Trying harder will make it worse

(Required reading - “The inner game of Tennis” by Timothy Gallwey)

In his book, Gallwey describes a situation where your conscious mind gets in the way of what your body is doing, causing all sorts of shenanigans. It's why people who know how to do something (like play tennis or bowl) do it poorly when they're put on the spot - their conscious mind takes over and all of a sudden things fall apart.

You can try it yourself to see just how much it can get in the way: try going down the stairs (don't actually do this - it may be dangerous) whilst thinking about every muscle you have to use to lift your leg, balance your weight on one foot, articulate your knee, lift up your body, and place the other foot down. When you break down such an automatic action like that, it gets in the way of smooth performance. Sometimes, as in the case of choking, it gets in the way of performance at all! This is actually a widespread phenomenon amongst men who can't pee in front of other men - they obviously can pee, but their conscious mind takes over and gets in the way.

Obviously, for high-performers, this type of things spells disaster. It's not possible to think and process a Roger Federer or Andre Agassi serve. They come at you faster than the speed of conscious thought. It's not possible to be a rally car driver and be consciously aware of every turn at high-speed; these are instinctual, below the level of conscious awareness. It's the same with public speaking - it's not possible to speak well, fluently, on a topic you know so well, if you're consciously thinking of every word that's coming out of your mouth, about the tone, the rhythm, the timbre, where you're standing, how your hands are placed, whether or not the crowd likes you or thinks you're magnificent.

You get the point.

So there has to be a way to, paradoxically, get out of our own minds when we're talking in public.

I used to have massive stage fright, and was probably the least fluent and fluid person on the stage. In fact, early on in my rabbinical training, one person even winced during my public speaking practice.

Have you ever had someone wince at you?

The problem was that I was too much in my own head. So I developed a pre-talk routine that serves me until this day (I'm actually writing this from Zurich, where I'll be speaking over the weekend, and where I'll be using these techniques).

Since I've read Gallwey, I've incorporated his routines as well to get back to the flow state which characterises all high-performance. There is this secret of all high-performers that no one who's not a high-performer believes: it's all about “woo”, “mindset”, and “energy”. It's less consciously “knowing” what to do and more about learning how not to think at all, how to get out of your own way.

With that said, let's get to the routine.The routineBreath - any type of physiological sigh will do here. The idea is to breathe in through your nose and then out through your mouth. Your in breath should be 1/2 as long as your out-breath, with your out-breath coming through pursed lips (like you're blowing through a straw). [A great resource for breathwork in general is the Stateshift app.]Anchoring phrases - These are short, action-focused phrases that you use to return to and remember who and how you want to be. “Steady under pressure”, or “Speak to connect”. Whatever works for you and how you want to show up.Visualisation - My body knows how to show up. It's done it before, many times. But I can't talk to it directly; I have to show it. So I visualise, in great detail, what I want to happen. It's important to note that I'm not visualising what I'm going to say; instead, I'm visualising how the audience will react, how I'll connect with them. I'm imagining the relationship we'll have through my speaking. (This gives me a clear picture of what I want to achieve, and as I'm speaking, I can see the delta between where I want to get to and where I am, and trust myself to close it.) Gallwey calls this “asking for results” - I already know how to connect with people (we all do), so it's not technique I'm visualising. It's outcome.Grounding/awareness - This is a key part of both the pre-performance and the during as well. It's so easy to get stuck in our own heads, to lose where we are relative to others. So what I do is I try to ground myself in physical sensations, to remember my embodied nature. Before I go on, this is as simple as feeling my feet on the ground, as seeing the colours around me. During the talk, if I feel like I'm losing myself, I have a simply re-grounding trigger of touching my wedding ring - this reminds me to be where I am, not where my mind wants to take me.Give permission to be - Before I go on, I give myself permission to perform however I will that day. I do not edit myself during the performance; it takes up too much bandwidth and gets in the way of me actually connecting. Instead, I give myself permission to be however I am, and to do an evaluation later.

Talking to people is stressful because there's so much ego involved. We so badly want to do well, we so badly want to be liked and adored and admired, and so we try hard to be that way. But in the process of trying hard, we try too hard, and rather than fluidly flowing, rather than being effortlessly graceful, we talk ourselves into being stilted and awkward (I speak from experience).

The trick is learning to regain our composure, to let ourselves do what we already know how to do. I know this is a subtle point, and I'm not sure that I'm doing a great job at this moment of making it clear. If it's relevant, reach out and we'll work on it together.

Till next week!