What’s scarier than being in the spotlight? Acclaimed actor, physician and professor at the Cornell College of Arts & Sciences David Feldshuh joins host Nick Phillips to share methods for speaking with confidence and moving past fear into connection.
If you fear public speaking, might we suggest panting? David Feldshuh, physician, actor and professor at the Cornell College of Arts & Sciences shares expert tips to manage stage fright and connect with listeners, from taking cues from our canine friends to understanding proxemics.
This episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast covers:
Ready to develop new skills for public speaking and leadership? Explore David Feldshuh’s online Executive Presence certificate program from eCornell.
Did you enjoy this episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast? Watch the full Keynote.
Nicholas Phillips
Welcome to Keynotes from Cornell University. On today's episode, we're discussing a lot of people's biggest fear. That's right. Public speaking. David Feldshuh, professor of theater. Professor Feldshuh, who also happens to be faculty author of the online Executive Presence certificate program at Cornell and has the distinction of not only being a trained actor, but also an M.D.. Great to have you on today, David.
David Feldshuh
Thanks. It's been a while. Nice, nice to see you.
Nicholas Phillips
It's just great to see you. And I want to kind of take a little step back for folks. So you're a medical doctor, but also a trained actor as well. How did you get into acting?
David Feldshuh
Well, I got into acting. It's kind of relevant to what we're talking about today because I want to take us back just for a moment, all the way to the time when I was probably about six years old and somebody asked me to be on stage and I had a line, you may know this poem. "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree."
David Feldshuh
And I had that line and I forgot the word tree. I never wanted to be in front of people ever, ever again. My father was a very successful and effusive trial lawyer. So I had this tug of my own anxiety and my, a model of my father. And I was a very shy child, and I really wasn't into theater at all until I finally tried out for the radio station when I went to college at Dartmouth College.
David Feldshuh
WDCR 1340 on your dial in Hanover, New Hampshire, that kind of thing. And then I tried out for a play, and then I managed to get into drama school, and then I became a professional actor at the Guthrie Theater, a prominent theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And then I started doing more and more directing. And then after about ten years, I decided it might be time to use some of these creative resources.
David Feldshuh
Initially, I thought I was going to become a psychiatrist and use all these kind of theatrical techniques, but I ended up going into emergency medicine, so I went to the University of Minnesota and then I did my residency at Level one trauma center, and I spent some years there prior to coming to Cornell. So my background really was very linear and it was an attempt to deal with a few things.
David Feldshuh
I loved adrenaline, and that has something to do with what we're talking about because adrenaline can have two sides of the coin. It can really get you focused, it can get you energized, but it also can be crippling if it gets overwhelming. And then you're dealing with the whole question of so-called stage fright or the fancy way of putting it is performance anxiety.
Nicholas Phillips
When did you first start thinking about this concept of executive presence and somewhat kind of calming down that anxiety a little bit or dealing with it rather.
David Feldshuh
Well, it started as a course at Cornell called Acting in Public. And the idea was to take actor training techniques that I had studied in drama school and apply them to everyday performance. So the first thing you want to think about is that there are a lot of performances and people listening to us today and watching us. You are a better actor than you think, because every time you order a cup of coffee, that is a script.
David Feldshuh
And if you want a cup of coffee with cream and sugar and somebody gives you a cup of coffee with just cream, you know your performance has not been successful. It's very obvious. But repeating a script again and again is a kind of performance. And I was thinking about how can, for example, going into an interview or meeting someone or in a situation like this be considered a performance and how is it useful to approach that in a way that you can train people to be more effective?
David Feldshuh
And I do want to emphasize that when we talk about executive presence, or at least when I do, I'm not talking about anybody modeling themselves on someone else. You don't have to be an oratorical speaker or any way that you are. You can have executive presence because ultimately executive presence is about a relationship. Can you make the other person feel as if they are the most important person in the room and that you really want to connect with them, that you believe in what you're saying and you want them to get it.
David Feldshuh
It doesn't matter what your accent is. It doesn't matter whether you speak even loudly or softly, as long as you can be heard. And if you really can speak with a purpose. And this kind of training is not magic. When you think of public speaking. The reason one of the reasons it's frightening is it seems like a it's like you don't know what is going on there.
David Feldshuh
It's a skill set. There's a series of skills that you can get to give yourself a way to move past the fear into connection.
Nicholas Phillips
And I know we're going to talk about a little bit acting in public a little bit later, but I want to kind of draw on your expertise as an M.D. very, very quickly. So why do you think most people get anxious when they're thinking about public speaking or getting up in front of a large crowd?
David Feldshuh
There's a number of reasons. And I'd like to look at two categories of reasons, because both of those categories can be dealt with through skills and through training. So the first thing is, let's say you're getting up in front of a crowd or not even a crowd, a few people, and you feel anxious and you go in through a door.
David Feldshuh
What are you imagining that makes you feel anxious? What's the worst thing that could happen?
Nicholas Phillips
Oh, I think for me it would probably be stumbling through words or stumbling through my script or something.
David Feldshuh
All right. So you say, Hi, my name is Nick. All right, so then you keep going alright? So then what? Then what happens? That's not so bad. You just go past it. It's a little embarrassing, but so what, what's next?
Nicholas Phillips
I feel like it would probably snowball from there. Like, get worse and worse and worse. My boss would see it. They'd be like, This person's no good on camera. We got to find somebody else. Great.
David Feldshuh
So. So what would they do to you then?
Nicholas Phillips
They'd probably get rid of me at that point.
David Feldshuh
So they'd fire you. Okay, so now you don't have a job. Now what happens next?
Nicholas Phillips
Now I'm homeless again.
David Feldshuh
Okay, So that actually is called that train of thinking is often subconscious, and that's called a catastrophic expectation. And it may seem silly or absurd, but it's not unreal. It is true that to imagine because you stumble on a word, you're suddenly going to be homeless does not make rational sense. But we're dealing with the irrational and sometimes the subconscious.
David Feldshuh
So that's one thing, is to look at what it is you're telling yourself that is arousing this anxiety in you. But more importantly, rather than ask why you're feeling this, or even how in terms of physiologically adrenaline and stress hormones and that type of thing, it's how can you deal with this? And the answer is you have a body and you have a mind.
David Feldshuh
And to me, the body is one of the most useful ways to deal with stage fright, fear, fear of public speaking, performance, anxiety. Why? Because if you become aware right now as we finish this, this podcast, when you feel anxious, what is your body doing? So usually what's going to happen is the first thing you're going to do is not breathe.
David Feldshuh
Now you'd say, What, are you kidding me? Because I wouldn't be verbal, but not really breathe. If you really put your hands right here on your chest and you take a deep breath that is really breathing, you'll find that you start breathing more shallowly. You start tensing up in various places. You can learn to breathe. You can learn how to take tension.
David Feldshuh
And the way you take tension is to find it and exaggerate it. Breathe and release it. You've heard of many people have heard of these various things that anybody in any kind of performance, including athletes and musicians, use before they perform these can be used methodically, repeatedly, and with more and more ease to get you to relax. Then the other aspect is mentally, how do you clear your mind?
David Feldshuh
And to me, thinking thoughts, people will say, Imagine that the audience is whatever. Often that doesn't do any good. It's like kind of me sticking my finger in this in this cup of water, expecting for me to make the water more smooth. It's not going to work. It's just going to disrupt it. The idea is to be present.
David Feldshuh
To have executive presence, you need to learn how to be present. I have to be there with you, even if I don't want to be here with you. I have to be here with you. So the question is, how do you empty your mind? What techniques, skills, not magic, can you use to clear your body of tension, to empty your mind of thoughts that might in a way self-sabotage you before you engage in everyday performance?
Nicholas Phillips
It's funny you mentioned breathing. I mean, I know in the past when I did a lot of television work, I always had to take a breath real quick and get myself ready for the live show, look over the script a couple of times just to, you know, just to lock it in and everything like that. So for those folks are there who are getting ready for a presentation or getting ready to present in front of some folks, what's kind of that first thing that you would have them do before they get up on stage?
Nicholas Phillips
I know for me, one of the biggest things that helped me, like I said, was take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. Like you'll be fine. What's maybe one thing that you would say, Make sure to do this before you get up there.
David Feldshuh
So I'm going to move us into another thing which is obvious but not always done. And the answer is practice. And not just practice. You're going to say where you're going to say it. So if I were walking up on stage, think of all the things that could go wrong. You could trip over those steps.
David Feldshuh
You could come to the podium and the microphone. You've seen people struggling with a microphone very much. You know, it does not inspire confidence to see a person do that. What you want to do is practice, practice, practice, so you can forget practice. So it seems totally spontaneous, even though you've done it X number of times. Now, obviously, if you're going to do Improvisational work, it's a different situation.
David Feldshuh
But that's the first thing. The second thing is can you create a little ritual for yourself? I think of some golfers or some people shooting foul shots that were musicians, something that you can come back to again and again that can allow you to get back here, right here, without the tension in your body and the tension in your mind.
David Feldshuh
It might be breathing. I always I don't joke about this, but one of the activities that I do in my class, believe it or not, is panting like a dog. It's silly. It's weird. You can't think and breathe at the same time. It's also great if you need to go back to sleep in the middle of the night, you have insomnia.
David Feldshuh
Breathing will clear your mind and that's one thing I would do, and the other thing I would do is make some movement. For example, you can wiggle your toes, you can hide that, and you can take all that tension in your toes or even in your hands and then release that so that even if you're hidden right there, so you take that tension, you magnify it, release it, you inhale and you go on stage.
Nicholas Phillips
And with that, one of the big things you talked a little bit about was kind of practice. And, you know, practice obviously makes perfect. How important is it to record ourselves when we're prepping for standing in front of an audience?
David Feldshuh
Yeah, I think it is important. I think it's important to hear people say, don't record yourself, you become self-conscious. Dealing with self-consciousness is a skill set. So if you can deal with that and you deal with it by really getting into the performance. And so I think it's useful to record yourself, but it is terrifying. And in this course, the eCornell course and in the live course I teach at Cornell, it's really tough in the sense that you're not used to being recorded.
David Feldshuh
You're not used to hearing your own voice. You sound miserable. You think you look miserable, you don't. It's most important to you. But if you do that again and again and again, trying out different skill sets, you will become comfortable with yourself and you'll be able to see. Oh, I see. During that little talk, I said, ah, that's called a filler.
David Feldshuh
So. Uh, well, I think, uh, well, uh, so once you learn that you use fillers, there are ways you can not use them, but you have to have the awareness first. And that's what the video gives you.
Nicholas Phillips
I'll do a follow up on that regarding the fillers, but I did want to just make sure I went to an audience question. We just got one submitted in from SL. So SL asks, My fear is of speaking or vocal fry tendencies. How can we be more conscious of this so that when we speak we sound confident and clear in our speech.
David Feldshuh
Well vocal fry I'm going to interpret that as meaning a kind of gravellyness in the voice, which I believe I have. And for example, an actor like George C Scott has. So the first question is if by vocal fry, that's what we mean, that that kind of thing. The question is, is that working for you or against you?
David Feldshuh
Is that it's not per say. It's one could argue that, that is showing a lack of breath support or that you can breathe more and you can take what's called a catch breath. So if I am losing breath and I'm getting more and more raspy, again, assuming that we're agreeing on the definition of vocal fry, if I take what what's called a catch breath and I can do it for you right now, you do the exercise.
David Feldshuh
One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, four, five, six. You don't you keep that breath support. Now, there's something else that is, I think, counter expressive, and that's called devoicing. That's not quite the same thing, even though you kind of can go into a vocal fry at the end of this. So let's say you're going to say one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and somewhere about seven you go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
David Feldshuh
So you're dropping your breath support, you're dropping. It's called devoicing. Now, the problem is, in English, frequently the most important word is at the end of the sentence. So again, this exercise of taking a quick breath, even a hidden breath. So if I say to be or not to be, that is the question. So I want to take a breath so I can support that last that last word and that I don't say so very nice to meet you.
David Feldshuh
You know, I'm really not really nice. It's not doesn't sound like it's nice to meet you because I've let the breath disappear. So I hope that it responds to the question. It's a great question. Yeah.
Nicholas Phillips
Thank you SL for submitting that question. And I want to kind of get back to this idea of kind of fillers and recording ourselves. So for those folks out there who do record themselves in preparation for their speeches, what's maybe one or two things that they should look for when they're recording themselves and say, Maybe I should change that a little bit?
David Feldshuh
Okay, well, there's a lot. But I think the main thing would be, do I look as if I'm having fun? Now. What does the word fun mean? It means that I'm expressive and it means I'm not uptight. It means that I'm responsive. If somebody says something to me, I see them. I don't simply what's called railroad. Keep going no matter what.
David Feldshuh
And so that, you know, there could be somebody screaming in the audience and I just keep going. And not because I'm not really awake to what's going on. So do I look as if I'm having fun, as if I'm loose, but not in a way floppy. That I have intensity without tension. And the other thing would be, do I make clear points and make room for a dialog?
David Feldshuh
So what does that mean? Let's say that I'm saying to you, ladies and gentlemen, the first thing I think we need to do is buy a new store. And now I think the first store. So after the word store, there's this slight pause. But people often talk about pausing and looking at people. You pause for a reason. You pause to give the other person silently a chance to participate.
David Feldshuh
And that's why, that is how you connect. I said at the beginning, Can you make the other person feel important? Well, the way you make them feel important is you don't railroad over them. If you watch really effective speakers, no matter how they speak, they somehow feel and look as if you are included in what they're saying.
David Feldshuh
So that's one thing I would look for.
Nicholas Phillips
And you talked a little bit about this before we went live, but you mentioned the difference between just simply talking at an audience versus actually connecting with them. Can you go a little bit into that distinction between, you know, just presenting in front o people vs. hey, we have that connection.
David Feldshuh
Of Absolutely.
David Feldshuh
So let's say I have four score and seven years ago Gettysburg Address. If I'm reciting that fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation. it's flat, it's monotone, it's mono tempo. Or if I said, I'm giving you directions. I want you to go down the hall, take a left, take a right, go down the stairs.
David Feldshuh
I'm not really trying to do anything with you in terms of making a connection. I want you to go down this hall, go down the stairs, and then go to the right. Now, I'm trying to engage you in that information. I'm not simply spouting it off. It's the difference between something being spoken for a purpose that involves the other person.
David Feldshuh
And the purpose might be, I really want you to get this. This is important information. You have to believe it's vital information and that it's important for them to get it. And you simply reading it and that's when you read it, you get this kind of monotone flat, unconnected, no pauses and but again, no pauses for purpose. The purpose is, are they getting it?
David Feldshuh
So right now, for example, I'm watching you shake your head up and down. So I'm taking that in and then I'm playing off of that. So one way you could do this, the folks out there, let's say you have a few friends and you want to practice a speech, have them, there's a couple of ways this exercise can work, have them hold up a hand and you look at one of them and say a line from your speech, from your talk.
David Feldshuh
And if they feel that you're connected with them, they put down their hand. Then the next person puts up their hand and you look there and then you look there and then you look there. So you do not leave that person until they put down their hand and they feel that you've spoken to them. So that's a very simple exercise that can remind you that you're moving from person to person.
David Feldshuh
I know that they say, look at this person in the eyes then look at that person. That's only half of it. The most important part is the reason you're looking at them is you want them to get it and you don't want to leave them until you know that they've gotten it.
Nicholas Phillips
So Laura, submitted a question. She asked. I have a big speech in front of a large group of people. I'm using a teleprompter for the first time. Any tips for speaking when using a teleprompter?
David Feldshuh
Yes. So forgive me if all of this is too elementary. The first thing is practice, because teleprompter is a completely different situation, but it can be better than looking down at a piece of paper than looking up, which is also very difficult. So the first thing is practice, but the second thing is format your speech. I don't know how long your speech is.
David Feldshuh
Now what I mean by that is let's say you say hello. Good to see you. I want to see in that teleprompter a huge hello and then maybe in italics. Good to see you. And then you might say the first thing I want to say, Colon, new paragraph, right in the middle, is, we need to buy avocados so that you actually score your text graphically so that when you look at it, it suggests how you going to actually deliver it.
David Feldshuh
And the third thing that is really important is you have to work with the person that's running that teleprompter, because otherwise they're going to be left in the dust or you're going to be waiting there for them. So it's a duet. You have to think about this as a song, with a score, and you're going to practice that with all those elements.
David Feldshuh
I think the teleprompter can be great, but the whole idea is for you not to look as if you're reading, for you to look as if you are more or less thinking this up. Now, I understand it may be numbers and all this kind of thing. So people know you're using some support, but it's the spontaneity of it.
David Feldshuh
Let me tell you a quick story. My daughter went to the University of Michigan and so she got good grades. So she was on the stage when Obama spoke there and Obama used a teleprompter. And I can't tell you exactly, I'm paraphrasing, but he came to a place he said, and then I think we need to do this.
David Feldshuh
Now, isn't that a kick in the head? He said something like that that sounded completely spontaneous. That was all on the teleprompter. So this is my advice. Think about using the teleprompter as a delivery cue, a graphic delivery cue for you that allows you to really come to life rather than flatten you out. One of the verifies that, you know, reading from a teleprompter, that's when you do not want to do.
Nicholas Phillips
Yeah. One of the big things I found in the past using teleprompters is it helped to kind of write in my own voice because everybody talks different. Everybody writes different. So it's like, you know, to have those cues is huge.
David Feldshuh
Absolutely. Even I'm listening to you. I'm just listening to your pitch change here. So you might actually change if you needed that prompt. You might actually change the font at that point. So feel artistically free to create some sort of graphic delivery score that will help you come to life.
Nicholas Phillips
And I just got a great audience question, but I want to make sure I got to this question. So when we were, you know, talking about this conversation and, you know, talking about some of the questions and everything, you would mention that a lot of people are comfortable talking in front of maybe two or three people. It's when you get to ten, 20, 100, that's when they really struggle.
Nicholas Phillips
Why do you think that is?
David Feldshuh
Frankly, I think it's that catastrophic expectation. Again, it seems as if 100 people are going to do you in faster and more fully than three people. But it's really all in your own mind separate why it is to how you're going to deal with it. I go back again to performance anxiety is self-imposed. So the question then becomes, how? it's self-imposed frequently through the body by tension.
David Feldshuh
Find out where your tension is. Look at yourself. You asked what you might do if you're videoing yourself and practicing. Is there a part of me that looks tense? Do I feel tense? Can I take that part and then exaggerate it like my shoulders and then drop it? And then can I use my breath to clear my mind?
David Feldshuh
Because then my mind instead of all these thoughts or concerns about the past or the future, you can use that to bring yourself to the present moment. I know it's very Zen idea, but this is what actors have to do. But think about it this way. Any athlete has to do that. Anybody who's going to maximize their performance can't be worried about the mistake they just made, of course, or worried about, my gosh, if this doesn't work out all right, it's going to be a disaster.
David Feldshuh
You have to be there. Now. The next thing is to try to make the other person more important than you are. So part of anxiety is, is you thinking you're the center of attention and you want to make them the center. And part of the way is what I said previously, If I'm going to talk to you, I make sure that my breath, which is writing, my voice is writing, my breath is going right to your left eye, directly to your left eyebrow.
David Feldshuh
And then I see somebody else and it's going there. So I'm getting out of my head. It's like me throwing a ball. It's there. If you can get yourself to make them more important than you are sequentially, your anxiety will disappear. And that is why people frequently say, I was really anxious and then I got into it and then it disappeared.
David Feldshuh
But you can do this consciously and you can know, that it can be done consciously by practice. So you can forget practice and then focus, focus, focus on them, rather than your self.
Nicholas Phillips
That was one thing I struggled with for a long time, was taking a quick breath. Relax. Take it easy, it'll be fine. I knew that if I got through the first 10 seconds, I'd be all right. My news director wouldn't come down on me. But I did want to follow up with SJ's question, so SJ submitted a great question kind of along this line.
Nicholas Phillips
So SJ asked, how can someone who was an introvert embrace public speaking and make it honorable in a way that feels authentic to themselves, but still delivers on communicating to a group of people with ease? So those introverts out there?
David Feldshuh
Okay, I think that's a great question, and I really wish we were together or I could see you because I could give you very specific things. But first, let me say that there is no right way to speak, extroverted or introverted. There is either speech that is connected or is not connected. So you could have a very, I'll get a little closer to the mic.
David Feldshuh
You could have a very soft voice and still want to be heard by this person because you have something important to say. You don't have to become huge to be to have presence. You have to have purpose. And I've seen people, who, some people would say this person is not a good speaker, not because they were introverted or not just because they swallowed their words.
David Feldshuh
Maybe they were in one case I can think of, unfortunately, it was at a funeral and the person was very upset. But they had such a desire to say what they had to say, that you were riveted to them. There's not, it's not about being like somebody else. it's about making sure that you know why you're saying what you're saying, how you're trying to affect the other person, and that you believe what you're saying, regardless of whether you're introverted or extroverted.
David Feldshuh
Now, I can imagine if you were here in the room, I might say, are you breathing? In other words, it's one thing to be introverted. It's another thing to not breathe. So but that's true if you're extroverted also. So, I would look at my breathing just as a kind of working what's called from the outside in. How can you make sure, for example, let's say you have a speech of 50 lines and you want to practice it, Actually make a mark.
David Feldshuh
I'll do this. I'll make a mark like an opera singer. I'm going to inhale here. I'm going to inhale here, I'm going to inhale here. And that way that inhale, inspiration, inhale, inspire. That inhale will get me then to focus on the new person and share that new person. I hope I started to answer that question.
Nicholas Phillips
No, no, that was perfect. And one of the things I'm thinking about when we're thinking about connecting with the audience and everything like that. How should we think about our presence when we are thinking about different audiences? So I'm thinking about connecting with our coworkers, for example, that we might know intimately versus a random group of people. Does that make a difference when we're thinking about the power of presence.
David Feldshuh
That's a tough question, because there's also cultural differences that different audiences expect different forms of behavior, and that demands some research too, especially if you're traveling internationally. But in terms of what you want, how you want to behave in front of other people, yes, it is a different performance. So let me take that metaphor and extend it. You might be wearing a different costume.
David Feldshuh
You might be wearing a suit in one case another, and a tie in another, or a skirt or not a skirt. Who knows what, you might get close to the the people to whom you're speaking or stay further away. That all has to do with a fancy word is proximics. What's the appropriate distance between people? But the essential thing is the same.
David Feldshuh
Are you seeing them? Do you believe what you're saying and are giving yourself the time and the space to mean what you're saying to transfer vital information and genuine emotion? and that can be learned so that you don't rush and you don't rush over the things that I know you believe in. But sometimes it may come out as if you don't because you're rushing it.
Nicholas Phillips
And we just got a great question in. Harnett asks any tips for virtual presentations where you can't grasp the audience's reaction. So it looks like they're hosting a large webinar for the organization. So you touched on this a little bit where, you know, have somebody hand up looking up for a little.
David Feldshuh
That is tough. I mean, it's tough to do a one sided presentation. But I do think that if you have to do a large online zoom, etc. presentation. Again, I would practice it and look at your text itself. Look at where you want things to land. It's the fancy way of saying it like a joke. A joke lands and that means it needs a little more space there.
David Feldshuh
So I would score if it's useful to you. And the reason I say if it's useful, you may be brilliant. If so, everything I'm talking about is technique. It's when things aren't working for you. What can you do then? So I would score your text. I would make sure, what elements are really vital and circle those, take a pause after certain specific things because in a way you're working in a vacuum and what you're going to have to do is pretend as you're practicing, that you're both sides of this communication.
Nicholas Phillips
So. Q submitted a question, I'm gonna get your M.D background on this one as well. So Q asked, what's a good technique to control body temperature? My blood pressure seems to rise and I start sweating, especially when I engage with the audience, i.e. during Q&A sessions.
David Feldshuh
Wow. So I think it's a kind of chicken and the egg thing. I'm talking maybe I can come up with this answer because I don't have an immediate answer. Obviously, you're having some sort of fight or flight response, which is an adrenaline response. And this rise in temperature is part of that. It's probably, it may or may not be, one thing that would be interesting, at least it would be interesting to me is actually to take your temperature and see if your temperature is higher, because it may not be it may be that you feel as if hotter because your blood vessels near your skin are dilating or getting wider.
David Feldshuh
You're getting red, red in the face and you're feeling more heat. But it's not necessarily that your core temperature is higher. So it all comes back again, I think, to your ability to use your body, use your breath, to get yourself out of any kind of performance anxiety. It's the same kind of things. Instead of going from uptight, go to down loose, instead of not breathing, pant in what?
David Feldshuh
Do whatever you can, wiggle your toes, hide it behind the podium. So I can't tell you exactly how to lower your temperature. But I can say that this is probably part of a constellation of symptoms that have to do with physiologic response to anxiety. And by dealing with some of these things, especially, by the way, before you go on stage, that's really important.
David Feldshuh
If you can loosen up, if you can clear your mind, if you can get present before you go on stage and keep breathing and keep focused on the other person, I know I'm repeating myself. I suspect that some of these things won't happen.
Nicholas Phillips
You threw the research study in there.
David Feldshuh
Maybe there are other members of our audience who have a better answer than I gave. I'd be curious to hear it.
Nicholas Phillips
Yeah, I would too. And you touched on this a little bit at the beginning when we first started our session here, but I wonder if you could go a little bit into acting in public. You mention that term a little bit in the beginning.
David Feldshuh
Well, I think that the name of this course that I teach at Cornell is acting in public performance in everyday life. And it goes back to some various theories and in scholarly areas of interest that have to do with looking at many things that we do in life as a theatrical performance, even though usually when we think of a theatrical performance, we think perhaps of actors being phony.
David Feldshuh
But that's not it at all. Actors really know how to be real, in imaginary circumstances. So that's why you go to drama school to come across as real, not to come across as phony. So in real life, what you want to do is appreciate that you have a text for something, especially if you're going into a meeting, You can manipulate how people will respond by, for example, how you create your text.
David Feldshuh
Let me give you an example. So this in a way would be script writing. To use this metaphor, there are forms of rhetoric that I'm sure many people know about. If I were to say, Nick, you have to go to the store. Nick You have buy bread. Nick, you have to buy butter. That kind of repetition, that first of all, that's a triad.
David Feldshuh
That's three things. That is a useful thing to know. And frequently you can see people using that. It can give you some more energy in your talk, but it's also the fancy word is anaphora, the same words at the beginning of a phrase or a sentence, by creating certain rhetorical devices in your text itself as a script that will help your delivery, even if you're not delivering it, quote unquote, brilliantly.
David Feldshuh
Just saying one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. Will help things cement and connect with your audience. So that's one thing. Again, how you appear. You're obviously intuitively know that you're going to go to a job interview, usually appearing the way you think it would be useful for you to get the job. That is a performance.
David Feldshuh
And probably most importantly, when you say something, actors learn to say something in order to change the other person. That's why they have a line in a play. That is what you're trying to do in real life, even if you're saying, I'd like a cup of coffee, you're trying to change the other person, they're not going to bring your cup of water, they're going to bring you coffee.
David Feldshuh
So you really are saying something to get through to that other person. And once you do that, a lot of your self-consciousness disappears and you start becoming more effective because people feel that they are important to you.
Nicholas Phillips
And before I get to my last question, I just really quickly want to get your thoughts. We got a question in from Lewis. So Lewis asked, should we acknowledge our mistakes essentially? So if we're fumbling through a word or something, should we say sorry for my mistake or something? Should we acknowledge that when we're presenting?
David Feldshuh
Okay, so this is a great there's no set answer to that, but let me give you an answer. So let me go through various levels of apology first. I just want to say, John, my God, I'm so sorry. Your name's not John. I'm such a terrible person. I don't know what to do so that we don't need that kind of apology.
David Feldshuh
That's the first thing. That's then there might be an and you had a life as a newscaster, so we'll get to that in a moment. Then we have the second level of apology, which is not quite that something like, oh John, I'm so sorry. I meant Nick. And then the third level. Oh, John. Nick and then you get to even see what happens in that third level is you stop breathing.
David Feldshuh
You start punishing yourself by not really taking a breath. But ultimately, if you see people on television, they'll say, Well, John, Nick, I think what we should do, they don't necessarily apologize for it at all and they don't necessarily feel apologetic, why, because most of the people in the audience don't give a darn. They want you to get on with it.
David Feldshuh
Now, I can imagine a situation where the content of what you've said demands an apology. Yes, of course you're going to say, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that. But I appreciate the sensitivity of this. But that has to do with content. If it has to do with you psychologically feeling or I have to apologize, as they say in The Godfather, Part one, forget about it.
David Feldshuh
I guess maybe that's good, fellas. Because nobody's really interested, they want you to get on with it and you're confident it's fine for you to say mistake. Go on. Without the apology.
Nicholas Phillips
I'm definitely guilty of butchering a name or two here or there. Yeah.
David Feldshuh
I mean, yeah, you do it and you can correct it, but you don't necessarily need to take the time to share with the world and ask for their forgiveness as if you've just done the worst thing ever.
Nicholas Phillips
Well, David, thank you. Thank you so much. And one last thing. If you kind of reach out to our audience and give them one piece of advice or one thing to walk away with when they're thinking about their next presentation in front of a group of folks, what would that one thing be?
David Feldshuh
Well, one thing I would say enjoy yourself, enjoy the performance, because the word enjoyment means you're breathing, you're loose, you have full expression. You want to connect with somebody else and you want them to join in the fun.
Nicholas Phillips
Perfect. David, thank you.
David Feldshuh
My pleasure.
Nicholas Phillips
Audience, Thank you for all your questions. We appreciate you listening and watching in today and have a great rest of your afternoon. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss new episodes as they are released, wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about managing presentation anxiety and speaking in front of large crowds, check out the episode notes for more information on Professor Feldshuh's Executive Presence Online Certificate Program. Thank you for listening.