“If I had known rewiring the brain to talk smart at work meetings was so easy, I wouldn’t have lost 5 promotions.”
As we grow in our career and take up leadership roles, we need to master the art of speaking fast and smart in work meetings. This is a learned skill and any normal human being can achieve this and I am a living proof of this. Todays we are going to discuss why we become nervous and how we can rewire our brain instantly to be able talk smart at work meetings and how I achieved this and am currently helping leaders to succeed.
You maybe thinking as a Manager will this skill help me?
Important work meetings are center stage for you from your career perspective. How you talk at these meetings will often influence the judgement of the seniors in their decision to promote you in the future. If you are nervous and are slow to respond you maybe considered weak and incompetent as a Manager. Learning to talk smart at meetings will help you shine and win promotions.
Why do we become nervous?
It is common for us all to become anxious and nervous when asked to speak at meetings. As soon as our brain picks up the signals of anxiety and self-doubt in our mind, our brain thinks there is a threat to the survival of our body. In the stone age a threat meant an animal or other human was attacking and the survival of the body was at stake.
In today’s world, our anxiety and worries are more about performing tasks at work which may not be life threatening. However, our brain is not able to distinguish between a real life threat and perceived threat.
So the brain triggers all our bodily functions to focus their energy towards our legs and muscles so we can fight or take flight from the situation or freeze and be still to ward off the attack. What this does is that it takes away energy away from the brain and so when we are nervous, anxious the brain starts to feel foggy and muddled.
With reduction of blood flow to the brain and lack of oxygen due to shallow breathing brought on due to anxiety and nervousness it forms a barrier to speaking smartly, intelligently and quickly.
In this situation it is very important to take deep breaths, focus on the air coming in and going out from the nostrils and repeat the question asked so we have time to calm ourselves and speak.
In 2004, I was promoted to a Team Leader position, and every time I had to stand up and talk about key changes happening in the team, I could feel my heart beat in my mouth, my mouth would feel dry and my eyes would not be able to clearly see the words on the papers in front of me. It felt terrible and I would dread the weekly meetings.
Except for the meetings, I enjoyed all aspects of the job and so decided that I needed to tackle this fear of mine. I actually missed out 5 more opportunities at getting promoted due to this nervousness. Being a therapist, I made a mantra “Think purpose, not performance”.
And at the next team meeting, I did not take any paper, remembered the 3 points I needed to talk about on my finger tips, kept breathing deeply in and out throughout the meeting until it was time for me to talk about the updates. Before I got up, I said to myself “Think purpose, not performance” It does not matter how you sound or move, most important is to get the 3 points across.
After the meeting, I asked my colleague how she found my way of raising issues and whether I could do something differently. She said, no you were great, to the point and concise.
It was then that I realized that I am the only one who knows I am nervous, and once I focus on the purpose and not the performance I will be fine.
So you may ask Can I do this? Get over my fear of speaking at work meetings and actually talk fast and smart?
I trust you can because I have worked with many men and women who have successfully over come this anxiety and nervousness and are now top level Vice Presidents and CEOs of large organizations.
One such wonderful young woman that I worked with was Anita. Anita came to me when she was in her twenties. She had achieved early career success in marketing, but said to me that she felt like a fraud. She described herself as suffering from the “imposter syndrome” where she doubted her own abilities as a team leader and worried about being exposed as a fraud.
Her marketing job meant she could not avoid speaking in groups, felt very anxious beforehand and would beat herself up about things she thought she didn’t feel went well.
For Anita, the breakthrough was when she watched herself on video and realized she did quite well. She sat with me and we talked about all the good things she did when she spoke on the video, this led to more positive experiences.
Once she got her breathing sorted and ensured enough oxygen was reaching her brain cells, with positive affirmations she rose successfully to many senior roles and became a bit of a specialist at Sales presentations. The key is to trust ourselves, pre-plan what we are going to say and get straight to the point honestly without filtering your answers. This way you will come across as bright and passionate.
So how do I rewire my brain instantly? The key to rewiring is simple but effective. In 1897, Ivan Pavlov’s classic conditioning theory proved that with the right stimuli our brain can be conditioned to release chemicals to achieve a specific purpose. In the case of Pavlov, he conditioned dogs to salivate at the ring of the bell in anticipation of food even when the food was not there. The stimuli was the ringing of the bell.
With practice, we can implement the same rewiring technique to over come anxiety and nervousness before speaking in work meetings. This is how.
For the next 10 days, every day spend 10 minutes doing this exercise:
Smile, in your mind say the words “Think purpose” and with your fingers gently touch the inside of your ear in circles and focus on your deep breathing and feel the calmness in your body.
What this exercise is doing is getting you to activate your vagus nervous system, and linking your smile and self-declaration of Think Purpose to calm yourself before you are able to speak in front of others.
By doing this exercise for 10 straight days you will condition your brain to calm down, not get into the fight or flight mode and get you ready to stand and talk.
In a meeting before its your turn to talk, you can easily lightly touch your ear, breathe deeply, think purpose and activate your brain to talk calmly.
This works 100% on everyone who will follow the instructions.
