Fear Files Sound
Astryd Boschee
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Are you someone who avoids speaking in public? Do you dread the thought of giving a presentation? Do you break out in a cold sweat at the idea of seeing yourself on camera or hearing the sound of your own voice? If so, you are not alone. In fact, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, public speaking anxiety, or glossophobia, affects about 73% of the population. So what can you do? In this article, I will discuss some of the most common fears and things you can do to overcome them.
About a week ago, and in preparation for this article, I polled my LinkedIn followers to see which was their biggest public speaking fear. I really enjoyed reading some of the comments and was honestly expecting a different fear to come out on top. Anyway, here are the results:
Did you know that when you speak, not only do you hear the sound of your voice transmitted by the air around you back to your ears, you also hear the sound transmitted by the bones and structures in your head? This creates differences in the way that you 'experience' your own voice compared to how others hear you. It also means that when you listen to a recording of your voice, say on a video, your voice will sound different to you.
"I really don't like the way my voice sounds!" Throughout my experience coaching and training dozens of executives for public speaking engagements, I have heard this said many times. But here is the thing: unless people have told you that your voice sounds 'weird', do not worry about it. Other people are already used to hearing your voice the way it sounds on video or on an audio recording, as this is the way they experience your voice when they hear you speak 'live'.
A few weeks ago, I posted an article about the professional values that I endeavor to embody at work. Number five on my list of ten is: "It's ok to make a mistake, once". We are all human and all humans make mistakes. When public speaking, if you realize you have made a mistake in real time, don't stress it, just correct the mistake as quickly as you can and move on to your next talking point. If you are still speaking and you realize you made a mistake some time earlier, if the mistake is germane to a key point your a trying to land, go ahead and correct it. If it is something trivial and somewhat irrelevant, just ignore it, unless someone points out the mistake. In this case, thank the person for pointing it out, apologize, and correct the mistake.
As I have stated before, I have learned more from the mistakes I have made than I have from my successes. It is ok to make a mistake, just learn from it and try really hard not make that same mistake again. It is also ok to admit that you made a mistake. Try not to stress about it too much!
Scopophobia is the fear of being seen or stared at by others. It is a form of social anxiety and can present as anything from mild to moderate or severe forms. Symptoms can include feelings of panic, increased heartrate, shortness of breath, nausea, dry mouth, and body shakes. For some people, they do not exhibit any of the symptoms until you put a video camera in front of them. This is one of the reasons why in all the media training and executive coaching I have given, I have almost always used a professional video camera as part of the 'kit' I bring to the sessions. I tell people to just pretend the camera lens is just another person. Look at the camera as you would anyone else who might be in the audience. You can even name the 'person' or imagine that the camera has a face if it helps!
I have found that the key to managing scopophobia is practice. While it will likely feel uncomfortable, the more exposure one has to speaking in public, the easier it will become to overcome one's fear of being seen. I would also suggest avoiding caffeine as it can exasperate many of the symptoms. Having a glass of water handy is also a good idea to help both with a dry mouth as well as giving you additional 'thinking time', should you need it. I wrote more about this in an article on how to sound your professional best.
Almost half of the people who responded to the poll stated this was their biggest public speaking fear. In my experience, the main reason someone comes across as boring is because they have failed to consider the audience to whom they are speaking. I recently shared an article I had written on strategic storytelling. In the article, I shared the most important part: you must first consider the audience and their emotional wavelength. If the audience does not understand what you are saying or why they should care to listen, you are very likely to be perceived as boring.
While this was not one of the pre-selected options, it was mentioned in the comments so I wanted to address it here. With many people working from home and the shear volume and prevalence of technology we use these days, it is not a matter of if you will experience technical difficulties, but when.
"Plan for the worst, but hope for the best!" This is the idiom that most aptly describes the best approach to prepare to deal with technical difficulties. Practice ahead of time. Do not just practice things going perfectly, also practice the 'fail' scenarios. Ask yourself:
I am pretty sure that this was intended as a humorous addition to the comments. Nevertheless, I still wanted to address it. If fear of bears is your biggest fear of public speaking, I have good news for you. There are a number of simple things you can do to minimize or even eliminate the chances of any bears coming near you as you speak:
"Fear Cage" is a term used by paranormal researchers to describe a confined space with high electromagnetic field (EMF) readings. In these areas, one who is sensitive to such phenomena can feel uneasiness, paranoia, anxiety, nausea, and uncontrollable fear.
Written by Kirk J. Gay for two players enclosed within a circle (or cage) of 9 timpani, Fear Cage is a dramatic piece which uses a variety of effects to set a dark tone. Stationed back to back, the performers sometimes cross into each other's territory, ultimately rotating around the circle of drums and trading positions while playing. Unique textures such as bowed crotales and a prayer bowl on top of timpani heads provide a perfect complement to the included audio soundscape which runs throughout the piece. Several moments of free improvisation are called for as well. This is a timpani feature sure to leave its mark on your next concert.
This piece comes as a professionally printed and bound score and includes full-quality audio for the soundscape track along with individual parts in PDF format for printing or for tablet viewing.
With a nod to war, technology, cinema, music, and entertainment, Steve Goodman begins his transdisciplinary examination of vibration in the military-entertainment complex with this provocative quote. Entitled Sonic Warfare, the book offers a deeply theoretical examination of the affective dimension of sound; it is particularly concerned with "environments, or ecologies, in which sound contributes to an immersive atmosphere or ambience of fear and dread" (xiv). Eschewing a broad historical survey of sonic weaponry, Goodman instead supports his thesis from the fields of acoustics, aesthetics, fiction, philosophy, psychoacoustics, popular culture, science, and science fiction, to name but a few. Traversing such a large, and at times daunting, swath of human expression, Sonic Warfare is best understood as a work of speculative philosophy built upon an ontology of vibrational force.
This book is also worthy of attention for those interested in the study of music and politics. Though it maintains a thoroughly theoretical approach (which Goodman wholly acknowledges), it nonetheless provides significant groundwork for real-world, ethnographic studies of music and politics. For those unfamiliar with the philosophical thought of Deleuze, Guattari, and Whitehead, or the Afrofuturism of Kodwo Eshun, the theoretical passages will be difficult. To be clear, Goodman makes no attempt to explicate the philosophic thought of those he cites, rather he folds or molds their concepts into his own and deftly moves forward. What is perhaps lost in argumentative clarity is gained in the sheer breadth of ideas presented. It is this impressive feat, I believe, that makes Goodman's philosophic contribution to the study of the sonic invaluable.
For most of my life, I would have described myself as an anxious, fearful person. It was who I thought I was, whether it was part of my personality, or perhaps my gene pool - like blonde hair or small hands.
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