Beta-blockers are not the Solution-Building Your Speaking Skills

Drugs, should you use them? If you're really scared and tensed up before a big presentation.

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in Life. Speaking with T.J. walker.

Every few months after a presentation, I give a speech or a workshop. Someone will come up to me, seeming a little bit hesitant, and say, tj, I got a little question for you. I get very nervous before a presentation. What do you think of beta blockers? Now, for those of you not familiar, a beta blocker is a type of drug, it is prescription and it can keep you from getting tensed up. And there may be situations in life where you know you're going to get tensed up. Being able to take a beta blocker can help you because unlike a sedative or other sorts of drugs, it's not going to make you sleepy, it's not going to make you drunk. It's just going to keep you from getting tensed up. And I have in fact had clients use use beta blockers. Now, they did so against my advice. I want to talk about this in more detail.

Bad advice.

I think some of the worst advice out there by coaches, some doctors, psychiatrists, is the recommendation to use beta blockers for speakers. Why is TJ say, well, you know, not everyone's like you, tj. Not everybody loves to give speeches. Not everybody's an extrovert. All well and good, but irrelevant to my criticism of the use of beta blockers because I think not only does it not solve the fundamental problem, it actually can often make things worse. It is true if you take a beta blocker and you give a speech at the moment, you won't feel nervous. But guess what? It's not going to make your speech any better. The number one thing that should make you nervous about giving a speech or a presentation or doing a media interview is that you might actually be awful. You might be boring, you might be uninteresting. Well, if you take a beta blocker, it's not going to change that fact. You might still be really boring and awful and uninteresting. So it's masking the problem. The problem isn't feeling nervous. The problem is you might actually be doing a horrible job giving your speech. So I would recommend focus on actually giving a good speech and creating a good speech. I had a client more than a decade ago. She was a woman financial manager based in the Midwest, was not a particularly cooperative student of mine, I am sad to say, was convinced beta blockers were her answer. She was about to go on a prominent, prominent financial news show, she took a beta blocker, and what do you know, she got through. She wasn't that nervous. Sounds like a success, right? Except for one thing. I watched the video and what I saw was someone who looked scared, who looked nervous, who didn't move, whose body was frozen, who had all black outfit, which I advised her not to wear, relatively short skirt, which I advised her not to wear. Stiff, frozen, nervous and really didn't come across. She looked nervous, she looked uncomfortable to. And it was a show with a huge audience. She looked uncomfortable to more than a million people. So I would argue in that case, what good does it do to take some drug and basically numb you from your senses if it doesn't actually solve the underlying problem? If I told you, you know, I'm really nervous about if I have to walk through Times Square naked, that I might get arrested and people will point and laugh, would you say to me, well, T.J. here's a solution. Take a beta blocker when you walk through, and then if people point and laugh, it won't really bother you. Would you say, that's a solution? Or would you say, tj, put some clothes on. That way you won't be arrested. There won't be people pointing and laughing at you walking through Times Square naked. So that's the far bigger issue with drugs that are supposed to help you. Now, let's talk about some other drugs people often use to calm their nerves. The easiest drug of all, the most plentiful, the most accessible alcohol. And hey, folks, I enjoy a glass of wine as much as the next person. I enjoy a martini. In fact, I enjoy almost any drink, although I'm not a big beer fan. But I never have anything alcoholic to drink before giving a speech or presentation or doing a media interview. Why is that? Well, there's a couple of problems with using the drug of alcohol to calm your nerves. For starters, alcohol, even a glass, can sometimes slow you down a half a second. Your ability to recall. So if you're giving a speech or doing a media interview and you have to recall, you're already a little bit nervous. So it's generally harder for you to have quick recall if you lose another half second on top of what you might lose from just being a little bit nervous, it has a compounding effect. And all of a sudden you're sort of the deer in the headlights look, or there's the awkward pause that just goes on a little too long. Alcohol can sometimes make that difference. The other problem with alcohol is it sometimes can cause you to turn red if it's a speech or a media interview, that can be the most distracting thing. It also can sometimes make you a little bit heated and then you get a little bit of a shine. The problem is if people are watching your speech on a video or they're watching you on tv, then that shine can make you look nervous, sweaty, plastic, all sorts of things that are really not very favorable. Here's the other, and this is a small issue, but it's still a significant issue. Here's a reason I really don't like anyone drinking alcohol before they're giving a speech or a presentation. Because even if you have one glass of wine, if someone's close enough to talk to you and they haven't had any wine, that's what they're going to smell. So if you're giving up speech to, let's say it's a Rotary Club or a Chamber of Commerce event or a computer trade association, even if it's an evening speech, it's an 8 o' clock and other people have had things to drink. People may come up to you having been really impressed with your speech. They come up to you afterwards to shake your hand and you say, oh, hi, thanks, nice to meet you. They can smell that alcohol in your breath. And it may be that you're a complete teetotaler and you've had only one drink in the last three years. But that can be the dominant thing people remember about you. And they may be saying years later, especially if you get famous, oh, I met that guy. He was a complete drunk. You should have smelled him when I met him that time. So that's a reason I really don't like. Even though I enjoy a glass of wine, I don't like the idea of drinking a glass of wine before giving a speech or presentation to calm your nerves. Or for that matter, just because you want a glass of wine and it would go well with dinner or lunch or whatever you're doing. Similarly, marijuana. Marijuana is increasingly destigmatized, legalized all over the country, and increasingly acceptable all over the world. I'm not opposed to marijuana. It's just similar issues when it comes to you giving a speech or a presentation. If you're more relaxed or laid back doesn't necessarily make you a better speaker. Now, I'm going to, and I apologize. Some of you who have been with me every day, not just for this podcast series, but for training videos I've been doing for two decades are a little bit tired of hearing me say this. But unfortunately, there's Simply no other way to address this issue. If you're nervous about your speech, the problem isn't that you're nervous. The problem is you haven't actually seen yourself give a great speech. The solution is to practice on video until you have seen yourself give a great speech. And 20 years ago, when I started giving that advice, it was kind of a pain to have to go get a big clunky camcorder and find a VHS tape and all that. These days we all have this right here, so you really have no excuse.

Your questions.

Folks. Your questions are always welcome here. I would like your questions. I'll answer any question you have about public speaking, presentation training, media training, crisis communications training, and this podcast. This video program on YouTube is unique to my knowledge and I'm 100% confident of this in the podcasting world. There is no other show in the entire world that is seven days a devoted to public speaking and answering your questions about spoken communication. So I've got the time, folks to deal with your questions. Because we're not just a once a month show. We're not a seven video series. We are every day, seven days a week. Your questions always take precedent. So unless it's a question we just answered yesterday or it's completely off topic, I will in fact answer your question about any aspect of public speaking and communicating more effectively and give you my experience based on having done this for 32 years, having worked with more than 10,000 people from six continents for now 32 years, and having given thousands of speeches and having done thousands of media interviews as a guest, but also as a host. Am I the greatest speaker in the entire world? No, but I am the best speaker in the world who is willing to share with you that expertise and answer your questions daily right here on iTunes and YouTube and Facebook. Because again, everyone else is either too busy or they don't want to do it. Here's a funny little tidbit I have to share with you about a lot of my competitors and I'm not trashing. This isn't brutal criticism, but on the one hand, you would expect most people in the world to be a little reluctant to speak because as you've heard, public speaking is the number one fear most people have. Therefore, creating videos and podcasts is something most people don't go out of their way to do. But here's what I found when I actually talk to my competitors and say, well, have you thought of doing not a daily, a weekly video, how to public speaking tips series or audio daily, weekly or Even monthly, they all say the same thing. They say, yeah, I've thought about it. It's on the to do list. But I need to change my hairstyle. I'd have to go to the hairstylist more often. I've got to get a better camera, the light. Even public speaking experts, even media trainers are a little bit nervous and uncomfortable about how they come across. Now, as you could probably tell, I don't spend a lot of time at the hairstylist. And for those of you listening on itunes, I don't have a lot of hair. So I'm hitting my head right now. There's not a lot up there. But I don't let that stop me. And you shouldn't let that stop you. To me, this is what is such a fascinating golden era we live in for people. Whether you're in business, whether you're in politics, no matter what it is, your passion is. There's such an opportunity to communicate and reach out to people all over the world because the technology has never been easier to reach people through itunes, through podcasts, through YouTube, through Facebook video. And yet competitors are still too nervous. They're still too uncomfortable. I won't call it laziness. I don't mean to disparage people, but there's still something holding them back. And that's more opportunity for me and more opportunity for you. So that's why I can say with complete confidence, I know I'm the absolute best in the world at doing a daily video and audio podcast on public speaking because no one else is doing that. And when you can define yourself as the only person in the niche, you can't help but be number one. And for that, you don't need a beta blocker and you don't need marijuana and you don't need alcohol. If you want to use all those things in other periods of your life, fine. But don't use it for public speaking. I'm TJ Walker. As always, may your speaking opportunities in life be a huge success.

Speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily streaming TV and radio show devoted to all aspects of speaking and communication. If you received value from this show, then please subscribe to it@mediatrainingworldwide.com Please review the show, leave comments and share it with your friends and colleagues today.