How Emotions Affect Your Public Speaking Performance (& YOUR LIFE)
You know the drill: one moment everything is just fine and then…
… you stub your toe;
… your kids start fighting in the other room;
… your phone dings with an email from your boss;
… your washing machine breaks;
… your website crashes;
… you find out you have to give a speech.
It’s L-I-F-E and it shows up in the most inconvenient of moments.
I know you’ve heard it before: you can’t control what happens to you, you can only control how you respond to what happens.
But… what IF you could control what happens to you? What if you could have an objective POV that enabled you to:
Observe the situation objectively
Assess your energy level
Predict your go-to response
Intercept that go-to response (stress, worry, fear, anger, etc) with a sudden peaceful, controlled energetic shift that, in turn, created…
… a new reality.
Cue the eye rolls. Oh, this is too woo! It’s not woo. It’s science.
In all of the examples above, what happened was that your emotions highly impacted your mental state and thus either your performance when working or your ability to enjoy the moment outside the office. Sometimes, your ability to focus and create great work can become so limited due to intense feelings of fear or anger that you will not be able able to get anything done for hours. Of course it also works the other way: when you experience ecstatic excitement (you got the promotion! your kid got the award! you scored the contract!), you could be so pumped to work that you forget any and all external circumstances and speed through projects in no time.
But the reality is: our brains have a Negativity Bias. From an evolutionary perspective, we are primed to see the negative (potential dangers) at all times to keep us safe. Thus, unless you retrain your brain, negative emotions like fear and anxiety are most likely dominating your typical day. And those negative emotions are most likely messing with your productivity, well-being, ability to communicate and speak in public in an effective way.
We can’t stop emotions and thoughts from entering our mind. And we shouldn’t. Every emotion and thought has its place and is there for a reason. What we can control is how we deal with our emotions and thoughts and how much we allow them to impact our mental state. We can even shift our energetic levels of response!
There are many tools that help you retrain your brain, contain your Monkey Mind and control your emotions. Meditation and other mindfulness practices are especially helpful for becoming more self-aware of our thoughts and feelings and act more intentional in our daily lives.
But whereas meditation is great for seeing long-term effects and sometimes getting short-term relief through a few moments of stillness, I personally felt I needed a more actionable technique that could help me make sense of, process and let go of negative emotions quickly — so I could get on with my day and focus on the task at hand instead of getting caught in over-thinking or over-worrying.
That’s why I have added the Energy Leadership Index Assessment (ELI) as an absolute essential to my Success Toolkit.
Unlike Myers Briggs, DiSC, and Enneagram, the ELI is an attitudinal assessment tool that captures how an individual currently perceives and approaches work and life. It measures how you see and interact with the world—under “normal” circumstances and when you’re stressed.
It’s not about your strengths, weaknesses or personality traits. It provides a snapshot of your current perception and attitude towards life as well as your behavioral patterns and belief-system. It has been tested and approved by thousands of individuals as well as numerous Fortune 500 companies.
While traditional assessments are valuable tools that can help you understand your strengths, embrace your weaknesses, and discover how you can work to your full potential, they typically support a “work with what you have” approach to adapting your behavior and pursuing personal excellence. The ELI, on the other hand, reveals the kind of energy you’re giving off: catabolic or anabolic. Catabolic energy is negative and destructive while anabolic is positive and constructive.
The goal is to let go of your negative emotion quickly so you can move on with your day AND get out there with the message you were meant to deliver. However, the process is NOT about ignoring your emotions — it is actually the opposite: it is about actively dealing with an emotion so you can extract the lesson or insight it is trying to tell you without letting yourself get caught up in it for hours. This helps you to operate at peak performance as much as possible and lets you truly enjoy the moment without being clouded by lingering negative emotions.
Step 1: Notice & Accept Your Emotion
When you notice a negative emotion or thought entering your mental space, stop, take a deep breath and actively acknowledge your emotion. Remind yourself that you can’t control which thoughts and feelings are entering your mind. Suffering and experiencing negative emotions is inevitably part of our shared human condition.
Ask yourself:
How do I feel right now?
What is happening?
How is it affecting me?
For example: “I notice that I am feeling angry and annoyed at myself. Maybe a little bit anxious and nervous as well. I need to focus on my speech tomorrow but I feel overwhelmed. But it is okay because I know that experiencing this emotion is part of being an imperfect human and I am going to move through this now.”
Step 2: Process the Emotion & Extract the Lesson
Ask yourself:
Why am I feeling X (insert negative emotion)?
What is this feeling trying to tell me?
What can I learn from this experience?
What are actionable steps I am taking away from this?
For example: “I think I am feeling angry and anxious because I wasn’t able to finish all the things I wanted to get done today. Through this experience, I realize that I might have overscheduled my day today and underestimated the time it would take me to complete certain tasks. To deal with this better in the future I will try the following tomorrow: Define 1–2 most important tasks for the day and focus on completing them. After that, see everything else that gets done as a bonus.”
Step 3: Reframe
Ask yourself:
How could I see this differently?
What if I reacted the opposite way?
For example: “If I am being honest with myself, I actually got a lot done today. I was able to complete a big project for my business, research a new marketing channel, prep for my upcoming public speaking opportunity, squeezed in a 30min workout, did the groceries and booked a hotel for an upcoming trip. I am deciding to focus on being proud of the things I DID get done and feeling joyful and excited about the upcoming trip.”
Step 4: Release
Take a deep breath and consciously CHOOSE to let go of the experience and fully immerse yourself in the positive emotions of the reframing exercise. If you are having troubles finding a positive emotion to feel instead, try practicing gratitude. It works every time, because you can feel grateful for the most “basic” things like having a warm place to sleep, that you and your family are well or that you get to work on your own success every single day.
For example: “I’m releasing all the negative energies of this experience and keeping only what I’ve learned. I am feeling accomplished and joyful now.”
If you’re…
The person that everyone comes to to solve problems or “fix” things;
Restlessly trying to “cope” instead of thriving;
Finding yourself paralyzed by always “being in your head”;
Someone who is always experiencing conflict or feelings of low energy, stress, overwhelm, or frustration at work or home;
Ending up taking the lead no matter what job, industry or volunteering you do…
Are a leader in your chosen business or profession… and a leader is someone who interacts with other human beings.
Sound familiar? The ELI can help!
You’re not alone. I’ve used the ELI to transform, too.
I was meeting people like Bill Gates, Kamala Harris, Bill Clinton, and Magic Johnson, reporting on the wildfires all over California and on the first BLM protests…
I was doing big things and still somehow felt disconnected.
The ELI Assessment has been an important tool to help me:
transform insecurity to courage,
feel bravery and contentment in my day-to-day life,
manage my energy and authentically show up as myself in every environment,
learn how to still feel good in the most toxic work environments,
deal with the vulnerability of being judged,
and unlock my authentic self to make stepping on to the stage a breeze.
Understanding how to speak my own energetic love language to myself and others gave me the inside-out evolution I didn’t know I even needed.
Like I said: it’s not WOO. It’s science. You can transform your brain. You can become confident. You can become the incredible public speaker you were always meant to be. Shift your energy and change you life.
Interested in an ELI Assessment? CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE.
