, he developed a rhythm, a pattern, a pace, a way of pausing.
So everybody can definitely learn to be better and can learn to get over some of their fears.
John: And so, having a coach can help — that’s what you do, right? That’s one of the things you do. Tell us a little bit about your company and how people can get in touch with you and what services you provide.
Jill: Sure. I mentioned my acting background, and I also have a musical background. So I built a communication skills company that helps people with presenting and communicating in both informal and formal scenarios.
I’ve worked primarily over the years with non‑native English speakers. Helping them in this arena because it’s a space where it’s needed, to help people with the music of the language, and again with the organization of their message, and the delivery of their message.
Also I’ve worked with quite a few executives with public speaking from Americans as well, helping them to work on all of these skill sets. We do that one on one, we do that in group environments at management level. We do it offline, we do it online.
We’ve been in business 20 years, and work with everything from pharma companies, financial institutions, consumer goods. We are all over the map. We are there to help for sure.
John: Yeah. People should definitely check out your site, and your fun YouTube videos, and you playing guitar, and singing, and all that stuff. What is your web address again?
Jill: It’s www.accentace.com.
John: All right, good. Great, talking to you today Jill.
Jill: I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.
John: Absolutely and check out workingdemosite.com/authority for more interviews and information on Authority Marketing. I’m John McDougall and see you next time on the Authority Marketing Roadmap.
