3 Amazing Ways to Smash Public Speaking Anxiety

Why does public speaking cause so much anxiety for so many people, and how do you overcome it? 

Watch The Episode & Remember to Like, Comment, Subscribe, & Share 🧡

But first, a word from our sponsor:

Experience the power of Magic Mind to boost your mental clarity and productivity. Try it and see the difference for yourself!
Try Magic Mind for FREE here: 
➡️ https://magicmind.com/GOSTICKANDELTONTRIAL with my code GOSTICKANDELTONTRIAL 

Highlights: 📍
🗣️❤️ Why Public Speaking Causes Anxiety: Explore the root causes of public speaking fear, from lack of preparation to fear of audience reaction.
🧠💪 Preparation and Practice: Learn key techniques for preparation, including the importance of knowing your material and physical preparation to reduce anxiety.
🔄🌟 Handling Distractions and Mistakes: Discover strategies like the SHIFT technique to manage distractions and recover from mistakes during your presentation.
🧩 Engaging Your Audience: Tips on how to connect with your audience, including using humor and reading the room.

➡️ Tune in if you're looking to overcome public speaking anxiety and become a more confident speaker.

Our guest today, Scott Christopher, is an actor, executive speech coach, and author of best-selling business books such as The Levity Effect and The Seven Ups of Happiness. Scott has extensive experience in public speaking and has helped many individuals hone their speaking abilities.

🌟 LET'S STAY CONNECTED…

• The Culture Works
• Instagram
• X (Twitter)
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Transcript

Why does public speaking cause so much anxiety for so many people? And how do you overcome it? Hello, my name is Chester Elton, and with me is my dear friend and co-author, Adrian Gostick. Well, thanks, Ches. Yeah, the pressure to present to any audience can be overwhelming, especially if you are a neurodivergent. Our guest today is a world-class public speaker. He's an actor, an executive speech coach, who's helped many people hone their public speaking abilities. As always, we hope the time you spend with us will help reduce the stigma of anxiety at work and in your personal life. And with us is our dear friend, and he really is a dear friend. We've known Scott Christopher for it seems like forever. He's the author or co-author of best-selling business books, The Levity Effect, The Seven Ups of Happiness, and People People. We hired Scott at the O.C. Tanner Company where he served as director of client training for 10 years. And today he is a popular speaker on levity and becoming a people person. He has a Master of HR Management degree from UConn and an extensive background in television and films. As an actor, he's guest starred in shows that you know, such as NCIS, Criminal Minds, Modern Family, as well as many Hallmark and Lifetime movies. A dear, dear friend. We'd like to welcome a new friend, a sponsor to our podcast, Magic Mind. I'll tell you, we have a special offer for you, but I have to tell you, I love MagicMind. I use it all the time. It gets you in the flow. It's all natural. I love to take it on Monday mornings. If you have trouble with Mondays like I do, it's a great little boost. All the ingredients are natural. It's an easy up and an easy down. Because you're listening to our podcast, if you go to magicmind.com forward slash Gostik and Elton trial. There's a code that you put in called Gostik and Elton trial and you get free samples of Magic Mind. Now, you can cancel your subscription anytime. I really encourage you to do it. It has been a game changer for me and I know it will be for you too. So again, magicmind.com forward slash Gostik and Elton trial with the code Gostik and Elton trial for your free samples of Magic Night. Well, Scott, we are delighted to have you on the podcast. Thanks so much for finding the time. It's just so good to see you again. Oh, I'm so glad to be here with you guys. It's an honor. Well, start with the basics, Scott. You are an expert in public speaking. You help others with this. Why is public speaking such a big fear for so many people? You know Right out of the chute for me the number one reason that I am afraid of public speaking as a public speaker is typically a lack of preparation and and You know knowledge of the topic that those are the things that throw me for a loop But I think most people I mean and I've talked to obviously to a lot of people over the years. You know, it may be some traumatic event from their childhood, you know, once bitten, twice shy. It may be a question of unmet expectations or expectations that aren't fully made clear. Why are you speaking? What's the point? What's the objective? And that can put a real knot in your stomach, especially if your confidence is lacking and you think I may not be able to actually meet the objectives of whoever is having me speak publicly. They talk a little bit about that. I look at people like you and Chester and you would beat people up to get to a microphone. Is there some sort of genetic defect with people like you versus, you know, sort of as normal people? Possibly. I like that Adrian puts himself as the normal person in the room. Yeah, yeah. It may be. I mean, some statistics say that up to three-quarters of adults are normal, I guess, because they fear public speech. It's not really the fear of speaking itself, it is the fear of the public's reaction to their speech that scares them. I think that's inherent in all of us, no matter how much we clamor to grab the mic or steal the spotlight, we just want to make sure that our words are resonating and they land nicely. Okay, so walk us through the prep. Like, so what do you do so that you don't feel so anxious? You've talked a little bit about preparation, practice and expectations, but you know, do you have kind of a checklist you go through? I mean, again, for me, and this will be hopefully a key takeaway is once again, cannot over emphasize the preparation part, which you just did. Thank you very much. And really, that does solve myriad problems. However, yes, there are there are some things that I do that some people can do to kind of calm themselves down. First of all, just sort of the physical look. You have to make sure you don't have spinach in your teeth, you know, from that wonderful salad you just had. Check your clothes. Are there obvious stains? Are you a sweater? Do you sweat a lot? If so, are you wearing dark enough clothes or are you covering the areas that would sweat? Right out of the gate, you simply want to make sure. There's no reason unknown to you that people might be laughing and you don't know why. Seriously. Comfortable clothes too, right? I mean, you want to be able to move and wave your arms and you know. Exactly, this is about comfort for sure because comfort is key to relaxation. And so some of the things that I will do is I will kind of clench and then loosen. And when I say clench, I know you're not seeing this. I don't necessarily mean what you think I mean, although you could clench down there and loosen and it would certainly relax you. But I mean, ball up your fists as tight as you can. Ball up your face. They're old actor tricks because being relaxed, totally relaxed, is the best way to ensure some degree of success. So I'll take deep breaths. For me personally, typically what I will do is I will find a reflection of myself somewhere, a coffee urn, the back of a spoon, Jessica's head, wherever I can look, see a little bit of myself and kind of just start smiling, like big smiles or even a laugh. I essentially say to myself, who cares? Nobody cares. Nobody knows what I'm going to speak on, or if they do, they don't know what I've prepared. They're not following along on a shot list or a script. Just enjoy it. Just have fun. Get relaxed. Shake it out, and then go have fun. You talk about have fun. I have a breathing thing. You say take a deep breath. Since we're doing this podcast, we have all these experts come in and the breathing, the block breathing and all that, that I find helps really well. The point that you made, though, that I think is really interesting is the audience doesn't know what they don't know. So often, I'll come off the stage you go. Oh, I missed that part I missed one of my favorite things you know that we got distracted And I didn't do and you beat yourself up and the honest because I we didn't know you're gonna do that We thought it was great, right? Yeah, and I think that's I think that's ultimately a key to to success Is that what you're judging your success on has nothing to do that? They just they just want to know did I learn anything at all was I semi entertained you know this is their time they're investing in you whether it's a board meeting or a company conference or you're a keynote speaker at some association their time is their investment you know you have to be able to read to the room right I mean if they're sitting at all around tables and half of them after five to ten minutes have still not turned their chairs around to see you, you've got to read the room. You've got to be able to understand, all right, something's not connecting here. What can I do? Well, let's get to that because what do you do if people aren't connecting with you? And maybe you're not a Scott Christopher, you're not able to command a room, but what can you do to get people to pay more attention to what you have to say if you're already in the middle of whatever you're presenting. Right, I love that. I'll introduce an acronym that I came up with a while back. I like to call it a SHIFT. If I see that happening, I shift things. And SHIFT stands for Sudden Halt, Introduce Frivolous Topic. That's s h i f t What's your favorite frivolous topic do you have a go-to you know I Mean and it doesn't and sometimes the F is foreign You know a foreign topic like foreign to to the theme that's being talked about. It's just something that gives you a minute to change gears, to shift gears. All right, my heart is beating, I'm nervous, that particular point didn't land or that joke didn't fall, it wasn't successful there. I just need to shift for a second. So you may have your deck stacked a little bit with topics that are relevant. You know, before I go on, I absolutely must know who Leon Shemlin is in this room and why he doesn't remember what happened at last night's cocktail reception, whatever it is. You stop for a minute, I must know where did you get those shoes? My gosh, those are, and that's when you start to, I mean, you don't have to be a Chester Elton and command the room to be able to start a conversation with someone and to that to your point Adrian before I even get nervous or uncomfortable I try to make sure that I can see at least the first few rows if it's a if it's a huge venue of the of the audience and that may be them turning down the spotlights or turning up the house lights or a combination of the two but to really kind of get comfortable, you have to be able to see people. The old adage of envision them naked or look at a spot on the back of the wall. I mean, if you have to use that to get going, great, but ultimately, your nerves should be a slightly calmer if you'll engage with, for starters, just one person. Talk to that one person. Have a conversation. Don't go too long. The audience wants to be talked to as well, but keep it brief and just shift for a moment. Sometimes those are built in. You can build little shifts into your slide deck or into your prepared words, but often when that unexpected nervousness comes, have one or two ready to go. Address what's in, if there's an elephant in the room, if everyone is literally thinking about last night's this or that, you'd be silly to not mention it. We did have that situation. Do you remember, Adrian, when we were giving a speech, it was a big credit room, and COVID hit, and everything was being canceled, and they were doing all they could, and people were looking at their phones, and we said, okay, look, we get it. Everybody is nervous. Everybody has got a flight. Let's take a beat. You're right. If there's something crazy going on, you've got to address that. It's funny. We all, all three of us, we like to inject a little humor into our speeches and you've got to be careful with that because what you think is funny can be offensive if you're not careful and particularly now. There are so many areas that seem to be the third rail for talking. One of the things that I always like to do is I'll tell a little joke that I think is particularly funny and then you realize that you're the only one in the room that got the joke. I know this has happened to you because it happens to me more often than I care to admit and I'll just stop and say, ìDon't worry. Some of the jokes are just for me. Like I thought that was funnier than you did and that's okay. And it's funny how people go, yeah, you're right, that really wasn't funny. There's a place for the self-effacing humor for sure. I think that's possibly one of the ways. You know, if you own up to the fact that you're nervous, really, you'll hit it out of the park by being authentic. If you are kind of a nervous nerdy who everyone knows isn't great at public speaking, and you stand there and you say something like, look, you guys know me, I'm a bit nervous in front of crowds, I have to picture the passengers naked when I board a plane, for heaven's sakes, or whatever. You know what I mean? Just being in front of anybody, it gets me sweaty. Those are the kind of things that will endear you more to your audience and that will put you at ease as well. It's to kind of own up to your weaknesses. So that's a good point. So what happens if you're off to a good start and you're kind of rolling and then something happens, you get a little distracted and all of a sudden in the middle of your speech, you're like, you've lost your place. What do you do when in the middle you start to panic? You've got the panic under control at the beginning, and now you're in the middle and you realize that either you're losing the room or you've lost your train of thought or how do you recover? Yeah. Well, I would just say see previous comment about this. Really that's that that's the advice I give is you you you certainly you certainly can't just you know bow your head and say thanks It's been great We're gonna take lunch 40 minutes early You you actually you know you you just have to press on and I know that seems over simplified You can either take a shift take a shift or You know just just press on And and if you do if you'll just press on and keep going Get through it. You'll get past the awkward moment. You'll get past the Weird the the laugh that didn't ever come and people will will be with you They'll side with you if you just keep pushing forward Yeah, I like that idea of people siding with you That's that's important, getting them on your side. I like the idea of bringing it back to your group, especially if it can be a little lighthearted. I remember watching one speaker just bombing. She just said, Joe, thanks for wearing that shirt. He had this bright shirt on the front, and everybody busted up. It was just like you said, it's that shift. It just brought it back. She was the most dry, boring CFO or whoever she was but after she said that she had everybody, you know Yeah, two things that you know, I gave me a great tip one time. He said look Understand that people are coming to hear you speak and they want you to be good like they're cheering for you Whether you're a professional speaker or you're the CFO, right? And so they're gonna give you some grace They're gonna give you more grace than you think because they're glad it's you up there and not them for a lot of reasons. Talk to me a little bit about – and I've seen this happen and it's always awkward for me. I'll see the CEO or the president or whatever and they'll swear. They'll be a little profane and they think they're being really authentic. It always leaves me a little bit like, why did you go there? Do you know what I mean? And there are so many comedians and so on and even in politics now you're seeing that language is getting really raw. Can you talk about that? Is it ever appropriate to use like vulgar language or what's your thought? You know, obviously in terms of professionalism… Hell no, Chester, is what he meant to say. What are you talking about? Leave it to Adrian to bring it down. Well, he's normal. In terms of professional speaking engagements, you know, obviously, you're dealing with a client and you're going to talk to them beforehand. And I will always ask, you know, what's the level of tolerance and acceptance of kind of brash or blue things? things. And typically I'll say to them, I am not by nature a potty mouth guy, although obviously we all, we just heard Adrian use the H word. H-E double hockey sticks. It's in the Bible, guys. Oh, you Canadian hockey guys. It's in the Bible. try to gauge where the audience is at. If somebody sets the mark, especially whoever's introducing me or if it's one of the senior executives by cussing, I will immediately look to see how they react. Now there's a lot of sycophancy. There are people who are going to laugh no matter what, then I have to kind of weed that out. I don't have any curse words planned in any of my talks ever, but occasionally in the heat of the moment I may say a thing or two that stretches the boundaries of... But I've read the audience first so I kinda know. If I'm speaking to a primarily human resources type, I mean you know your audience and you know that there are just some things that you can or can't say even when the sponsor is setting a poor example. It's just About a hand for Teresa That was stunning I've had some fun I have I try to have fun with the people that are in charge too because you know as a third-party outsider I can get away with things and you can do the same this will also kind of help calm your nerves sometimes if you if you're polite and delicate about, you know that that's the CEO in the front row or you know that's the VP of whatever and you still pick on them and you act like you don't know them. And so by being ignorant of their status and station, you can play with them a little bit and you know that the crowd is laughing sort of comfortably, uncomfortably and you're talking to them and you're having fun with them and then later someone says you know who that was that was the chairman of the board and doing that has been a great way for that chairman of the board to have an excuse to be a little more transparent from a personal perspective to his or her constituents and for me to be able to endear myself to the audience I had a guy Adrian I think you remember this I can't remember, we were I was speaking to a group in Canada and the CEO or the chairman of the board whose name was like Michel Trouzant or something like the last name looked like trousers in French and I'm like who's this guy up here what's your name sir Michel Trouzant, what's that, can I, is it Mickey Trousers? It's Mickey Pants Everybody say hello to Mick. This was an ignorant, I didn't know who he was. The people couldn't, they laughed for 10 minutes. I had them eating out of the palm of my hand. For the rest of us, don't make fun of the chairman. No, I like that. That's not a concrete. Because remember, Scott introduced himself just a moment ago as an ignorant outsider. So how do people learn more about your work as an ignorant outsider? Scott, where would you send them? Well, typically just to levityeffects.com. Actually, it would be easier as scottchristopher.net. scottchristopher.net. And you also claim to be the president of something called Levity Matters, which I imagine is like a political think tank. tank and with the amazing Adrian Gostick, you wrote a book called The Levity Effect. So what if people, again, come back to this idea, everybody wants to make a joke and I've seen this done actually really well where somebody who's so stiff will get up and they'll actually have a paper in front of them and they'll read a joke but because it's Bob the CFO, people are dying laughing because they want a little lightness, don't they? But Chester mentioned this earlier. Well I think you've given a beautiful example, honestly, because what is humor? I mean it really is an unexpected turn of events. Verbal, physical, whatever. And so for Bob to even try to tell a joke is levity at work. I mean it is a perfect example of infusing humor because it is unexpected. If the joke lands or not, if they get the punchline, if the timing, the poor guy stresses the wrong word, that makes it even funnier. and so those are the I will typically encourage speakers to be themselves and if themselves is not necessarily a person who can generate humor off the cuff then go ahead and have something that's just such a great way to endear yourself to your people. Excellent. Hey, we're always interested in self-care tactics. You've talked about some of your preparation stuff, but you travel a lot. You're here and there and everywhere. The podcast is called Anxiety at Work. What are some of your personal care rituals that take care of your anxiety? For my anxiety? Oh, I have no anxiety. Yeah, you forget we know you, Scott. You know, obviously, and I think everyone knows this is probably very trite to say, but sleep is just so important and it's so hard to do, especially as a professional speaker, you're on the road a lot. I've found as I've gotten older that if I feel like I need a nap, I'm going to take the nap. I can't remember if it was Benjamin Franklin or Einstein or somebody who just, I think it was Franklin who basically just said, you know, sleep whenever you can. Whenever you feel like sleeping, make sure you sleep. For me, the full night's rest is almost not possible, so I break it up throughout the day if I can. If I don't have anything pressing on a plane, I will put on the face mask with the earphones and try to shut out the world and catch sleep wherever I possibly can. Also for me, keeping my brain as sharp as possible kinda keeps me feeling well mentally, obviously. I do Wordle and puzzles every day and I'll share them with friends or whatever, we kind of compete, but crossword puzzles and wordles and things like that, just to kind of keep my mind exercised they've recently found that there is no direct correlation between doing puzzles and things like that and actually all that much impact on dementia or Alzheimer's later in life, but they do say it's healthy for your brain now. Yeah, that's a good thing. What's one thing you don't do I Do it all Like you know some people say I never watched like I've never looked at the news before You know if I want to feel good, I don't I don't do the school or I don't watch you know Violent movies or whatever. Anyway, that was an unfair question. Well. No well, maybe I it sounds like we're getting a list out of you Thanks for the therapy session I see we have about one minute left and give us give us some last thoughts Scott, but what? But they have to do it. What kind of advice do you have for us as we close? Yeah, again, and I told you I'd reiterate this, you've got to have the material down, Pat. You've just got to, even if you don't have a lot of time, if you're speaking extemporaneously, that's a whole other ball of wax, in which case, you have to accept the fact that the people that are there probably know you're also speaking off the cuff, so give yourself a break. But truly, preparation of material, knowledge of material, inside and out, if you are ready to go, just like an actor, the hardest part of their job, the biggest part of their job, is learning the material. Once it's in their head, they're free to be themselves. They're free to listen to people. They're free to react. They're free to seem very natural. And that's ultimately what you want to do as a speaker, again, in the boardroom or in a ballroom, is you want to be yourself. You want to be relaxed. You want to be authentic. So know the stuff. Know the speech. Have it ready to go so that at any time nerves or some gas, anything that happens, you can deal with it. Chris, this has been great. It's been a long time since you and I have had a chat. I know you and Adrian talk often. We call him Scott. You call him Chris. Chris. I was introduced as Chilton Elton one time. But, Scott, it's been great to see you again. Love your smile. Love your humor. Thanks so much for being on the podcast. You got it. Well, that was great. It was good to have our dear friend Scott Christopher with us, Chess, and even better to learn, really, an amazing executive coach who helps people become better public speakers, something that you've never had a problem with. I kind of get it in front of an audience, but it's interesting for me to hear from you that you say, no, no, I still get nervous after doing this for 20, 30 years. Yeah, it is interesting. I know you get this comment a lot. Do you still get nervous? And I go, every time. In fact, I think if you don't get nervous, maybe it's an indication that you don't really care anymore. So many great reminders for me. Comfortable clothes, it sounds like a simple thing. Make sure you're comfortable. I'll never forget, I was giving a speech and I bought these new shoes. And the laces didn't stay tight. And I remember I've got this hour long presentation, I must have re-tied my shoes like five times. People were wondering what was wrong with that guy. So comfortable shoes, comfortable clothes. I love this idea of tense up and then relax and make sure that you've got. So that was one of my first day plans. What you're doing is you're bringing yourself to the present, right? Whatever you're doing, it's the 5-4-3-2-1 where you see five things, you touch four things. There are little tricks that people use, the breathing, the 4-4-8, whatever you want to call it. What you're doing is you're bringing yourself to the present, which I love. What did you think about this SHIFT idea, the sudden halt, introduce frivolous topic idea? What do you think about that? I love that he's got an acronym for it and that he actually places it there I think you and I kind of do that when we see that you know I remember you and I were presenting in a big hall It was clear we weren't engaging and we actually went down into the audience Yeah, to to to break things off that little shift, you know that pause You know when you talked about the French name that he made fun of or you know mispronounced They're not made fun of but mispronounced might like you pants. Yeah, I was just up in Quebec when he said that. Yeah, I could definitely see that happening for an anglophone, you know those little shifts that do make a big difference whether it's a little pause or it's calling somebody out or I thought that was a great I Didn't realize that that's what we were doing and it's nice to have an acronym and a placeholder for that I thought it was funny. I love that too. And just a little distraction is to not take ourselves too seriously. And most people in these kinds of meetings, now if you're presented to the board of directors, don't try and be funny. They're not looking for that. But you can still not take yourself so seriously. But most times you're making a presentation, people want to be with you. They're so willing to have a little chuckle or a little laugh And I've just seen it done so well where you know you just distract the audience a little bit And you know thanks bill for wearing that shirt today Thanks, you know whatever it is just a silly little thing that that gets everybody laughing. Yeah, you know it's interesting in a big audience Every now and again you just lean down say hey, I just want to call out somebody here in the pink dress. I don't know who your name is, but you have such a great smile. I got to tell you, whenever I feel like I'm being a little low, I look over at you and you give me just this burst of energy. See, that's great. Yeah. Great shift. And people know who that person is and they go, yeah, that's her. You know, that is definitely her. I love that he kept saying, look, anxiety comes down when preparation goes up. Rehearse it, talk to your spouse or your friend, run through it. I remember I was asked to speak at a dear friend's funeral last year. In fact, it's almost a year that that happened. I wanted it to be perfect because he was such a dear friend and his family. It was very unexpected that he passed. past. And I remember going for a long walk. I'll bet I practiced that 12 minutes. I'll bet I went through that 30 times if I went through it once. And so then when I got up there and I blocked it out, you know, it wasn't like we had an AV and all that kind of stuff. It was just stories of my dear friend. I felt so comfortable talking to those people because my preparation was high, so my anxiety was low. And I love that idea because sometimes you'll hear people say, you know you can over prepare. Not really. A, not really. B, you know, when Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000 hour rule, that only works if you are actually doing practicing in a good way. So you can't practice the piano badly for 10,000 hours and get better. You actually have to, as you did, you got more comfortable with it, you found ways to add inflection and tell the story in a meaningful way. The little levity that you brought in, which I know you did, became more from the heart. So no, you can't over-prepare, but push yourself. Make sure that as you prepare, you're using different tone of voice. You get higher parts, you get lower parts, you get quieter, you slow down. Try different things as you prepare. Yeah. Well, one of the great things that a guy gave me a tip, and we actually did it with our Sunday school class, actually. We went to a revival meeting and watched the preachers. And to your point, they'd get real quiet, and then they'd come back real loud and there'd be the pause and there'd be the repetition and then there'd be the call back. And I thought, you know, those preachers, boy, you want a lesson in public speaking and making it engaging with the tambourines and the hallelujahs and the amens. Treat yourself. Go find a really fun evangelical church and listen to the preachers. It's always great fun. Well, you know, we talk about great stories. And I'll tell you, the story we love to tell is about our producer, Brent Kline. I mean, when you talk about the things that he went through as a child to get where he is... No, no, we're not supposed to talk about that anymore, remember? Anyway, we love Brent Kline. We think he's the greatest podcast producer of all time. And we always want to give him a shout out because he takes our mess and makes it into a masterpiece. And to Christy Lawrence, who finds all those great speakers for us, great guests like Scott Christopher. And to all of you who listen in, you've got time to do whatever you want to do with your podcast and we're delighted that you took the time to spend it with us. If you like the podcast, please share it. We'd love to have you visit thecultureworks.com for some free resources to help you and your team thrive and we encourage you to go to the website for your free offer for MagicMind as well. But Adrian, what else do we do? We love speaking to audiences around the world, virtually or in person. In fact, we were just about to do a presentation for one of the world's biggest banks here, and they want to hear more about gratitude. Other organizations want to hear more about culture, leadership, resilience. Give us a call, we'd love to talk to you about your event. And that's our story. Oh, by the way, also pick up a copy of our book, Anxiety at Work, and there's now, isn't there training on this, Chess? There is, and if you go to thecultureworks.com, you can sign up as an individual. If you've got a team that wants to do it, please call us. We'll talk about a licensing agreement. We're getting great feedback on it, by the way, and we're very proud of their training. Well, until next time, everybody, thanks so much for joining us, and we wish you the best of mental health. Thank you.