The Monthly Aspectarian: Paul, you have an interesting background in appearing before the public. I thought we'd just start with your telling us about it.
Paul Quinn Denney: Well, I used to be a professional actor. I did some television commercials standard actor fare and did theatre with a company I started in 1984. That's how I used theatre to address my own interests in human potential. We were quite successful for about five years, doing programs that got people thinking about self esteem, peer pressure and drug and alcohol abuse. Our primary audiences were junior high and high school students as well as parent groups. We used theatre as a catalyst to ask questions that lead to greater self awareness.
TMA: How does this kind of theatre help people change their lives?
PQD: As a result of our open-ended scenes or vignettes, something was resolved. It was almost a theatre of values clarification. People would be led to say to themselves, "Well, how do I think about that? How does that fit with my life? Do I agree with what I just saw?" It was all very sardonic. We never actually came out and said, "Don't do drugs" or "Resist all peer pressure." We simply presented the questions in ways that were humorous and ultimately very provocative.
TMA: So people could see the results of succumbing to peer pressure.
PQD: Right. I looked at all this concern about smoking and how to get teens to quit or never to start . . . in our programs we just talked about the best way of broadcasting lack of self esteem is to puff on a cigarette. We had discussions about that with kids and it had a chilling effect on some of the kids who had never considered that.
TMA: It sounds like it could work very well.
PQD: Our intent was not to shame anybody, but through open questions and some very well designed themes using humor, we were able to get kids to make the connection between how they feel about themselves and what they do with their bodies.
To get the attention of our audiences we'd often perform for 300, 400 kids in an auditorium the principal, who'd often introduce us, would make the mistake of saying something like, "Now pay attention! This Idea Theatre Group is going to tell you why you shouldn't do drugs." You can imagine the resistance we got with that, so we built into our introduction, "Watch for them soon on Oprah Winfrey!" Well, TV has magic and mystique and suddenly, not a sound was to be heard in the audience. We had rapt attention. The irony is that after our last year, we actually finally got on Oprah Winfrey.
TMA: What did you go on to after that?
PQD: I started writing corporate training videos, using humor to get employees to be more aware of situations in the corporate environment. That was fun. Through meeting more people in corporations, I saw that my own skills as an actor were immediately applicable to helping people be more effective as speakers. Giving speeches or lectures takes preparation like an actor rehearses and ultimately creates some effect in their audience.
TMA: I read somewhere recently that fear of death is second only to fear of public speaking.
PQD: I think if you asked anyone, "Would you rather die right now or speak in public," most people would choose speak in public. So I doubt the validity of those findings. [laughter] That fear is closely linked with the fear of appearing foolish. A lot of people say, "I'm not interesting enough." What they should know is that real bores never ask themselves whether or not they're interesting.
TMA: I like to start by getting a group laughing.
PQD: Humor is a great way to break the ice. In fact, when Jimmy Carter was President, he was to address an entire stadium of Japanese businessmen and decided to begin with a joke. Because humor is rarely universal, of course his advisors suggested he not do that . . . but he insisted this would work. He greeted the audience and shortly into his presentation, he told the joke. He waited for his translator to catch up with him, and when the translator had told the audience the joke, Carter said, there was about a solid minute of guffaws, a real ovation. After the presentation, he went to the translator and said, "That reaction was wonderful! Tell me, in the translation, did you have to make any changes to make the joke work? What did you say to them?" And the translator said, "I told them, the President has just said something funny. Please laugh." This is a true story President Carter told on Johhny Carson.
And yes, humor is a very effective tool.
Another thing that keeps people from being effective, whether they're giving presentations or they're in any situation that creates anxiety, is negative self-talk. The problem being that people may say, "I'm gonna blow this!" or "Don't screw this up!" "I'm going to look like an idiot" or "Please God, don't make me look like an idiot." The mind understands and responds better to a positive direction. Unless we tell ourselves what we want or where we want to go, it's static. Nothing's going on. What does work is to say, instead, "I want to be wonderful! I want to make this the best presentation I've given yet. I want to feel great when I leave today!"
TMA: What are some of the other ways you have evolved for dealing with public speaking and other stressful situations?
PQD: Many of the techniques I've taught to help people overcome their fear of public speaking can be used in any number of anxiety-producing situations. Here's something called Paradoxical Intent that's a lot of fun. It's a technique most people bristle at when they first hear about it because it sounds so improbable. Paradoxical Intent is when you deliberately practice behavior that's out of your control. For example, if you tend to blurt out awkward or stupid things when you're nervous the kind of comments that make you cringe and wince for weeks afterward try deliberately rehearsing those comments when you're alone and relaxed. Come up with the worst things you could say in a public situation and while laughing, tell yourself you intend to say them. Paradoxically, you won't because you've become aware of your power to choose. It's absurd, and it works.
Or, for instance, people who shake when they're in front of an audience or in any kind of stressful situation their hands shake, for instance a fun way to try eliminating that behavior is that when you rehearse the presentation you shake your hands a lot; exaggerate what you normally tend to do anyway. Flap your hands around. It's absurd, and if you're doing it properly, you should be laughing. As a result, when you get into the real situation, you tend not to shake simply because you've given yourself permission to do it. Suddenly, it no longer has that kind of power over you.
The same thing applies with this whole concept of owning the space. The site, or the space in which we're at our worst in terms of our fear of failing, is often the trigger itself for those feelings. For instance, the ballplayer on the diamond or the speaker at the lectern. Go alone to that space before you're in the situation. Simply touch the elements around you. Touch the lectern. Touch home plate, step on it. View it from all different perspectives. Imagine yourself being very successful in that space . . . until you can feel as if all others who enter that space are your guests . . . that they're in your territory. It gives people enormous confidence. It's similar to someone who's very, very shy at parties they attend and yet they're not at the ones they give. If it's your party, you're at home, you're comfortable and it's the guests who tend to be ill at ease until the ice is broken.
John Lambert, who was a hostage in Iran said that his guards were rude and hostile to say the very least when he was first imprisoned. What happened is that he began to offer to share his meal with them and as the weeks progressed, he invited them to sit down. He said, "In this small way I established control of the situation. I created the unmistakable sense that this was my space, my territory, and it did wonders for my well being."
TMA: A kid playing in the Little League who's having trouble with being scared in the batter's box might go to the park before the game and stand in the batter's box, make it his own.
PQD: Exactly. Because again, if he can make that space something not associated with high anxiety but with something comfortable and pleasant, he can take that experience with him into the space the next time he would normally expect to be anxious.
Another point: when people are nervous, they don't breathe. The problem is, a lot of people are not aware that they're not breathing until they're already suffering terribly from the symptoms that result from not breathing . . . anxiety, shortness of breath and panic.
TMA: It all feeds on itself.
PQD: Exactly. And when we're holding our breath, we're not blinking. Oftentimes, not having blinked is something they can become aware of rather easily because most of us are not aware of what's going on below our throats. So one thing I try to help people to do when they're in an anxious situation is to remind themselves to breathe and blink.
TMA: How does that serve to change how they're feeling?
PQD: Well, as soon as you're aware that you are not blinking, for instance, you can say, "Ah, I'm not blinking" and begin breathing. You link the two, breathing and blinking. I don't want to make too much out of this . . . it's a very simple thing.
TMA: Is there anything you're like to touch on that we haven't?
PQD: What I've been talking about really does speak to things beyond stage fright. Such as people who are afraid to simply give their order at a fast food restaurant.
TMA: Or talk to a librarian.
PQD: Another way I simply call Keeping In Touch. All that's required is to touch the thumb to the forefinger. This gives people a sense of being anchored, or being rooted to something when they are otherwise feeling at sea. If you watch Bill Clinton's hands when he's walking across to the lectern, oftentimes you'll see that thumb and forefinger pressed together. It's a centering technique that's widely used by professional speakers. Also, I would liken it to the tendency of people standing at a lectern to grab it . . . because it's security, it's safety. We get that same sensation, or at least a sufficiently similar sensation, by doing this finger touch.
TMA: Holding your hands that way completes a circuit, which is why you see people sitting in meditation holding their hands that way.
PQD: Yes, it's a perfect connection. And it works. In the program I do, there are up to thirty-five or forty different techniques. Each person responds differently to them. Any one person may find that three of them work for them beautifully, and the others not at all.
If you change one aspect: the way you think, the way you move or the way you sound, all three are affected. If you speak more rapidly, your body, your gestures, are going to follow through to support that. Also, your thoughts will tend to be quicker. I've seen people who are assigned to give a talk about how warmly they feel about their corporate peers where their gestures are cut and dried and precise, and the audience doesn't buy it. I work with a speaker like that to round out the gestures, become looser and suddenly that accesses a part in them that is rounder and looser and they can be more convincing with that kind of message.
A lot of these techniques help people reduce presentation panic, and they can be helpful in almost any activity where people are experiencing anxiety.
Paul Quinn Denney assists a wide range of people in improving the quality of their presentations from teachers, attorneys and salespersons to CEOs. He conducts workshops in presentation skills for companies such as McDonald's Corporation, the Signature Group, Kirkland & Ellis and Rotary International.