– PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER RESOLVES PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY

Q: I’m speaking to John from the city of Boston, where all my favorite sports teams are located. John, can you start by describing what the situation is when you first contacted me?

JOHN: Absolutely, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my experiences. I came to you looking for, I think, an easy solution or a technique. I knew that I had. I had tried everything. I had… I had found the joy of public speaking earlier in my career, and kept it at a very high level, and then lost it. And, after losing it over a period of 15 years, I tried everything from real in depth therapy, to medication, to hypnosis, to EMDR, and all of them were Band-Aids. And, so I was getting real good at putting bigger and bigger Band-Aids and more and more Band-Aids over a gaping wound. And, so when I came to you, I was [LAUGH] looking for another Band-Aid. I’d found you online, and I thought “hey, what the heck”, and ordered the cd program. I had ordered multiple other kinds of programs like that. And then, phoned back to your office and said and asked if you do one on one work, and they said “yeah”, and I said “oh great.” So, that’s how I got there.

Q: Okay, now I know you are referencing Band-Aids, but describe the problem as you were experiencing it.

JOHN: Avoidance. So, I…I had reached a point, Jonathan [PH], where, whenever there was a public speaking opportunity coming up in my work or I had a chance to speak in a public speaking opportunity, I always found a way to get out of it. And…and then if I couldn’t get out of it, then the only solution real the only thing that really worked for me was medication. And, I probably came close to abusing the medication.

Q: Can you elaborate on that?

JOHN: Sure, I would take, uh, two different types of things. One to really settle me down, and one to deal with adrenaline. And I would go um I…I would go pretty…pretty far pretty…pretty deep with that. So that, I had what I would consider to be a safety net, and then I became reliant really upon that safety net. It was…it was the only solution that I knew could work that I was confident it would work.

Q: So when you were avoiding these public speaking scenarios that is called, for the listeners, that is called a phobia. When anxiety gets to the point that there is avoidance, a phobia is present.

JOHN: Uh huh.

Q: How was this avoidance impacting you?

JOHN: Oh, I was…I was really upset. I was angry with myself, so, the whole notion of anger. Although, I hadn’t… I hadn’t identified that. I…I didn’t understand w… I didn’t understand enough about that, but I was very upset. I had… I had found significant joy in this, and now I had lost this, and I had not found any path back to that joy. And so, with each passing opportunity I’d just get more and more angry.

Q: Can you describe for a moment the actual anxiety when you were not able to avoid, when you had to be in front of a group? What was going on anticipatorily, and what was going on when you were actually in front of the group?

JOHN: In…in…in anticipation it would be a tightening of my throat and my chest. And so, I would feel as if I would be blocked from being able to speak, that…that was the feeling that I had, not a good feeling when it’s about time to go up to speak. And, then every time that I then got in front of a group, I would find a way to excel again fueled by the medication. And so and so, the medication gave me the bridge from the anticipation to the event. And I would have all these people come up to me afterwards after various experiences of speaking at…at awards dinners where I would be doing an awards speech for one of my people; and they would say, “wow that’s the best I’ve ever heard.” And, I wouldn’t even listen to that. I wouldn’t even hear because I knew how I had what had propelled me to that. I knew it was medication. I know I was faking it.

Q: I appreciate your honesty “I know I was faking it”. What would happen? Let’s say you had an important presentation two weeks away, and it was on the calendar. What would you experience knowing you had a commitment two weeks down the road?

JOHN: Fear. I…I experienced fear initially, and then uncertainty, and then I would focus way much more on the negative outcome, which is so unlike me. I’m… I’m so optimistic and so really positive. Glass half more than half full with an outlook, but I would always focus on the prospect of the negative outcome. And then, you know. I would work really hard. I’d obsess over preparation to the point where that would become another block in the sense that I was…I was binding myself off with all of this preparation and memorization and…and all that stuff. And so, none of that was good.

Q: Alright. Well, we have two more questions. Okay? The first one is where you are at now, and the second one is how you got there? First describe…

JOHN: Okay. [LAUGH]

Q: First describe where you are at now with the public speaking challenge?

JOHN: Beautiful peace, and… and back in the direction of joy. And, it’s…it’s an eerie feeling in…in the sense that it…it feels so good, and it feels so natural. That I don’t…I almost don’t remember, which is a good thing, what it felt like before. So, I’m not recalling any of those past experiences and any of those past thoughts, and I put this to multiple tests per your instruction, but I put it to…to multiple tests. And, one was this…this…this past week when I did a two day workshop, and it was total joy, and I could feel it in my in my bloodstream. I could just feel being back in the position that I was way back when this was all in a good place. So, how did I get there?

Q: Wait. One more question.

JOHN: Okay.

Q: From 0 to 100 percent, the percentage that you believe that you resolved your public speaking anxiety problem.

JOHN: Ninety.

Q: Ninety?

JOHN: Yeah.

Q: Okay.

JOHN: I’d say 90, and…and I think that there’s…I want to keep another 10 percent out there because I want to keep learning more about making adrenaline my friend, and that’s part of the bridge to how I got here. So, are we ready to transition into that part?

Q: Excellent.

JOHN: The breakthrough?

Q: Yeah.

JOHN: The breakthrough was, first of all, you not accepting any of my [LAUGH] excuses or any of any of the things, uh, the blocks that I was putting up. Because, it is…is we’ve acknowledged that I was putting up some really significant blocks, and, in terms of getting to the, uh, the inner child and…and…and the inner self, and…and so you’re really good at this. And, you’re the best that I have ever experienced with this. And so, you broke through that stuff, and you broke through it quick. And, you did it in a way that, professional to professional, you did it. A lot of people talk down in these situations. They make you feel like you’re…you really are a child, and I don’t like that. And…and…and therefore, I was going to really push back if that were the approach, and that isn’t your approach at all. Your approach is very straight forward: “hey, if this is what your goals are, then this is how you are going to have to get there, and I’ll guide you there. But, it ain’t going to be this…this is more like boot camp than it is a summer vacation.” And, that’s what I signed up for. So, I signed up for tell it like it is. I didn’t realize that I was going to be giving you the…the Heisman of pushback all the time on the front end. But then, through your persistence and your…your very tuned in questioning and listening, you were able to get me to pull the guard down. So, that was huge. And then… then, the other notion I think the real notion that we I will carry forward every time is to accept the adrenaline as my friend; and in fact, to and in…in preparation and anticipation of public speaking event try to provoke it. And so, I can say, “well I will deal with it, work with it, and… and make it work.” And, that’s… that’s one of the basic principles you will always have with public speaking, which is to try to turn the nervous system into a positive energy. Well, you taught me how to do that. You…

Q: Okay. Hold on because I usually don’t do this, but you achieved your success in nine sessions with me, and I hate giving this kind of statistic because typically the person who listens to this will say, “okay, I have to do it in nine sessions.”

JOHN: Yeah.

Q: Okay.

JOHN: I hate to be John.

Q: Well, people need to understand that everybody has their own learning curve.

JOHN: Sure.

Q: Okay. So, learning curve depends on the degree of problem, person’s motivation, ability to integrate concepts, readiness to face fear, expressive ability. Okay. So, in nine sessions, actually, you referenced the Heisman. You get the Heisman trophy. Just talk for a minute about your motivation, which was very, very high, and your application of the key techniques to have achieved this in nine sessions.

JOHN: Joy. So, the motivation is joy. When…when you have it and you lose it, you got to get it back, and I seek to make… I…I…I made money doing public speaking on the side, apart from my corporate life. I had a radio show, as you do or…or… I had a… I had a show, and so. I…I wanted to get back to that level of…of…of…of achievement, and…and…and of professionalism in…in the area. I’m…I’m about to sign on with a speaker’s agency, and… and I want to be able to deliver my voice. This…this is another point is that I had… I knew I had a voice, but I was…I was suffocating it. I was suffocating it. No one else was. And so, you came in, and you tapped that. You said, “wait a minute. You’ve got to let that voice out, and here’s how you let it out.” And so, the combination of my desire to let that voice out, because I knew I had something good to deliver. It wasn’t just when I’m called upon can I speak. No, I had a message, and I wanted to deliver. But, shoot I have this huge issue that I haven’t figured out how to deal with yet. You helped me get through that every step along the way. Once we got to the breakthrough about anger and adrenaline, every step I began to increase my motivation because my confidence was… was growing. And, once giving me confidence, you know, once I get to confidence then nothing is going to hold me back. So, I had a dream, and you provided me with a clear path. I could see the path to accomplishing that dream that dream, to getting it back to that level, and…and so, that… that for me, the motivation was easy. And then uh, and then I just had to follow your… your guidance, and… and put multiple opportunities in up there and go get them. I did it. I did it at the highest level, in terms of the presentations, meetings that I set up. I set up some high [SIGH] some high standards and I flew by them. So, it felt good.

Q: Okay, and the final piece of advice that you will give to listeners, many at home, will have experienced the same scenarios you have, and they will have looked for the magic and they will have looked for the easy way out. They will have looked for the way not to do hard work. The final piece of advice is what?

JOHN: Accept who you are, and be yourself. And then, dare to be yourself. So, I wasn’t accepting who I was. So, I wasn’t accepting that I hadn’t that I had an undeveloped natural child within me. And that, you know, I fought…I fought all that all my whole adult life I fought that. And so, I had to accept that, and then I had to go play in that area and… and work in that area. And…and so, I stopped comparing myself to others…other speakers other people that I admired who did this kind of thing, and I focused on…on me and the inner me. And then…then, that…that process of acceptance is very powerful. Very…

Q: Well, listen John I want to thank you very much for sharing your words of wisdom. I’m sure your words will help many people.

JOHN: I wanted to because all the good work that you did with me. So, thank you for the opportunity.

Q: Well, thank you very much.