SPEAKING.APP

Panic. Embarrassed. Exposed. No, that’s not how I’m feeling right now, mostly. Those are the feelings I had as a 14-year-old boy on the first day of high school. My English teacher, Mr. Meredith, had each of us stand up and introduce ourselves. After class he called me over and said, “Hey Matt, you’re really good at this talking thing. I need you on Saturday to show up at the speech contest.” So I did what I was told. I prepared a 10-minute presentation on karate. I loved it, and it was pretty easy to put together. Then Saturday came. Cold September morning. I walked into the room and froze. It was much larger than I expected, and there were far more people than I imagined. My friends were there. Their parents were there serving as judges. And the girl I had a crush on was there. In that moment, I felt tremendous anxiety. In the first 10 seconds of my 10-minute presentation, my life changed forever. I started with a karate kick because I was told it would engage the audience. But because I was anxious, I forgot to put on my special karate pants. You know the ones with a little extra room down there. You get where this is going. I ripped my pants from belt loop to zipper. In that moment, I learned how powerfully anxiety can shape communication. And from that moment on, I dedicated my life to helping people address this fear, so it doesn’t steal their voice when it matters most. Because every one of us has stories to share, input to give, and ideas to spread. When anxiety gets in the way, we miss out, society misses out, and we lose valuable, diverse voices. And I’m not alone in feeling anxious about communication. If you’ve ever given spontaneous feedback, delivered a presentation, spoken up in a meeting, or even asked somebody on a date, you know this feeling. Research shows about 85% of people feel anxious in high-stakes speaking situations. And quite frankly, the other 15% just haven’t been put in the right situation yet. Here’s the key. The goal is not to eliminate anxiety. The goal is to manage it so it doesn’t manage us. Anxiety can be helpful. It gives us energy. It helps us focus. It tells us what we’re doing matters. Managing anxiety also helps the people listening. Think about how you feel when you watch a nervous speaker. Most of us don’t enjoy it. We feel uncomfortable and awkward. I call it secondhand anxiety. The speaker’s anxiety transfers to the room, and then everyone gets distracted from the message. So we manage anxiety to help ourselves communicate. We also manage it to help our audience actually hear what we came to say. And it makes sense that this is hard. Humans are wired to pay attention to status and belonging. Early on, your standing in a group affected access to food, shelter, and safety. That sensitivity didn’t disappear. It just shows up today in meetings, presentations, and moments when all eyes are on you. To manage anxiety, take a two-pronged approach. Address the symptoms, and address the sources. Let’s start with symptoms. For many people, high-stakes speaking brings physical symptoms. Your heart pounds. Your hands shake. You perspire. You blush. You can work with these. Before you start, take one deep, slow breath like you would in yoga, tai chi, or qigong. It cues your body to settle. If you shake, don’t try to hide it by getting smaller. Give the adrenaline somewhere to go. Use big, broad gestures. If you perspire or blush, hold something cold in the palm of your hand. Like a cold compress, it helps cool your core temperature, which can reduce perspiration and blushing. You’ve felt the reverse on a cold day when holding hot coffee warms you up. This is the opposite. Now the cognitive symptoms. Often, what makes people most nervous is the fear of being nervous. It can sound like this. You’re sitting in a meeting and your turn is coming. Your body starts reacting, and then your thoughts pile on. “This is really important. I should’ve prepared more. I can’t believe I’m in this situation. Why me and not my colleague? This is going to be awful.” That spiral is anxiety feeding itself. To short-circuit it, stop treating anxiety like an enemy. Greet it. Tell yourself, “This is me feeling nervous. It makes sense. This matters.” When you give yourself permission to feel anxious, you regain agency. You can take a breath. You can reset. You can walk for a moment if you need to. You move from spiraling to steering. Now let’s address the sources, the things that tend to make anxiety worse. One major source is the fear of blanking out. The best way to reduce that fear is to have a map. You can’t get lost if you have a map. In communication, that map is structure. A simple structure I recommend is what, so what, now what. First, what are you talking about. Your idea, your plan, your product, your process. Then, so what. Why does it matter to this audience. Where is the value. Finally, now what. What happens next. When you have that map, you’re less likely to forget, and your audience is more likely to remember. Another source is feeling like the audience is judging you every second. One way to lower that pressure is to redirect attention so it’s not locked on you. In a presentation, show a short clip, run a quick poll, or reference a slide that asks them to think. In a conversation, ask a question. If there’s a handout, pass it around. It gives you a beat to settle, and it pulls them into participation. It’s a win-win. A final source is how we frame the whole moment. Many of us treat speaking like performing, like singing or dancing or acting or sports. In those activities, there’s a right way and a wrong way. Miss a line and it’s an error. Miss a shot and it’s an error. We carry that right-or-wrong mentality into everyday communication. But there is no single right way to communicate. There are better ways and worse ways, absolutely. But no one right way. So replace performance with conversation. To do that, put your attention on your audience and what they need. Use conversational language, words like us, you, and we. And ask questions. Questions turn a monologue into a two-way exchange, which makes it less stressful for you and more engaging for them. Taken together, these tools help you manage anxiety by addressing both symptoms and sources. This takes time and persistence. You’re working against ingrained biology and years of learned habits. But with patience and self-kindness, you can get better at it. Let me share one more story. I met Irma a couple years ago. She’s a 72-year-old grandmother. Like me, she had a painful experience in school. She offered a comment in class, and her English teacher looked at her and said, “That is the absolute worst communication I have ever heard.” From that moment on, Irma avoided speaking up. She even chose a career as a research librarian specifically so she wouldn’t have to talk to many people. Then one day her granddaughter, whom she loved dearly, asked her to give a toast at her wedding. Irma wanted to do it, and that’s where our paths crossed. I’ll never forget her expression when she told me her goal. Sheer terror, and complete determination. And I’m thrilled to tell you that after three months of hard work and a little encouragement, Irma gave an amazing toast. The joy on her face is something I will never forget. Like Irma, you can learn to manage anxiety. Whether you’re speaking at a wedding or in a meeting, pitching or protesting, you can learn to feel more confident when you communicate. And we all benefit when you do. We benefit from the stories you’re going to share, the input you’re going to give, and the ideas you’re going to spread. I look forward to you speaking up without freaking out. Thank you.