229: Fear of Public Speaking
Summary
Do you have a fear of public speaking? As a small business owner, public speaking comes in all shapes and sizes. From the meet and greet, to impromptu conversations with people on the street, they don’t always have to be formal events. We believe pet sitters and dog walkers have a wealth of knowledge to share and need to be heard! We break down 8 key elements to not just overcoming fears of public speaking, but making sure you rock the next opportunity you have. Natasha answers the question, “How do I go from a fixed to a growth mindset”
Topics on this episode:
Why you should do more speaking
Collin’s recent experience
8 elements to getting better
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Take a deep breath and realize you have SO much to share!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, talk, rooms, business, practicing, audience, public speaking, body language, point, pet, giving, totally, notes, important, words, feel, pet sitter, nervous, clients, walk
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin Funkhouser, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan
Collin Funkhouser 00:18
Collin.
Meghan 00:19
And this is Pet Sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to episode 229. Hello. We have had quite a month.
Collin Funkhouser 00:32
It's been a month.
Meghan 00:33
It's been it's been a lot. Yeah. October was a very interesting month we had a kid get chickenpox, and then you got sick, I got sick. And then I got sick. And then another kid got chickenpox.
Collin Funkhouser 00:47
So we had like, three weeks. And of course, it happened over the time where we were the busiest we have ever been. This year, I felt like we were really, really slammed.
Meghan 00:57
Yeah, I mean, we hit five figures again last month. So it was on top of everything else it was it was a lot. But we're here we're good. Hopefully you are well, as well. Yeah, preparing for the holidays and getting ready. And today we are talking about public speaking, which you just did a little bit last week.
Collin Funkhouser 01:17
I did, I did. I had a lot of fun there with the 1 Million Cups that we had mentioned a couple episodes back, I was finally able to give my talk to that group.
Meghan 01:25
But before we do that, we want to thank our wonderful Patreon members who support us with the price of a cup of coffee every month. Thank you for producing the show and allowing us to continue doing this. And thank you all for listening. We love this and really appreciate the not only the support of sharing the episodes and listening to them, but financial support as well.
Collin Funkhouser 01:49
Yeah, and if you want to learn more about that, go to pet surf confessional.com/support. So the talk did go really well. And I will say that they had never had a dog walker or pet sitter come and talk with him. And it was really obvious from the questions that they were asking to how engaged they were in the conversation. They were totally fascinated by a professional dog walker and petsitting company.
Meghan 02:15
Yeah, some of the questions at the end were, you know, how many clients do you guys have?
Collin Funkhouser 02:20
How do you price? What do you use your radius of service? And what are your plans for the future?
Meghan 02:24
Yeah, it was a great, I mean, you're obviously a great, awesome public speaker. So you didn't really have any trouble there, thank you. But it really did get us thinking about the role of public speaking in business. And really how pet sitters and dog walkers and trainers actually do a lot of public speaking. You know, we always think about the meet and greet where we actually are face to face with someone, but it could be an impromptu talk of you meet somebody on the street, I know, city dog pack, Miguel talks about this all the time where he just goes up to people and or they come up to him and they just impromptu talk about the dogs that he's walking or his business, the industry
Collin Funkhouser 03:07
has so much to share, and is full of incredibly passionate, knowledgeable and amazing people you listening to this, you need to be sharing what you know what you do and who you are with others. And it's amazing how even though this whole petsitting industry has really only been around for about 30 years or so, there are still so many people out there that have no idea that it's a thing or what all is involved with it. Just as an example, while I was giving the talk, somebody asked about where Megan and I go for information and training. And when I mentioned that we go to professional societies, and there are conferences and there are books and there's all this stuff out there, you could really you could literally walk about six heads just explode in the room with a realization that this whole thing was a lot bigger than they ever anticipated. So there is a lot of education still to be done not just to clients, but to other businesses as well.
Meghan 04:03
Yeah, and if you're listening to this, we want to encourage you to start speaking up about your business and sharing your story. We have several episodes about sharing your story and making sure that not only your clients and potential clients know who you are and what you do. But it's important for other businesses in the community as well. We've talked about partnering with them in the past not only dog and pet related businesses, but also things like realtors, you know, their dogs need to be walked if they're selling a house or painters coming in or babysitters come in and don't want to walk the dog. These are all great opportunities to partner with other businesses and so that you both can help each other out. And that's
Collin Funkhouser 04:47
all based in public speaking whether in a formal setting like I did where is in front of a group of people over a breakfast, or it's the impromptu coming into somebody's shop or somebody's business and giving them a little bit idea about who you are and what you do. It all starts with you sharing your story. But we also recognize that public speaking is ranked in the top 10 of the most common fears in the entire world. So it's not something that everybody gets as excited about as I think I do. And that's totally fine.
Meghan 05:18
Right? Well, I mean, but you didn't start off always enjoying public speaking?
Collin Funkhouser 05:23
No, I did not. And that is a story that I do want to share with you just to open this up to let you know that it's not all perfect. So it was my first semester at Missouri State. And part of being the degree program was everybody had to take a public speaking class. And there was this competition amongst all of the public speaking classes where they would select the the best one from each class to compete against a competition for at the end of the semester to do a trophy or whatever. Well, I really struggled in that class. And I worked really hard and practiced an awful lot. And I actually did end up having the second highest grade. And so my teacher selected the highest grade and myself to go to this competition. And it was a day long event where we started giving our talks in the morning, and we had to give it four times to four different groups of judges. And that the end was the final. And at each stage, it got a little harder, and they asked different questions. And there was just grueling because it was all day long. And I was so nervous at each step, that I didn't eat breakfast, and I actually didn't eat lunch. And it turned out at the end, I was one of the five selected to go to the final event. And it just so happened that a event that is usually very sparsely attended was going to be extremely well attended, because it was the grand opening of a historic theater. And they were using this as part of their grand opening events. The judges included people like the mayor and the president of the university, no pressure, no pressure at all. And I was a freshman, biology major, and every other one of their was in business was in marketing was in social media, people who I thought, well, they have a right to be here. I shouldn't be here. I like to poke things with sticks and go play in the creek. Why am I doing this? And a lot of things transpired where I just kept on stressing myself out more and more and more. And they had this thing where they were going to go, Okay, we're gonna go random order. And I didn't like and then they came back, they said, nevermind, here's the order, we're going to go in, they came back a third time and said, nevermind, random order. Let's go. They marched us down there. First person goes, second person goes, I get called third to go up. I walk up to the podium, it is standing room only, which just again, really stressed me out. And I'm really in my head at this moment. I'm looking down at the judges. I say my first line, I take a huge breath. And then I pass out and slam into the floor.
07:55
Good time.
Collin Funkhouser 07:58
It's totally silent. In this auditorium. I come to the MC is standing over me. And he's going are you okay? And all I do is I raised my hand straight up. And I really want him to just drag me off of the stage so that I don't have to see anybody. Instead, he tries to pick me up. And there's this awkward thing where we're kind of hugging as he's picking up and holding me and turning me around. And I bolt offstage. And I go and standing in the wings of it is my dad. And I've come in he hugs me and the MCS like, oh, you know, there's a backdoor, you can go this way. So nobody sees you. My dad says, No, we're gonna go out the front. I said, No, we're not give me the back door. I'll meet you outside pull the car. And you know what? All that I still got fifth place, I guess. So I still got a trophy at the end of it. All that to say that public speaking is a process. And yes, it can be scary. But there are things that we can do to overcome that and to get better at it over time.
Meghan 08:59
Okay, so there are a few things that we're going to talk about to get better or start overcoming the fear of public speaking. The first one is practicing beforehand. This may seem pretty obvious, practice your talk. We all do it. We all rehearse what we're going to say before we say it. But there's a line between having a fully memorized talk and being well prepared for it. If you need to fully memorize a talk, which I usually do, I love to have exact words that I'm going to say outline because I am not in good improviser. And that's totally fine. being well prepared means that you know the major points you want to hit, but might not know exactly how you're going to cover each of them or the exact words that you'll say.
Collin Funkhouser 09:44
You can practice in front of friends or family members. I like to practice in front of a mirror or while I'm in a car going between visits. I'll even record video and actually send it to Megan to review and when you're practicing in front of people or sending something off to review, be ready for feedback and Very importantly here, take it with an open mind. Remember that these people are trying to help you, you sent it to them, you brought them, you're practicing for them because you do want their opinion, you can give them some things to check and tell you how you did some very specific things, please look at my transitions, please look at my body language, please look at my iContact please look at my facial expressions, so that you know that they're going to give you things and that they know what to look for. The
Meghan 10:25
second one is knowing your audience. And this is obviously critical, no matter if you are doing a blog post or if you're doing a social media post. But especially if you are giving a presentation, it's critical to know how you're going to cover the material who you're going to be talking to, or what your material is even going to be. So for the talk that Collin gave, he knew that the audience was going to know nothing about pet care, they're going to be just business people, not having knowledge of pets maybe have pets of their own.
Collin Funkhouser 10:54
So I talked about the aspect of being a pet care business and the aspect of the broader context of what the pet care industry, in addition to how we operated our own business, they needed that baseline of the pet care industry for what I was talking about to understand where I was coming from and to, so they can make some better connections. Because if you're talking to industry experts, that's different than the general public, a group of business owners is different than your clients. This will impact the language and terms you're able to use or the amount of time that you may need to dedicate to get to your main point to build up to that.
Meghan 11:27
And that leads right into the third thing, which is clear messaging. Why are you talking? What is the purpose of you being there, that will help you structure your talk and give you guidance while you're practicing. It'll also help if you think of the one thing you want people to remember from your talk. A lot of times been public speaking, or somebody giving a presentation, they will say, if there is one thing that you hear from what I'm saying, if there's one thing that you remember from this talk that I am giving it is x it is why structure everything around that.
Collin Funkhouser 12:03
Yeah, I like to break things down into three or five parts. That's easy for me to remember and work through. And it's easy to present those and have the audience follow along. But all of that structured around that one point that you just said, Megan, whenever I'm putting together a talk presentation or whatever, I sit down and I write out what's the one thing I want them to take away from this, I decide what that is, and then I structure everything else around that. So it flows and it's really cohesive.
Meghan 12:30
Number four is check your body language. This is huge. So how you hold yourself can make the audience feel included, they can make them feel excluded, or kind of walled off, it can really help to help break down barriers and make them feel more safe and secure with you. When you use open body language. When you talk with your hands when you don't just stand behind the podium, or whatever you're using. And you walk around a little bit,
Collin Funkhouser 12:59
something like 50% of communication is nonverbal. And I've even seen some reports of it even being higher than that. So something to consider is does your body language match the tone of your voice if you're sounding really super excited and really thrilled about this, but your shoulders are hunched in and you're looking at the ground and your arms or stuff in your pockets? That's going to give some dissonance in what you're messaging and your audience is going to have a trouble connecting with you. And speaking of where your hands are, what will you do with them? Use your hands to gesture if you're comfortable with that. I like to fold my hands in front of me but Megan, you can attest this I talk with my hands an awful lot
Meghan 13:36
Oh man.
Collin Funkhouser 13:39
I, which helps me stay calm. It's gives me something to do with my energy. But I recognize that it can be distracting for others watching. So I have to consciously stop myself from flapping my arms around like a bird. And sometimes just hold them or move them slowly.
Meghan 13:55
Yeah, because you also don't want to be the person that just walks up on stage and or is on our dog walk with your hands in your pockets, right like you want to be animated. As you're giving a presentation or as you are talking with someone especially at the meet and greet you don't want to just sit there and not move
Collin Funkhouser 14:15
and look disinterested look closed off. When you mentioned you said the word there of open body language that shoulders back, arms out in front of you. Closed body language is when we cross your arms when we Hunter shoulders in and we turn away from people if we're trying to be opening, welcoming and comfortable around people open body languages, but it's because it's vulnerable. It's hard. It's scary to hold yourself like that in front of strangers. But that helps them put at ease as well and make a better connection with you while you're giving your talk or at a meet and greet
Meghan 14:46
your expression is also important. So try to smile. You can probably hear in my voice. I'm smiling right now versus this where I'm not smiling. You can tell in my intonation in my voice. If I'm sitting Lean or not,
Collin Funkhouser 15:00
or just try and relax your face. This will help everybody to relax, help your audience relax. And it gives the impression that you're both confident and happy to be there. Are you okay walking around while you talk? Or do you need a podium, if you can walk around, that's a great way to help your audience be more engaged. Just don't let any nervous energy start you make pacing around the stage like a sprinter. What's important here is to notice how all of these take a conscious effort to pull off. That's where practicing comes into play, the more you practice, not just the words you say, but also your posture, the more in control, you'll be while you're on stage.
Meghan 15:35
Well, and that's why it is very important to know as much detail as possible, the intricacies of the Eve the room in which you will be standing or the audience that you will be talking in front of the more, at least for me, when talking, it helps to know as much detail as possible. So I can recreate in my mind to the best of my ability, the scenario in which I will be talking who's going to be there? How are they going to be sitting and arranged? How what is my position in relationship to them? Am I going to be standing? Am I going to be sitting? All of these really helped me to feel in control and comfortable? I think that's basically what it comes down to is how much control do you have? Or do you want, everybody's different, you are fine with not having a lot of control because you improvise, I need an insane amount of control because I am not a good improviser. And I need that safety and that comfortability.
Collin Funkhouser 16:43
Yeah. And while you might not have control over the room, you do have control over your body language, your posture, your facial expressions, that takes conscious effort. And that gives you a little bit of power in that scenario, and helps you build confidence while you're in those scenarios where you don't necessarily have control over the setting and over everything else.
Meghan 16:59
And so the fifth one is pace yourself breathe. A lot of people, including me, when they don't know exactly what they're gonna say. They talk really fast, and they don't really breathe a whole lot. And it can't really get in Word edgewise. Basically, because they're just talking really fast.
Collin Funkhouser 17:16
If you find yourself gasping and trying to continue talking while you're still gasping for air, and you can start to panic, because that elevates your heart rate. And your body's saying I need oxygen, your brain saying keep talking, I have a talk to give. And you end up again with this dissonance and this, this strain while you're up there, and you do start to panic,
Meghan 17:37
or you know that it's a 40 minute talk. And I've just rushed through the first 20 minutes in the first five minutes, because I've been saying the words really, really fast.
Collin Funkhouser 17:47
It's one of the biggest mistakes made while giving a talk or presentation is talking way too fast. It's from nerves on a lot of things. So it's totally understandable. But there are two things you can do to help us breathing and practicing. Take your full, normal breaths, it's totally okay. Many feel like when it's when you do this, that there's too much silence and it's awkward. But trust me, it's not. Your audience expects that you'll need to breathe at some point, they may even expect there to be a silent moment or two. So taking your time also means lessening the likelihood of a mistake or forgetting a part of your speech. This will also help speak clearly. And we won't jumble your words together either.
Meghan 18:30
This next one I do not have down yet. So it's bring notes, but don't use them. This is a comfort level thing. i When I prepare for a talk, I need my notes. I rely on them. And even during the talk, I know that there are a lot of people who will just read straight from the script. And I try not to do that. Because I know that that isn't very good for your audience. It doesn't promote confidence that you know what you're talking about. It says I actually need all of these words. And some people do and that's, that's fine. Again, it's a comfort level thing. But use your main points, use your transitions, write those down. But when you practice, use the notes less and less. The only time that notes will really come up is if you have a very specific point that you don't remember, or just having notes may make you feel more confident. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 19:29
I know for me, I will use my notes when there's a specific date or a number that I have to nail or that's critical to a point that I'm trying to make. And sometimes just having the notes in your hand or on the podium will help you feel more confident and secure because you know that they are there. And I know you said that when we read our notes sometimes that's what a lot of people default to we need to read our notes. I will caution against just strictly reading the notes because when you read your notes, you end up not really being your yourself and your personality really doesn't come through. And that's really what point seven is, is be yourself, you have personality, and it's okay to let it shine in your talk, speaking to an audience is about connecting with them. And you can't do that if you're trying to be someone you're not tell a story or a joke, if it's natural to you, I have never told I've never given a talk with it being 100% Serious, there's always a joke, or there's always something that I bring up a point to get people to laugh, that's just part of what I try and do. If you're too nervous for that kind of tactic. Just admit that you're nervous. That type of honesty will help your audience feel like they understand you and are connected with you.
Meghan 20:39
Because nobody really enjoys public speaking. Everybody's nervous about it. You know, they have that same picture everybody naked. No, don't do that. But that's what they say is just, you know, everybody puts on their pants on one leg at a time. You know, unless you're talking to Oprah, which you're probably not, it's just everybody's the same everybody.
Collin Funkhouser 21:03
Well, because being yourself being authentic, creating that kind of connection with your audience should be one of the primary goals of your talk is humanizing that aspect of you, allowing them to see into things that you do, and letting them know, again, that you are just like them, they say, picture, everybody's naked, because then they're vulnerable, you're vulnerable, and you're able to share better, whatever you need to do, just know that you have a personality, you have a voice, you have stories, you have things to share. And that's why you're there. And so do that in your own way.
Meghan 21:35
And so then the last point here is forgive mistakes that you make, we are all human. Again, Nobody enjoys public speaking, nobody really enjoys. I mean, you do, because you're awesome at it by talking in front of any group of people, even if it's your peers, even if it's on a podcast, it can feel daunting,
Collin Funkhouser 21:58
it's hard, it's hard, we have to admit that it is a hard thing to do. And that's okay. And when we do hard things, we're going to make mistakes. During this talk, I totally forgot to mention a partnership initiative that we have with our business. And it's okay. Those in attendance had no idea that I forgot to mention that because they didn't know my talk. And that's it's not the end of the world. We all make mistakes, you'll stumble over a word, you'll you'll lose your place. Forget something happens. Your audience, we have to remember they've seen it before, and they most likely have experienced it themselves.
Meghan 22:36
So just remember to keep going during the talk. It's not that you messed up. It's really how you recover, get back up on the horse. Try again, just nobody know, you know, nobody's going to know the exact point that you didn't say, or the exact point that you messed up on, right. So just keep going.
Collin Funkhouser 22:55
We know that public speaking is a big thing that many people struggle with. We also know that there are a lot of awesome people out there, you listening to this that have things to share, and we'd love to see you do that.
Meghan 23:07
If you would like to share your story on this podcast. Absolutely. Feel free to reach out to us. You can connect with us on Facebook or Instagram at petsitter. confessional, we would love to hear and share your story. How you run your business, where your business is your services, and your team. Anything that you feel like is important to share with other pet sitters because we really want to share everybody's stories and get everybody connected, so that we can just have an awesome industry that really raises everyone up
Collin Funkhouser 23:42
on this week's Ask a pet business coach segment. And Natasha answers the question, how do I go from a fixed to a growth mindset.
Natasha 23:50
So a good six mindset to growth mindset. Number one hack is get in the room with people who are already doing it. That has been the best thing I have ever done. I get myself around people who are doing the things that I want to do. I can't learn how to do something that I haven't done by myself. I can't teach that to me. If I would, I would have already done it, right. I have to get in rooms with people who have done the things that I want to do because they're going to show or teach me how to do them in two seconds because it's come natural to them. But if I'm just sitting here stagnant and like okay, I really would like this. I wish I had this. It'd be nice to do this. I can't change those things for myself, because I don't know how. Get yourself in the room with people who have already done this. The room starts to change their mind. I'm in like multi figure rooms and people that I mean their imaginations and their dreams are crazy. I'm like, wow, the rooms that I used to hang out with would never be having these conversations. People now in these rooms are convincing me of how like I'll say a crazy idea. Hey guys, I want to know, I want to do something crazy. They'll be convincing me on how I can get this done. I'm like, No, guys, this is totally crazy. It was me telling me it's crazy. They're like, No Okay, great. I love it. Let's let's let's make a game plan on how you're going to do it. Now I have my old rooms have been like Nitasha you're nuts, come back to lala land Stop being like, unrealistic. That will never happen because my old rooms that has never happened for them. But my new rooms are like, oh, yeah, girl, now you're dreaming. And they helped me to get my dreams. And so you got to put yourself in these rooms, get it in place where people want to see you win where they want to see you thrive. It's infectious. It really is.
Collin Funkhouser 25:42
And it's more than just people telling you yes. Right. It's people who are able to say it's possible because XYZ it's not just people telling you what you want to hear. It's people who are actually able to critically think and strategize with you, so that you're able to help them move forward.
Natasha 25:59
Oh, yeah, we all believe that everything is figured out double. Anything you want to do if you know somebody in this world that has accomplished it or has done it, so can you because they have figured out a way. And anything you want to do there is a way and there is an option, we just need to find the people that know how to do it, we need to take the action steps to get there, whether it's money or access or whichever get in those rooms, because they will make it a lot easier for you they will strategize with you and get it done.
Meghan 26:34
And if you would like to work one on one with Natasha, you can do so at start scale sale.com and use the code P SC 20 for 15% off. And again, we thank our Patreon members who are awesome in supporting us financially every month. And most of all, we want to thank you for listening. Thank you for showing up every week. Thank you for your wonderful feedback regarding the topic episodes and the interview episodes and if there's ever something that you want us to cover, we are more than happy to do so.
Collin Funkhouser 27:07
Thank you so much.
