How anxiety can increase your profits

Would you trust a mechanic who turned up in a car billowing with smoke and rattling? Would you trust an anxiety specialist who stepped up in front of you and the first thing she said was, I'm terrified? I'm terrified. On Tuesday, I was at a PSA South West meeting and there was a guy there called Nigel Risner who who I now understand would be qualified to mentor God if he ever decided to become a public speaker. Nigel was responsible for the feedback to the showcase that day, and shall we say, he wasn't gentle. At the end of the meeting, a few of us hung around for some networking, and there was another guy called William Buist, who I think would be on the other side of God. And Will turned to Nigel and said, Would you ever do a showcase, mate? Jesus Christ, no! came back the response. What? Stand in front of an audience of professional speakers to be judged? Why on earth would I do that? Nigel then leaned into the screen and went, Caroline Cavanagh, is it? You've been a bit quiet the last 5 minutes. Yeah, Nigel. In 4 days, I'm going to do my first ever showcase, the largest PSA region, telling them that anxiety is a good thing, and at the moment I am so scared I feel like a fraud, and in fact, Alex, rip up that Speaker Factor application, I can't do it. Today's event has led me to wake up in the middle of the night, and at the moment if a medic took my pulse I think I'd be on the way to A&E. Nigel also shared a couple of things. Firstly, ensure that 95% of your audience relates to what you're talking about. I understand, or I'm assuming, that 95% of you can relate how I'm feeling now, that at some point in your career you have felt anxiety, terror, because we all have anxiety. He also said, make sure that at least your audience has one thing that they can take away with them if you ever want to be rebooked. Anxiety has got me here. Here, and I'm here to share with you how, and if you decide to take these skills into your organisation, how it could create the most incredible competitive advantage. Now, neuroscience are currently suggesting that we spend between 80 to 85% of our waking hours running autonomic programmes, which just means things that you don't think about doing. Walking is a great example. You're walking along with your conscious mind thinking about what you've done, what you've done, what you're going to do. Eating— you sit down with a plate of food, you start scrolling through social media, you look down, plate's empty, tummy's full, and you can't even remember the taste of what you've just eaten. When I'm working one-to-one with people, I often relate this in terms of a shower because We all shower ourselves, but we don't know actually how we do it because our mind is away in thinking land. So a typical dialogue going on in my head when I get in the shower would be, Oh, little gits run all the hot water off again. Thank God I put my towel in the shower so it will be warm. Must remember to get the pork out of the freezer. Forgot that yesterday. Ready Steady Cook again. Oh, gotta call that woman. Don't want to do that. Maybe I'll take the dog out to the Downs. I wonder if the sheep is still up there. And all of those thoughts have led to feelings: frustration, no hot water; gratefulness, warm towel; dread at making a call; curiosity, are there sheep going to be up there? Can I let the dog off the lead? Anxiety is also a response to a thought. At 4 AM Wednesday morning, when I woke up worrying about today, it was just a thought that had triggered it. And, well, I won't talk about the dialogue in the shower this morning. Let's just say it was no fairy story. We can't stop thoughts coming in our mind, but we can choose what we do with them. And that's step 1 of what I've put in place in the last 4 days. I understand the difference between reality and imagination. If the trigger to anxiety is real, like right now, I am grateful that my heart is pumping adrenaline around my body because it's making me focused, it's keeping me totally aware, it's allowing me to perform to my best in this moment, so I embrace anxiety. Anxiety is a good thing for me right now. But the subconscious mind can't tell the difference between reality and imagination. When the trigger is real, The adrenaline, the cortisol is flooding your bloodstream, but as soon as the risk is over, that will come down and your body will return to its normal homeostasis. So I reckon I've got about 5 minutes till I get there. But when it's a thought that triggers your anxiety, those thoughts can be entertained for hours, days, weeks, meaning that their bodies are also being flooded with those chemicals. Disrupting the homeostasis. Now just think of the word dis-ease, disease. If your body is not at ease, ultimately it will start to break down. So now just think, if you were to bring this step into your organisation, if people were aware of real triggers, thought-based triggers, it could lead to a colleague, when they see one of their fellow colleagues getting really stressed, to gently say, What thoughts are you entertaining at the moment? Allowing that person to change their response, leading them on to step 2. Now, step 2, I would love it if you engaged with me on this, because it's going to be a little practical exercise. You're all at home, no one's watching, so really go for this with me. I would love you to just get comfy and close your eyes. And now, as you close your eyes, just tune in. What's that voice in your head Saying? What's it chattering around? How does your body actually feel? And now take that awareness out to your hearing. Can you hear birdsong? Can you hear traffic? Perhaps the washing machine is still finishing the programme that you put on. Those sounds, the chances are, have been around the whole time I've been talking, but you weren't aware of them. Now bring that attention to your sense of smell. Can you smell the products you used in the shower this morning? Perhaps the remnants of the cooked breakfast? Perhaps you can't smell anything at all, and that's okay to notice there is nothing to notice. And now move it to your kinesthetic sense. How does the ground feel underneath your feet? How do your feet feel inside your shoes? How do your clothes feel against the skin of your back? Again, all things that have been present But you weren't aware of them until you took your attention there. And now just open your eyes for me and take a few seconds to look around. What can you see that's been right in front of you the whole time that you didn't notice? And finally, for this exercise, tune back into you. Is that voice a little bit quieter? Does your body feel a little bit more relaxed? You've just had an experience of bringing yourself back into the moment, the moment that's real, and in your reality at the moment there is no risk, therefore there is no anxiety. You also took control of your conscious mind, bringing it out of thinking land, minimising the risk of anxiety being triggered just by a thought. You were in control, and when you're in control, there is no room for anxiety. In your organisation, if it became a norm for people to take 5 minutes, even 90 seconds, to just sit and bring themselves into the moment, realising there is no risk in this moment, their stress, their anxiety would reduce. Their body chemistry would change, bringing them back into a healthier homeostasis, making them less vulnerable to dis-ease. Making them less likely to be one of the scary statistics of how many working days are lost every year to anxiety and stress. Just think about the impact that could have on your bottom line. Step 1 is powerful. Step 2 has great impact, but step 3— now that is where the magic really happens. Today, I've grown. I know that my next showcase will be easier. Hopefully, I'll be a little bit better because my confidence will have grown. And now, if you were to able— if you were able to allow your staff, even 10% of your staff, to grow, what impact could that have on your profits? And my final question for you is, would you now trust this anxiety specialist to come back and tell you more about step 3. Thank you.