Neuroscience of Coaching – Episode 13
Embracing Fear in Public Speaking (Jon Schumacher)
Jon Schumacher: No one’s going to stab you through the screen, right? No one’s going to hurt you that way. You’re probably not going to be homeless. You’re probably going to survive whatever people throw at you. We just need to not let it activate us so much. We need to be okay with dancing with the fear a little bit.
Dr. Irena O’Brien: Hi, I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’re listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. I’m a cognitive neuroscientist with almost 30 years of study and practice in psychology and neuroscience. And as the founder of the Neuroscience School, I teach coaches and other wellness professionals practical, evidence-based strategies to use in their own practices. In each episode, I invite a seasoned coach to discuss a topic that clients struggle with. And together, we provide you with science-based tools to help your clients reach their goals by working with their brains to create results that last.
Today, we’re going to talk about a topic that most of us have experienced to some degree. Performance anxiety. You know the drill. You have to give a speech or presentation, and your heart starts to race. You may feel sweaty or dizzy. Your hands shake and your voice quavers. Your stomach may be upset, and you may have intrusive thoughts. These symptoms are a result of a fight or flight response, a rush of adrenaline that prepares you for danger. That fight or flight response is very important when we’re facing a real danger, like getting out of the path of a car. But it makes it very hard to do well during a presentation. And in the future, that stress response you have today may cause you to avoid all situations in which you have to speak in public.
If you’re a regular listener, you may know where I’m going next. Yes, this is the predictive brain at work. The brain’s foundational purpose is to ensure we grow, survive, and reproduce. And to do that, the brain anticipates the body’s needs based on previous experiences and prepares to meet them. Every moment, memory and experience we have shapes the architecture of our brain. The brain uses that data from past experiences to predict future needs.
These predictions help us respond fast to dangers, like spotting a hidden predator or catching signs of illness. But it can hinder us as well. If you had an unpleasant experience speaking in front of the class when you were nine, say you felt ridiculed. Your brain is going to warn you that speaking up before any group is dangerous. It might even predict that all public environments are dangerous, leading to social anxiety.
So what’s happening in the brain during this stress response? The hormone cortisol is released into the bloodstream. This accentuates the effects of norepinephrine in the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. These high levels of norepinephrine impair the function of the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for our reasoning ability and strengthens the amygdala function, which controls the fight or flight response. This flip is very rapid, so the part of us that could remind us that we’re not actually in danger, we’re just giving a talk to people who want to be there, is shut off, essentially.
Meanwhile, the amygdala is screaming at us to respond as though we’re in imminent and serious danger. So the question you might be asking is, if that switch is so rapid, what can we do about it? Fortunately, the situation is not black and white. We have other things we can do. One of my favorites is slow, rhythmic breathing. This activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for our rest and digest response. In other words, we can intervene and calm down this stress response.
To discuss some of these intervention tactics, I have Jon Schumacher in our virtual studio. Jon Schumacher helps people optimize and create high converting webinars. Jon has worked with more than 300 clients across 30 plus industries, and more than 2,000 students have gone through his training programs. Jon is also the host of the world’s largest online sales webinar conference, the Webinar Mastery Summit, which has had more than 13,000 attendees worldwide. Thank you so much for being with us today. I’m so happy that you’re here.
Jon: Awesome, Irena. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a great topic. I think it’s often said that public speaking is a bigger fear than the fear of death in many cases, right? And so you’re spot on when it comes to that as a big issue that may stop someone from wanting to present a webinar or speak in public or whatever that may be for them.
Irena: Yeah, exactly. It has stopped me in the past. So before we start talking about performance anxiety, can you tell us a little more about your work and how you came to be doing it?
Jon: Yeah, so I’ve been doing webinar related stuff, you know, sales presentations, speaking presentations now for well over a decade. I started in healthcare, actually. My background was as a physical therapist. That was my practice for a number of years. I started posting content on a channel called YouTube back when that was brand new like, and I was one of the first therapists to start posting content online. I pivoted to podcasting and then into webinars shortly after that and really fell in love with marketing in general.
And after doing that on the side for a few years, I left my career as a physical therapist and went full time into marketing. And I’ve been doing that now for over ten years, specifically around webinars. And I can tell you I was nervous for about two weeks before my first webinar. So I can definitely relate to today’s topic. I was not a natural, comfortable speaker or salesperson either. I was more of a sciency person in that respect as well. So I’ve had to really overcome and work with fear in order to get better at this stuff.
Irena: So that was a real big switch for you.
Jon: Very big switch. I went from studying in the library and learning about the human body to getting and speaking in front of people and learning how to articulate myself better. And I went to doing toastmasters trainings and did a lot of video and mentorship work and all that kind of stuff. And over time, I think I do a pretty good job now of presenting and speaking in public. And, yeah, it’s just. But I was not natural. I was not a natural salesperson. I was not a natural marketer. I was not a natural speaker. It took some work for me.
Irena: I’m still not natural.
Jon: Well, we double down on who we are sometimes. There’s ways to enhance who we are, right? You’re not necessarily going to be Billy Mays, the pitch man or whatever, but you’re going to be more of Irena and how you can bring out your dry humor or your personality or your this and that, right? So I’m happy to dig into that a little more if we want.
Irena: Yeah, exactly. One of the things, right, that made a difference for me is just accepting that I didn’t have to be perfect, right? I have a lot of just fluency, so I do a lot of ums and ahs and things like that. And it doesn’t matter in the end because people come to your webinar because they want to hear what you have to say.
Jon: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, there’s a real tendency to need to be perfect or feel that way right out the gate. I always like to remind some of my students, no one’s going to reach through the computer screen and stab you, right? You’re going to live; you’re going to be okay. As the saying goes, every master was once a disaster, right? Most of us don’t come out of the womb knowing how to present or how to do all this stuff. And so it’s natural to have some discomfort and fear as a human being because you’re doing something new. You’re doing something that stretches you.
Irena: Yeah, our model tends to be now, TED Talks, and people want to have perform as well as TED talk speakers perform, but they go through a lot of practice to get to that point.
Jon: Yes.
Irena: Where they can be completely fluent without having any disfluencies. So I have a story. When I was working on my PhD, there was Oliver Sacks. He was a famous neurologist who collected unusual neurological studies, and he wrote a number of books. One is The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. He’s very well known in the field. He passed away a few years ago, but I heard him speak in Montreal. So, obviously, a highly intelligent, educated man. The number of disfluencies, the ums and ahs that he had throughout his talk, really put my mind at ease about my ums and ahs, because it didn’t matter. We were there to listen to what he had to say, not how he said it.
Jon: Right. If you’re someone who has something good to say, people will often forgive you as to how you say it. People are often very forgiving of live video, webinars, speeches. They’re less forgiving of the written word, right? But they’re more forgiving at consuming a message via the vocal variety, right? Either audio, video in particular, live webinars in particular. I found that people are a little more forgiving if you have a few ahs and ums, it’s not like it’s edited to the Gills presentation.
And sometimes people will relate more to you as a real person, too. So it’s not like you have to be this perfect robot of a speaker to really get your message across and get people to resonate with you and build trust with you and build connection to you. And I’d like to touch on the word practice as well, though, at some point in the discussion. I think that’s an important word you brought up.
Irena: Well, I think that’s a good place to go next because you did mention that you wanted to bring up some ways that you help people to overcome their performance anxiety.
Jon: Yeah. So I’ll talk about one pragmatic way of doing it, and there are a few techniques that I can also share that I find have helped me and have helped other people. So the first thing I’d like to mention is the word practice. And I’d like to shift people’s barometers, if that’s the right word on that topic when it comes to business, life or presentations in general. I think the saying is what, 80% is showing up. That’s what people used to say, something like that. Well, I think it’s showing up prepared.
One of the biggest things I want people to do is to practice a little bit more before you give your talk, before you use the software you’re going to use, if you’re going to do a webinar, for example. I always beat this into my students because a lot of them just think, oh, they’ll just flip it on and go do it. And look, there’s a certain level of perfectionism you don’t want to get to. But on the other end of that spectrum is the I’m just going to shoot from the hip and wing it kind of thing. And I think that’s also a recipe for increased fear and anxiety. Everybody has different levels of fear naturally. Some people are very comfortable and loosey goosey. Other people have a lot more anxiety from their past or whatever, as you mentioned earlier.
But I still think it’s important to practice, practice more, practice the technology, practice your speed, practice your presentation, especially when you’re starting out. But I still practice before I do anything, before I go on an interview like this, I spend about 20 minutes kind of thinking through some notes and some things I want to say. Why? Because I want to show up and deliver something of value. And so the more you can adopt the mindset of practice, I think that reduces a lot of people’s fear. It certainly has reduced my fear and anxiety about presenting and those things.
And so I personally think you can’t just eliminate fear for me. I’ve never been able to just eliminate fear. I’ve been doing this for ten years, and I do webinars with huge amounts of people on them now. And I still get nervous a little bit before a big presentation. Maybe you do, too, but less so than I used to. And part of that is because I’ve practiced. I still practice the software before I go live, make sure it all looks good. I still practice my presentation two or three times out loud at least, and then run it in my head multiple times. And this is a presentation I’ve given many times before.
And so I think, you know, it’s a discipline of life and in business and in presentations. A lot of that fear and anxiety comes from, oh, crap, am I going to say the wrong thing? Am I going to mess up? You can reduce that a bit. Instead of practicing for five minutes or ten minutes or winging it for a 1-hour presentation, you might want to practice several hours. Five, six, seven, 8, hours or more. I still do that before I go live for a big talk or something like that. So just be a little more intentional is what I’d recommend a lot for a lot of people around practice.
Irena: Well, practice sounds scary.
Jon: Nah, it’s important. Yeah.
Irena: Yeah. I do realize that practice is important, and I do practice, but it’s still something that I don’t like to do. So one of the things that’s eased my anxiety when it comes to presenting is that I don’t have to be perfect. I’ve taken that away. I’ll practice, but I don’t have to be perfect. If I forgot to say something, I can always go back to it. So that has really eased some anxiety for me, and I think for a lot of people, because it’s a perfectionism thing, right? They all think that they have to be perfect, but that’s not true.
Jon: You don’t have to be perfect. Definitely not. So I totally agree with that. I almost look at it as a spectrum. On one end, there’s the perfectionist. I got a sound and do it perfectly. And then on the other end is, though, let’s just shoot from the hip. And I think there’s something in between there. And I would place some intentional practice within that space. And then once you’ve prepared, then you got to let it go and just do your best, right? And be okay if you’re not 100% perfect as well. Right. So that’s kind of how I look at that as a spectrum for myself. I’m happy to share a couple of little exercises I also like to use as well to reduce anxiety or fear, if that would be helpful.
Irena: Yeah, that would be great.
Jon: I want to talk about a couple of them. One is breathing. You talked about how that influences our parasympathetic nervous system, reduces a little bit of that blockage in the brain, as you talked about with the frontal cortex. I found a technique; I think I found it through researching on the Navy Seals called the 4-4-4 breathing technique. So you breathe in for 4 seconds, you hold for 4 seconds, and you breathe out for 4 seconds. I’ll usually do five of those or so before I go live just to sort of stimulate that kind of relaxation, reduce some of the tension in the body. I also like to visualize it as well. Like the day before and day of, I’ll be going through my presentation in my head often just look at it on my phone slides and kind of go through them to just ease my mind around what I might say that helps me kind of visualize it and kind of ease myself a little bit that I am going to deliver this well.
And then another exercise I like to do for me, and this is what works for me, is if I’m really worried about something, I call it the then what exercise. So I’ll just say, like, what’s the worst thing that could possibly happen? Like, oh, my software blows up, or everything blows up as I’m presenting, or I fumble, or people can’t hear me, and it’s like, okay, well then what? Well, then people might be upset, and I might have to record something and send it out afterwards. And then what? And then I might get less sales. Well, and then what? It’s like continuing to inch it down into, let’s say, the worst-case scenario.
And then for me, it’s like, okay, well, I’ll still be okay. I won’t be dead, I won’t be broke, probably not going to be homeless on the street, so I’ll probably be okay, you know? And that just, for me, has sort of takes just a little bit of the edge off of a situation. So if you’re presenting, you got a big speech, what’s the worst thing that could happen? And then what? Then what? Then what? And that can kind of get you to a more centered place, I think, in rational thinking or whatever.
Irena: Yeah, exactly. Speaking is not a life-or-death situation, right? And the amygdala, like, acts up when it is a life-or-death situation, or our brain believes it’s a life-or-death situation, but it’s not a life-or-death situation. So there are a couple of things that I like to do. One of them is to start small, right? So starting on a big webinar can be, as your first webinar, can be really scary. And I started doing teleseminars, and that was quite a few years ago. And teleseminars were fantastic because I didn’t have to go on camera. Nobody really know what I looked like except from a photo, and I could read it. It worked out great. And then gradually, I moved up to doing webinars. And as you can tell, I’m still quite nervous, but I do them anyway.
Jon: And the good news with the webinar, I tell some of my students, ask me, like, do I have to be on camera? I said, not if you don’t feel good about it, right? Like, you could just use slides, too, and just use your voice. And if that makes you energetically feel better, then do that, right? If you like being on camera, then do that, at least for your first few, right? And you can always add it later. So I think people get worried. Do I have to be on camera? Not necessarily. You don’t have to, to deliver a good webinar.
Irena: Yeah. There’s more than one way to achieve your goals, right? You don’t always have to do it the way that you think everybody else or that everybody needs to do it.
Jon: Right.
Irena: Another thing that I like to do is before I do a webinar or before I start speaking, I’ll often go over some of my positive attributes. And a favorite thing of mine is to reread my testimonials because they make me feel fantastic. And I think it just sets me up for a more positive experience for me doing the webinar, and hopefully a more positive experience for my audience when I approach it with more confidence. So those are a couple more things that I like to do.
Jon: Yeah. I mean, you want to be feeling relaxed. Like, when I was in sports, in college, I always performed my best when I was kind of had a loose body, kind of had a positive mind. And so you want to try to get to that point before you do your speech or your webinar or your talk. You want to be feeling good going out there, at least I always want to. I always perform the best when I have that body feeling, right? Or that mindset of positive, loose. This is going to be okay.
And for me, it’s always been in athletics, it was a little different, but in presenting, like a speech or if I have a, give a presentation on stage or on a webinar, for me, it’s okay, be prepared. I’m a big proponent of being prepared. If you’re prepared, that’s all you can do. Right. It’s kind of an input output thing. Like, you can’t always control the output. Right. Of how things go. There’s things that happen sometimes that are out of your control. But what I can control is my inputs. Right? That’s very scientific. Input, output, assess. Input, output, assess. Right?
It’s like, okay, what’s the inputs? Preparation. Practice, making sure I’m taking care of my mind and body, make sure I’m getting enough water and sleep. And like that. I feel good before my talk, so I keep my brain functions as good as possible. In the moment, kind of right before I go out there, am I visualizing and sort of easing my body, and then you go out and you just put it all out there, and you don’t over worry about every little word, as you say, or perfectionism. But I do think, for me, that’s been a big thing.
You can’t always control the outputs. Some of my promotions go great, some of my webinars go great, some of them don’t. Right? I’ve had a number of them flop and not do as well. And there’s inherent disappointment when we’re putting yourself out there at times. But you can control the inputs, and so if you’ll just continue to focus on the inputs, working on your mind, your body, your preparation, then have the courage to put your goals and dreams above your fears. That’s one of my favorite sayings. I remind myself of that, that heroes put their dreams above their fears, right? Like when you’re. I personally have never been able to get rid of fear, especially if I’m pushing myself a little bit, right? But I’ve trained myself to act in spite of fear, right? And that’s served me well.
Irena: Well, actually, you really need to always live on the edge of fear, right? Because otherwise life shrinks, right? It only expands when we keep pushing ourselves. And I’m not talking about pushing ourselves in a way that is so far that scary, but just a little bit at a time, so that we’re constantly evolving.
Jon: I think people look at fear as the enemy, where it’s a bad thing, and that’s not necessarily true. In fact, a lot of times, it’s where we need to sort of move towards.
Irena: It’s always where we need to move towards.
Jon: Comfort is more of an enemy than fear in many cases, especially in business, especially when you’re putting your message out there or you’re putting yourself out there for others to see. I think fear, people see it as a negative. How do I eliminate it? You know, how do I get rid of it? I don’t think you necessarily do. There’s some things that you can do to reduce it, but the only thing I found that reduces my fear more permanently is action, right? Acting in spite of it, getting comfortable living in it. All of those things have been helpful. I have never found a button or a switch that I can just turn off my amygdala, like you said, and just, okay, cool. I’m 100% out of that now, right? I just have never found that switch.
Irena: It’s probably not possible. I mean, unless you just want to wither and die, right? If you wanted to wither and die, then you could look for that switch and activate it. What are some of the other things that people are afraid of when it comes to speaking.
Jon: Well, I mean, at their core, it’s fear of criticism, right? I mean, that’s, you know, the biggest, one of the biggest human fears that exist in us is I don’t want to be criticized by others, by the tribe, right? I don’t want to be cast out. Maybe I say the wrong thing or they don’t like me or they don’t like how I look. There’s an endless number of fears that are possible when speaking in front of other human beings. You know, that’s really, I think, at its core, what it is for people. I don’t know how to get rid of that for everyone. I think it’s a process of changing your identity over time.
I used to see myself a completely different way than I see myself now, and that identity shift has helped me kind of overcome that. As I’ve mentioned before, I think repetition just over time. Like, not to scare people, but I’ve been doing this long enough to where I’ve taken enough criticisms and punches along the journey that I just keep going. And it doesn’t bother me the same way that it used to. I used to take one punch, so to speak, metaphorically, and fall over and be taken out of the game for a while.
Right now, I mean, I just have taken a lot more. It’s kind of like the meme. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the meme of the wolf that was like the old me had one arrow in its back and it was lying over on the ground. And then the new me, after doing all this stuff was a wolf that was still standing strong with multiple arrows in its back. And so I think that is exactly the message there. You’ve always got some fears of what people are going to say about you. I’m not saying I’m immune to it or I don’t care what people think. I care a lot less than I used to. Right. People used to judge me. They, oh, you fidget too much on camera or you talk too fast or, you know.
People get really weird when you put yourself out there and there are a few of those people out there. You’re going to get some people to criticize you a little bit. You’re going to have people who are having a bad day. Maybe they broke their foot. They’re sitting on their couch watching your webinar, and they say some last night comments about your appearance or how you deliver or whatever. That is going to happen if you put yourself out there. I get that. Not all the time, but it happens, right? Still, it happens. I’m sure it happens to you, too, right, Irena?
People, oh, why do you stutter that way? Why do you speak that way? Why do you act that way? It’s like, okay, well, you just got to move on. That’s why, you know, heroes put their dreams above their fears, right? You have a mission. I have a mission for our lives. And we’ve developed through repetition, through techniques as well, like how to act in spite of any potential fears or anxieties, to move the mission forward. And that’s part of strengthening yourself, that’s part of shifting your identity. But that’s part also, for me, it’s been part of just repetition, of just keep going, keep going, keep going. It hasn’t always been easy, but keep going.
And no one’s going to stab you through the screen, right? No one’s going to hurt you that way. You’re probably not going to be homeless. You’re probably going to survive whatever people throw at you. We just need to not let it activate us so much. We need to be okay with dancing with the fear a little bit, dancing with the potential problems.
Irena: Not everyone’s going to love you.
Jon: No, they don’t.
Irena: And that’s just a fact.
Jon: Oh, gosh. Even on a webinar, especially at a webinar, they’ll see you, they’ll hear you. They don’t like, if you’re making an offer in sales. I know. You do that. I do that. It’s like, why are you selling to me? There’s all kinds of different people out there. So, one, I think your dream or your mission needs to be big enough. That’s one thing. Like, for me, it was, I’ve been through so many anxious up and down periods over the last decade plus. But my original why was very selfish. I wanted to quit my job and work for myself. Very selfish. And that was strong enough, though, to keep me moving, even if I had failures or even if things didn’t work out. It’s like, okay, I’m going to keep going. And that’s what it is.
Irena: Yeah. So the latest that I use, actually, to help get over some of the anxiety is the predictive brain. Now, I mentioned it in the introduction, but the brain predicts everything that we do, and it predicts it quickly. And so it’s based on past experience. If you have a fear of public speaking, then that’s the way your brain has been built. It’s not your fault. It’s just the way your brain has been built. But you can start changing that today so that tomorrow you’re building a different experience of your brain.
So in the future, hopefully it will get easier and easier. I mean, I remember a time not that long ago where I didn’t even want to be on camera ever. Right. And now I’ll go on camera and, yeah, I’m a little nervous about being on camera, but it’s not like it was before.
Jon: What do you do before you go on camera? Like, what are some of you mentioned? Breathing. You’ve mentioned a few other things because you’re very scientific. Right. You have that background, not necessarily a marketer, seller, face of the brand, sort of like person. Right. That was something you had to grow into a bit.
Irena: Exactly.
Jon: What were some of the things you found helpful?
Irena: Starting small was really big. Yeah. For me, starting with the teleseminars, accepting that my brain is going to do this, it’s going to create that fear. But I can start changing that. And you don’t have to take big steps. Right. You only need to take small steps in the direction that you want to go. And the other thing, too, is because I do, I suffer from anxiety, and I often start my webinars with that. I suffer from anxiety. And you’ll see that I sometimes read my notes. Is that okay with you?
Jon: Right. Yeah.
Irena: And people are very, on the most part, very generous.
Jon: Yeah. No, a lot of times, owning it is the best way to go. Right. Like, if you have, like, one of my students in my program right now, she has a little bit of a stutter, and she’s like, what should I do? Am I, you know, worried? I’m like, well, how bad do you stutter? Well, not that bad. Usually just when I’m nervous, I’m like, cool. Well, let’s work on maybe, you know, again, reducing some of the nervousness. Now we’re not going to get rid of it. But she doesn’t stutter that bad.
And it’s just a little bit of practice, a little bit of like, maybe just owning it upfront, as you said. Like, you know, hey, I tend to stutter just a touch at times. You often, forgive me, that kind of thing. As you said, as long as the message is good. After that, people tend to be fairly forgiving of speech patterns during webinars, during live things. Right. It’s not like the written word or some kind of super edited podcast in people’s ears, right. It’s like you are there live delivering something to them, and so they’re much more forgiving. You don’t have to, as you’ve pointed out, be perfect.
Irena: Yeah. That was the other thing that was helpful when I accepted that I didn’t have to be perfect. Right. And that I could go back and I could have, like, just now, like, I repeat non-content words. It’s my speaking style. And even in conversation I speak this way.
Jon: Yeah. And just kind of double down on who you are. I mean, I’ve had a number of students or speakers. I was toastmasters and speaking competitions and then webinars. There were people that were not this animated person. Right. Like, I’m a little more animated. That’s more my style. I have a lot of energy and a lot of pace to my talks and stuff, whereas other folks might be a little more understated or a little more this and that. It’s like, what can we do to not change who you are, but to enhance a little bit? Like, let’s say you have a dry humor. Like, dry humor for those folks worked really well.
There are some people I’d work with that just added a little touch of dry humor, like, they didn’t speak differently, really, or anything. And that really endeared people to that person without changing them into some person they’re not. Because the goal of a webinar is to do what it’s. Yes, to share some value. Yes, to make some sales, if that’s your goal. But it’s also to build trust and connection in a one-to-many fashion. I believe, besides relevancy, that trust is the most important word in sales. And when you do webinars, when you do these interactions with people the right way, sure, you can make sales, but you can also build that trust, build that connection. And that’s the really power of the platform and power of video and power of getting live with people.
Irena: Yeah. And the other thing I heard you say was and paraphrase, but it’s about being yourself. Right. You don’t want to change yourself. It’s about being yourself. And that does eliminate some of the anxiety when you don’t have to pretend to be somebody else. You could be who you are.
Jon: Yeah. You don’t need to copy some guru or anything, but there are little tweaks you can have a coach help you with to kind of just even shine who you are a little bit more. That makes a difference. But, yeah, you don’t need to copy my style or someone else’s style completely. That will come across a little bit weird, of course. You’re going to be nervous. Don’t let that stop you. Hopefully, do it again and you’ll get better and your nervousness will reduce.
I mean, if I were to have 2,000 people on a webinar early in my days, I would be nervous, right. Very nervous. And I still get a little bit nervous. I’m mainly nervous about the tech. I call, please. I’m like, praying to the tech gods, like, you know, don’t you know what I mean? But yeah, it’s just you get better with action and you expand and you just realize you’re not going to. It’s not fatal regardless. You know, you’re going to be okay.
Irena: Yeah. And another thing that can be helpful, too, is acceptance. Right. Accepting the fact that you are nervous about it. And acceptance is so powerful. Acceptance doesn’t mean liking it. It just means acknowledging what is. And acceptance reduces the emotional charge. It actually reduces the anxiety just by accepting that you’re anxious and it reduces amygdala activation.
Jon: There you go. Yeah. I liked what you said about, like, hey, I get nervous a little bit. Like, you just own it. Maybe at the start of your presentation on a webinar in particular, as people are coming in and you’re about ready to start, like, hey, we’re about ready to get started. Just so you know, I don’t normally do these sorts of things, so I’m a little extra nervous today. But what I have to share with you today is very valuable and very important, and so I’m going to push through any nervousness that I have and do my very best for you. Is that okay? And people are always going to be okay.
So you can always. Just. A lot of it is framing, too. Some people get nervous about selling at the end of a webinar, if that’s their goal. I just, sometimes I’ll just have them say, just tell them upfront you’re going to make an offer at the end. Right? Like, tell them I’m going to share some great stuff, but at the end of this, I am going to be making an offer for those of you who’d like some help implementing what I’m sharing today. So I’ll be sharing more on that later. Right. Or just whatever it does, just take the edge off a little bit.
Like, some people are scared. It’s webinars scary. Right. It’s technology. It’s presenting to groups. Right. It sells in many cases. Right. And all those things make people a little nervous if you’re not used to that. And so what can you do to reduce it? I love that you said acknowledge it, own it, or even just let people know, like, upfront, just frame it that way.
Irena: So finally, is there anything else you’d like to say to our listeners?
Jon: Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve covered a whole lot of different topics and ideas here today. I think we’ve covered it pretty well. I think I would just leave them with a couple of takeaways, which might be that it’s normal to have fear. It’s not your enemy. You just need to learn to act in spite of it if your mission or goal is big and strong enough. Right. So we talked about preparation. We’ve talked about breathing. We’ve talked about little mental exercises and stuff that can kind of prepare you to do it.
But eventually, you’re just going to have to do it. And the only thing I’ve found that reduces fear is action is doing the task over time, that has, over time, reduced the fear for me. So I would just say, have a big why. Go for it. If it’s an important mission to you, if it’s something in your heart and your soul or whatever you want to say that is important to you, then be willing to act in spite of it and do the actions. Do your best to prepare yourself and minimize it, but just go for it.
Irena: Yeah. When you talk about practice, I have another personal story. So when I started my program. So we have weekly Q and A calls in my program, and I used to pray that there’d be a power outage before the Q and A call because I was just so anxious during the calls. And now, five years later, I’m not anxious at all. Right. And so I never know what questions they’re going to ask. And if I don’t know the answer, I just say, I don’t know, or I’ll check it out and I’ll get an answer for next week or what it is. But it’s really amazing how you can grow just from practicing.
Jon: I mean, it’s the only way I’ve permanently found to shift things for me. Yes, breathing has helped me. Yes, visualization does help me, all those things. But nothing has more permanently shifted, I’m sure, through shifts in my neural pathways, even in my brain. Right. Like, over time.
Irena: Absolutely.
Jon: You know that it’s okay that I’m not going to have the same chemical reactions to that perceived stressor that I did before. Right. So, yeah, it’s just like you said, and I actually thrive in that. I used to be nervous about that, too. Oh, what if they asked me something and I look stupid on camera or whatever? Then I actually thrive. And I do those calls every week, more than one with my clients and students, where we have just. I don’t even know what they’re going to ask me, they’re just going to shoot from the hip and I’m going to shoot from the hip and we’re going to come up with an answer for them. Right?
Irena: So, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So this has been great, Jon. Thanks so much. So what’s the best way for listeners to find out more about you and your work?
Jon: Yeah, so like I said, I specialize in webinars. That’s my niche. So either creating them or optimizing them, I have training programs around that and all of those kinds of things. And so you can either just Google Webinar Consultant. I ranked number one in Google for that term. You’ll come to my website that way, or just go to jonschumacher.com and check out my work there. There’s plenty of resources there that can help you. If you are looking to do virtual webinars and presentations and those kinds of things, there’s a lot of good information there. So my first name is John, J-O-N. And then the Schumacher is S-C-H-U-M-A-C-H-E-R, like the race car guy.
Irena: Okay. Thank you so much. And Jon, this has been a really great conversation.
Jon: Awesome. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Irena: Thank you all for listening. And remember that performance anxiety is just our predictive brain in action, and it’s perfectly normal. The next time you have an upcoming speaking event, try some of the tactics that Jon and I discussed. Even something as simple as listing positive attributes before a public speaking event can significantly elevate your performance.
I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’ve been listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. You can find out more about me at neuroscienceschool.com. The Neuroscience of Coaching is a part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Just Between Coaches and To Lead is Human. This episode was produced by Cynthia Lamb, Danny Iny is our executive producer and post production was by Marvin Del Rosario. To make sure you don’t miss great episodes coming up on Neuroscience of Coaching, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player.
If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a comment or starred review. It’s the best way to help us get these ideas out there to more people. Thanks and we’ll see you next time.