Speaking Up Without Freaking Out | Matt Abrahams | TEDxPaloAlto

panic embarrassed exposed no, that's not how I am now mostly those are the feelings I had when I was 14 on the first day of high school, my English teacher, Mr. Meredith had each of us stand up and introduce ourselves when he finished class, and he called me over and said, Hi Matt, you're really good at this talking thing. I need you to show up at the speech contest on Saturday doing what I was told I was prepared for. a 10 minute presentation on karate was something I was passionate about and it was quite easy to do now that cold Saturday morning in September when I arrived I was surprised that the room was much bigger than I expected there were many more people there my friends my friends parents who were serving as judges and the girl I had a crush on at the time I felt tremendous anxiety in the first 10 seconds of my 10 minute presentation my life changed forever you see I started my presentation with a karate kick I was told to do this because it would attract the audience and get their attention, but because of my anxiety, I forgot to put on my special karate pants, you know, the ones with a little more room down there, you understand where this is going.

I tore my pants. From belt loop to zipper at that moment I learned the impact of anxiety on communication and from that moment on I have dedicated my life to helping others learn to address this fear. Each of us has stories to share, contributions to give and ideas to spread if we allow them. anxiety getting in the way of what we are missing, society is missing, and we are losing diverse and valuable voices now. I am NOT alone in my communication anxiety. If you have ever given spontaneous feedback on a presentation in a meeting or even asked someone for a date, you know what this anxiety feels like, research shares that 85% of People feel anxious in high-stakes

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situations and, frankly, I think the other 15% are lying.

I think we can create a situation where they feel nervous. We must also take action to control our anxiety so that we can achieve our communication goals. Now I use that word managed very carefully. I don't think we can really overcome our anxiety nor would we want anxiety to be really helpful, it gives us energy. it helps us focus, it tells us that what we are doing is important but we need to manage it so it doesn't control us and it's not just to help us feel more confident, it also helps our audience, how do you feel when you see someone nervous ?

The speaker communicates. Some of you would like to see people suffer, but most of us don't feel very uncomfortable in uncomfortable situations. In fact, I call this secondhand anxiety. Communicator anxiety makes us as an audience feel nervous and therefore we become distracted. and we cannot pay attention to the message, so we need to control our anxiety not only to help ourselves as communicators but also to help our audience understand our message before introducing them to some techniques that can help us control our anxiety. I think we need to take a few moments to understand where this anxiety comes from.

I think it's built into us. It is based on evolution. We are programmed to care a lot about our relative status relative to others. Now I'm not saying who drives the fancier car or who has more. I like a post they just published. I'm talking about the state that existed when our species was first evolving and we were in groups of about one hundred and fifty people. His relative status there meant everything. Access to resources, food. breeding in shelters it was absolutely essential that you had a status within that group, it was a

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er of life and death, so this constant vigilance and understanding of our status is something that we carry forward to this day, but we can handle it, but we have to make a decision. dual approach we have to first address the symptoms as well as the sources the symptoms have to do with what happens physiologically in our body and what happens psychologically in our mind and the sources are things that actually make our anxiety worse so let's go started to Some of us when we start communicating in high-risk situations feel our heart pounding maybe we shake a little maybe we sweat or blush we can control these symptoms take a deep breath before you start the type of breathing you would do if you were doing yoga or Tai Chi or Qi Gong that will calm you down if you wave your gestures widely, big wide gestures can really help the adrenaline go somewhere, most nervous people make themselves small and tight and hold it in and shake it if you do. perspire a blush hold something cold in the palm of your hand, it will cool you down much like putting a cold compress on your forehead or the back of your neck if you have a fever holding something cold reduces your body's core temperature reduces perspiration reduces blushing You've all experienced this the other way around on a cold day.

Have you ever drank hot coffee or tea and felt it warm you up? We are simply doing the opposite. There are things you can do to control the physiological symptoms around you. anxiety now what about cognitive symptoms? What really makes people cognitively nervous is their own anxiety. It works something like this: you're sitting in a meeting and your turn is about to come and as you're sitting there you start to get a little shaky, you might have a few beads of perspiration on your forehead and you start thinking, oh my gosh. , this is really important. I should have prepared more.

I can't believe I'm in this situation. Why am I doing this? I'm not. My buddy, this sucks, it's your anxiety that makes you the most nervous. There is a way you can short circuit this instead of running away from your anxiety, say hello, tell yourself, this is me, feeling nervous, it makes sense that I am nervous. You are about to do something of importance and consequence and by giving yourself permission to feel anxious, you actually give yourself a sense of agency. You can take a breather and walk around the building. This will help him feel calm instead of like his anxiety is out of control.

We can do things that control our physiological and psychological symptoms, but we also have to address the things that make our anxiety worse. The sources. The number one fear I hear from people is: I'm afraid of forgetting him. I'll go blank. A great way to handle this is to have a map. You can't get lost if you have a map. A map is nothing more than a plan in communication. A structure. A design. There are many structures that can help you with your communication. My favorite. it's the what and what now what structure you start by talking about what you're communicating it could be your idea your plan your product a process then you explain why it's important to your audience how they value what you're saying and then finally you explain what's next and what comes next by having a structure like what and what now, what you are less likely to forget and by the way, it helps the people you are talking to remember what you are saying too, now another great The anxiety accelerator It has to do with the assessment in judgment that we feel the audience is making with us.

A great way to handle this is to redirect their attention and have them focus on something else, so if you're giving a presentation, show a video clip. survey if you are in interpersonal communication ask a question hand out a pamphlet this distracts people from paying attention to you, it gives you a chance to calm down and the good thing is that it gets them more involved and they get involved, it is a real win-win The last source of which I'd like to talk has to do with how we view our communication. Raise your hand if you've done one of these four things before in your life.

Did anyone sing, dance, act or play sports? All in each one of them. those activities there is a right way and a wrong way to do it you are acting if you are an actor and you don't say your line at the wrong time in the wrong place you have made a mistake not only for yourself but for the audience and the other actors, if you are a athlete and you don't do what your sport requires at the right time and in the right way, you have done it wrong, in fact some sports keep track of the mistakes you make, we have this mentality of right or wrong in our communication .

I'm here to tell you, as someone who has been doing this for a long time, that there is no right way to communicate, there are better and worse ways, certainly, but there is no right way, so we need to replace the way we communicate. We see communication as a performance is something else and I would like to suggest that we need to reframe it as a conversation. How do you do that? First and foremost, put your attention on your audience. You are serving their needs with this audience. focused approach makes it more conversational second use of words in conversational language like we, you and us, which engage people and ultimately ask questions, questions by their very nature are conversations to influence, so by doing so, the interaction is Less stressful for you and more engaging for your audience as a whole There are things we can do to control our anxiety by addressing both the symptoms and the sources Now this is not necessarily easy It takes time It takes perseverance We are struggling with deep-rooted anxiety and years of behaviors and habits learned, but with a little kindness towards ourselves and with patience we can learn to manage our anxiety.

I see it happen all the time. Let me share a story with you. I met Erma, a 72-year-old grandmother, a couple of years ago. Burma, like me, had a very traumatic experience in In high school she contributed some comments in class and her English teacher looked at her and said that is the worst communication I have heard since that time. Burma actively avoided communicating with others, to the point that she chose the profession of research librarian specifically. so as not to have to talk to many people, but one day her granddaughter, whom she loved very much, asked him to give a toast at her wedding.

Burma wanted to fulfill this request and that's when our paths crossed. I will never forget the look. Irma's face when she told me her goal was a combination of pure terror and total determination. Now I am delighted to share with you that Burma, after three months of hard work and a little encouragement, made an incredible toast, the joy on her face is something I will never forget, like in Burma, we can all learn to manage our anxiety Whether you're presenting at a wedding or a gathering, whether you're presenting or protesting, you can learn to feel more confident when you communicate and we all benefit.

About the stories you are going to share, the contributions you are going to give and the ideas you are going to spread. I look forward to you

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without getting scared, thank you.