Hi, everyone.
I'm Matt Abrahams, your guest host this week.
Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Monday Morning.
I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business and I'm the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter and the popular podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart.
I've spent my career helping people feel more comfortable and confident in their communication, whether it's giving a presentation, speaking up in a meeting or just having an important conversation.
This week we'll explore how mindfulness and simple communication tools can help us express ourselves with calm and clarity.
The fear of speaking in front of others is ubiquitous.
It exists everywhere.
In every culture we've studied, we find it.
And we find that it develops at the same time.
When kids first become teenagers, that's when anxiety really begins to spike.
Certainly for me.
When I was 14 years old, I was instructed by my English teacher to give a presentation on his behalf at a speech contest.
Every teacher in my school had to nominate one student to go to this contest, and I was his choice.
The only advice he gave me was do something that gets the audience interested.
So I showed up on an early Saturday morning, cold outside into the big, large auditorium.
My friends were there.
The parents of my friends were there judging this competition.
And the girl I liked was even in the room.
I had decided to do a speech on the martial arts.
This was something I thought that would be engaging.
I was so nervous about doing this speech that I forgot to put on my special martial arts pants, the ones that have a little extra room.
I did a karate kick to start, and I ripped my pants from zipper to belt buckle.
Somehow I managed to get through that presentation.
But it was at that moment that I became very interested in how anxiety impacts our communication.
And over time and with a lot of practice, I was able to become much more comfortable and confident in my communication.
And hopefully I've helped lots of others do the same.
Confidence in speaking comes from a lot of practice and a lot of work.
It's a whole bunch of mini experiments that we run.
Each of us has to find the techniques that work for us to manage our anxiety, and there are many of them.
For me, one of the big sources of my anxiety was worrying about the future consequences of my actions.
I was afraid people wouldn't support what I was asking for.
They might not like what I had to say.
All of these are future thoughts.
And the way to counteract that and what worked for me is to become very present oriented.
Because by definition, if you're in the moment, you're not worried about a future negative outcome.
So the question becomes, how do I get present-oriented?
And there are lots of ways to do that.
Doing something physical can work.
Take a walk around the building.
Actors and actresses shake their body out.
Athletes listen to a song or a playlist, and that gets them present-oriented.
Sometimes I've been known even to say tongue twisters out loud.
Not only does saying a tongue twister force you to be in the present moment in order to say it right, but it also warms up your voice, which is incredibly helpful because many of us think we can go from silence to brilliance in our communication without warming up first.
Any athlete, any singer, any dancer will tell you, you have to warm up first.
I distinctly remember a job interview as I was approaching college.
And I was working on my anxiety management, given what happened to me in high school.
And I had walked into the room and I felt the anxiety.
I did some deep breathing.
I said a tongue twister out loud before the person came back.
And when they came back, I was in a much better place.
The interview actually went so well.
They made me the offer.
And in the subsequent year, I was actually the person who was interviewing for a similar position to what I had.
So I had actually switched roles.
As a result, I believe, of how confident I was in that initial interview.
Anybody listening in has likely done some meditation and mindfulness and is very familiar with this type of deep breathing.
Interestingly, all of the magic happens on the exhalation.
Your heart rate slows down.
Your respiration rate slows down so you speak less quickly.
The shakiness that comes from adrenaline abates a bit.
So as a way of closing today, I'd like to invite everybody to take a deep grounding breath.
The goal here is to have our exhale be twice as long as our inhale.
So we're going to take a three count in and a six count out.
As we do our inhale, we really want to be distending our lower abdomen.
I like to joke it should feel like you feel after a really good Thanksgiving dinner.
On the count of three, inhale slowly through your nose.
One.
Two.
Three.
Your abdomen is fully distended.
Let's hold in that moment for a second here.
And now let's exhale on a count of six.
We can exhale through the nose or mouth.
Six, five, four, three, two, one.
If you do that just two or three times, you can really put yourself in a place of calmness, stillness and readiness for your upcoming communication.
Well, that's all for today.
Thank you so much for listening.
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow when we'll tackle one of the most underrated skills in communications.
The power of listening.
