Hi, Matt here. As we get ready to celebrate our fifth anniversary, I wanted to share some exciting news.
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Focusing on specific techniques I can use to reduce my anxiety is so helpful.
This is one of many comments we received as part of our 2022 Confident Communicator Challenge.
We are so thrilled that so many of you listeners from around the globe chose to participate, and we are excited to bring you the results during this, our 50th episode.
Welcome to a Quick Thinks episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.
I'm Matt Abrahams, and joining me today is our executive producer, Jenny Luna.
Hi, Matt. It's great to be here.
Oh, it is so great to have you joining us, Jenny.
Before we share some of the insightful and helpful anxiety management plans we received, I want to pause and thank all of our listeners for your continued support through our 50 episodes.
I want to thank the amazing team who behind the scenes helped make Think Fast, Talk Smart, happen.
Of course, big thanks go to you, Jenny.
I appreciate all that you do and all that the team does.
Well, you're welcome, Matt, and thank you.
When we released our first episode back in January of 2020, we had no idea that we would connect with so many communicators across the globe.
It's been wonderful.
It has been truly an amazing reception, and we are so honored to be able to help people work on their communication.
Let's get into the results from the Confident Communicator Challenge.
For those of you who aren't familiar with our challenge, this is based on an assignment that I give every time I teach my strategic communication class at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
You were asked to identify a few anxiety management techniques that could help you feel more comfortable and confident when you get nervous about speaking.
Those techniques were to be placed into an acronym that you could remember and ultimately share with all of us.
Jenny, do you want to share some of the numbers of our respondents?
Yeah, we heard from people all over the world.
We heard voices from India to Ireland, Canada to Kenya, Austria and Nigeria, along with Dubai, Singapore and Spain.
We heard from listeners all across the U .S.
as well. So a huge thank you to everybody who took the time to submit a plan.
Wow, that's so cool.
We chose six that we felt best represented a variety of anxiety management techniques and applied to a wide range of people.
The AMPs are most useful when they are specific to the person creating them.
But remember, we can all learn from each other.
To begin, I'd like to read two plans.
First, we have Latoya Davis, who submitted TRUST.
T is for Trust Your Ability to Overcome and Manage Your Anxiety.
R, Remember Your Audience and Focus on Them.
U, Utilize Personal Stories.
S, Stay Focused on Your Purpose.
And T, Take Control and Actively Work to Manage Your Anxiety.
From Eduardo Balsa, we have Enjoy.
E is for Engage with the Audience from the Beginning.
N is to Be Natural, Be Yourself.
J is to Joke and Try to Use Humor.
O, Observe the Most Engaged People and Connect with Them.
And Y, You Love What You're Doing and You Should Be Proud to Share It.
Wow, Matt, those are really motivational, and they're easy to remember.
I like how the words are actions themselves.
Trust and enjoy. Something we should be doing when we're speaking in front of others.
I'm going to play some audio examples that we heard.
The first one is from Oma Oraka.
My acronym is Talk.
T, Take Command. A, Acknowledge Your Excitement.
L, Leverage Your Audience.
K, Keep It Engaging.
And next, we have one from Priyank Chandra.
My Anxiety Management Plan is called SPEAR.
S -P -E -A -R. SPEAR stands for S for Set and Adaptive Mindset.
P for Present Oriented for Being in Present Moment.
E for Early Morning Time for Brainstorming.
And Afternoon for Trust Building Communication.
A for Align Passion, Structure and Clarity to Engage Audience.
And R for Rough Prototype to Get Investment Along and Seek Advice.
Thank you. Matt, do you mind if I make an observation?
Sure, go right ahead.
Across all of these plans that we've listened to, I've noticed that people balance between the physical things they can do while they're speaking, as well as the way they approach it in their mind.
In your years of doing this assignment, is that typical?
Oh, absolutely. So, people like to think about what is it that they can physically do, do in their body to help them center, to help them get present.
But also, we need to think about, and these plans are great examples, of things that you can do in terms of how you approach your speaking.
Change the way you frame it, change the way in which you feel about the experience.
So, taken together, those two approaches can be very helpful.
And for those who've listened to previous episodes, where we've talked about anxiety management, you've heard the experts we talked to address these very specific ways of approaching managing anxiety.
Let's go ahead and hear two more plans.
I'll read one, and then we'll listen to our final one.
This next plan comes from Tess Koppelman, and it's POISE.
P stands for practice and preparation.
O is objective. What is your focus and goal?
I is for I am not the focus.
B, audience -centric.
S is for self -care, rest, exercise, do mindful breathing.
And then E is for energy and enthusiasm.
Exude positive energy and enthusiasm, because it is contagious.
Hi, my name is Emmanueli Paiva, and my anxiety management plan acronym is RELAX.
R for remind myself that I'm prepared.
E for express my gratitude for this opportunity.
L for lift weights to relieve muscle tension.
A for ask for help, delegate tasks that day, week to reduce stress.
And X for x -ray my mind and body for possible unmet needs and address them right away.
Two more helpful plans.
I like that some are focused on techniques that you do way before you speak, while others you do right before or during your communication.
Totally. The timing of when the anxiety hits you.
For some people, it's just thinking about the upcoming communication.
So having parts of a plan that focus on what you can do before make a lot of sense.
On the other hand, many of us in the moment can really rely on some techniques to help calm ourselves down.
So I like that across these plans, we had things we could do in advance and things that we could do during.
Okay, Matt, I have another question for you.
It seems to be my biggest challenge.
Because sometimes I'm on Zoom and sometimes I'm in person.
Is there a difference in how you deal with anxiety when communicating virtually versus in person?
At the fundamental level, I really don't think there's much different.
A lot of the techniques people have described for us today and that we've talked about on other episodes, apply to being both virtual and in person.
However, when you're virtual, you have some additional challenges.
You have to manage the technology.
You have to go the extra mile to engage the audience just to see if they're listening.
And this can invoke additional fears and concerns.
So my advice is to give yourself the space and time to think about how you'll use the technology, practice using the technology and leverage some of the tools.
For example, record yourself in advance practicing with the technology in your presentation and then watch it and see how it goes.
You'll learn little things you can do differently, and you'll most likely feel confident or more confident because you see it looks pretty good.
You can also use the mute feature when you're in the process of being in a meeting or giving a presentation.
If you need to take that deep breath, just mute yourself.
Take the deep breath and nobody will know.
So there's some things that you can do in the technology that will help.
For example, you can actually distract your audience momentarily so you can collect yourself.
Ask them to type something into the chat.
Show them a quick video clip.
This buys you a little time to collect yourself.
So the bottom line is speaking in person or virtually is nerve -wracking.
And many of the techniques we've talked about can help.
And there are a few extra things you can do when you're virtual.
Thank you, Matt. Thank you for sharing that.
And thank you for sharing this assignment with all of us.
This has been a really fun way to celebrate the 50th episode of Think Fast Talk Smart.
It really was, Jenny.
And thank you again to everyone who participated in our challenge.
Our whole goal in this podcast is to help people be more confident and compelling communicators.
We were so energized by the response to our challenge that we have decided to get even more creative for our next 50 episodes.
As an example, we've decided to do our first set of themed episodes.
Yep, that's right. For our next three episodes, we'll focus on decision -making and communication.
The next three will explore the same topic in different ways from different experts' perspectives.
We were inspired by the newest Stanford GSB podcast, All Else Equal.
It's a great podcast and we welcome them to the GSB Podcast family.
You know, Jenny, before we go though, after I've heard all of those anxiety management acronyms, I'm curious.
I want to hear yours.
Mine is calm. Converse with the audience, affirm your knowledge and abilities, look confident with good posture, and mindfully focus on your audience.
Calm. I love that. That's great.
Thanks, Matt. What about you?
What's yours? So I have been using the same anxiety management plan for many, many years, and it is brave.
B is for be present -oriented.
R, reframe communication as a conversation, not a performance.
A, approach your communication from your audience's point of view.
V, visualize a successful presentation experience, and E, exhale longer than you inhale.
You know, Jenny, it was great to have you join me today.
Thanks, Matt. Both Jenny and I hope that you now have some tools and techniques that can help you feel more calm and brave when you communicate.
We thank you all for listening in and for spreading the word about Think Fast, Talk Smart.
