Latest / The Expert Method / Why Confident People Still Get Nervous Speaking in Public
Transcript
- speaker-0: Typically, expertise is not their problem, right? And and that expertise is actually kind of the fountain head of their confidence. There's no cure. Right? It happens because your internal bodyguard is trying to protect you. And that's beyond your conscious thinking. Just accept those sorts of nervous thoughts and feelings and return your attention. to the pitch, the the solo, the free throw. speaker-1: Today's guest is Dr. David Lee Fish. David works with speakers, performers, and competitors who know their craft but still struggle with anxiety when it's time to perform. He developed his approach through his own experiences with Stage Fright and his study of Zen and mindfulness. In our conversation we talk about why confident people still get nervous when they speak, what your brain is reacting to in those high pressure moments, and how to stay focused on what you're there to do. without needing the nerves to disappear in order to perform your best. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now please enjoy my conversation with Doctor David Lee Fish. Doctor David, thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: Thanks for having me, Ian. I I know something about your podcast and it looks like it's a great audience. this is a real honor for me. Thanks. speaker-1: Absolutely. Honored to have you. So, David, a lot of public speaking advice assumes that if you're nervous, you're struggling there up there on stage, it means that you're maybe lacking confidence. But your work seems to start from a different angle, from a different perspective or kind of take the opposite premise. Right? These people, when they're up there on stage, and I can speak from my own experience, are already confident in what they do, right? They understand it well, they're convicted in the in the message that they have to deliver, but they still can struggle. So why do confident people Still get nervous when they speak. speaker-0: Yeah, th boy, that cuts right to the chase here, Ian and and it's you're absolutely right. And working with people who speak in front of others and perform in front of others, and also those who compete in front of others, the one thing that's shown me is that typically expertise is not their problem. Right? And and that expertise is actually kind of the fountain head of their confidence. So, you know, if if when I work, let's say, with a business person, I s ask them, one of the first things I'll do is ask them to do is ask them to describe what they do. And they've got plenty of expertise, right? But what happens is, to to quote Mike Tyson, everybody has a plan until you get smacked. smacked mouth. And typically where you get smacked in the mouth in those three, you know, groups that I just mentioned is when you try to do your thing in front of others. And there's actually a pretty pretty simple formula that explains it. What it can be a mysterious malady, if you will, with people coming away thinking, what's wrong with me? Right? I I mean I know what I'm talking about, but how come, you know, and and and I think that your audience is made up of a lot of founders. How how come when I when I get up to give that important pitch, you know, all of a sudden, you know, I I've the that that confidence, my expertise, you know, flies out the window, it seems like, right? Well, here's the formula, and then we can get into the details as you like. Performance anxiety. All of this is under the rubric of performance anxiety. It and it has the local variations of speech fright, stage fright, and competition anxiety, right? Happens when three factors are at play. One, you do your thing in front of others, right? You're a founder and you're giving a pitch to investors, right? You're a musician and you're you know, performing it in front of an audience, or you're Auditioning for Juilliard. Competition anxiety. I can't think the quad god, the the Olympic skater. the what what Ilian, whatever it was, in the just the past Olympics, you know, he was expected to, you know, win four gold medals and performance anxiety anxiety reared its ugly ugly head, and he could not do his quads anymore, and you know, and fell apart. Okay. So so you do your thing in front of it. Two that audience. And now that audience can be one person. Let's say you're doing a job interview, right? It could be or a performance review. That audience is judging you, or at least you feel like they're judging you, right? The distinction really doesn't matter. And here's the third thing with that formula. If the judgment is negative. It would constitute a threat. Right? Now that threat varies. let's go back to the founder making a pitch. Well, you don't get the funding that that you need or or or are hoping for. You don't get Andy Juilliard. You don't get the job or the promotion that you that you were seeking. Or maybe it's more, you know, something more existential, like you just lose. you feel like you lose the respect of of people that are important to you. So anyway, if those three thing factors are at play, there's a little walnut shaped and sized part of our brain called the amygdala. And its job is to look out for threats, to protect us from threats. And anytime it senses a threat, and this is our Autonomic nervous systems or our automatic nervous system in. It jumps in to protect us, right? And unfortunately, the only way it knows how to protect us is the one that was that developed, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of years ago by pumping adrenaline through our system. You know, it's protecting us from physical danger. So it's, you know, it it's preparing us to fight. Flight, flee, or or to freeze, right? And that's just isn't very helpful if you're trying to make a pitch, right? So so that's what's going on. speaker-1: Hmm. Got it. So just to repeat it back to you to make sure that I have this all correct. So confident people who know their stuff, who feel confident in the message that they're trying to deliver, what it is that like the work that they do. The moment that you put them in front in one of us in one of the three situations where they have to do, they have to perform in front of other people. They think or the audience is actually judging them. And that judgment from the audience has negative consequences. So one, two, three. Yeah, you have to do this performance in front of other people. Second, the audience is going to be judging you. And third, there's there's potential negative consequences from the judgment of that audience can result in performance anxiety, which shows up in three very recognizable ways for anybody that's gotten up on stage or had to like give or have a performance in front of other people, right? It's the stage fright, the speech fright, or the competition fright. Is that right? speaker-0: Absolutely. Man, perfect, perfect. Yep. That's absolutely speaker-1: So then speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: and then the reason that happens is because we're in a situation that's very uncomfortable, right? Like it activates that autonomic nervous system, that amygdala starts firing. And then when that starts happening, we have to or the the body's pumping adrenaline through our system to, you know, put us in that fight, flight, or freeze mode, which is not conducive to being giving a compelling performance. Right? Yeah. So the way to kind of overcome this, it sounds like okay, we need to be able to regulate and be more in control of that automatic response that happens, right? If we can start to regulate that autonomic nervous system response, that fight, flight, or freeze, we're in that moment of performance, is that the path to overcoming that performance anxiety, or how do you approach that problem? speaker-0: You would think, you would think. That that seems like a reasonable thing, right? Now, just to back up one little step, you said the situation is uncomfortable. No, there's a threat in the situation. Your amygdala is sensing a threat, a danger. And so and you know, sometimes it can seem silly because you know, we're we're getting upset about I got upset, you know, I was getting nervous about that. You know, after the fact. But what you're gonna find th if if that's the case, that's because those are typically surface worries. If you bore down through those surface worries, you typically find you know, type some type of real deep threat involved in one way or another. Right. Okay. So as far as handling it, all right. and and this is where my background comes into play here. That when I was a young so I was a young hotshot saxophone player, right? And in practice and in rehearsal, I'd do great, put me in front of an audience and I'd get stage fright. and I figured, well, there must be something wrong with me, because first of all Not you know, my other mu my musician pals aren't talking about it. My music professors aren't, you know, helping me with it, talking about it. So yeah, I I figure there must be something wrong with me. And when you think where there's something wrong with you, you just keep it to yourself, right? You tend not to share, yeah, man, I was really nervous. Okay. But but okay, so I knew there was a disconnect between you know my expertise as a musician. And, you know, then being in front of audience. And and that metamorphosized, if that's the right word, into speech fright when it became a young professor. You know, and you'd put me in front of big class, or you know, if there was a guest professor coming in to watch to see how I'm doing, speaking of faculty meeting. Same same issue. You know, I knew everything I needed to teach that class, but somehow if the dynamics were right, there was a threat. in it, I would get nervous. Okay. So you would think, okay, I just talk myself out of this. I just reason my way out of it, right? I I I talk to that amygdala and say, hey, listen, pal. I I call it the internal bodyguard, right? Because you know it it's just trying to protect you, right? And and it and it's a very natural thing for it to do. So yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, guy. I'm I'm fine. Okay. Take the afternoon off. I've got this. Right? Well, it doesn't work that way. Right? Because that amygdala for for two reasons, right? One, it's typically a legitimate threat. There's some threat in there, and your amygdala is no idiot. It knows it's a threat to you in in some sort of way, right? And then the other thing is it's beyond your conscious control. You know, this is the same system when you we hear like a car backfire, we jump. It Is beyond and before, if you will, our conscious thinking. All right. So so and there's actually a third reason you don't want to be trying to talk your way through it or out of it. And this gets to where my method and and how I came up with it, which get into it a little bit later if you like. When you're speaking, you don't want to spend your concentration worrying about those thoughts, those nervous thoughts, right? You know, you don't want to worry about that guy in the third row who s looks like he's bored or is you know, he's crossing his eyes because he doesn't like you or whatever. You don't have the capacity to worry about that and to concentrate on what you're doing. Your pitch, your performance, the game, the free shot that that you have to be getting, that you have to give. So trying to deal with it in a good old fashioned American way. Of confronting it typically doesn't work. speaker-1: Hm. Yeah, and that makes sense, right? Because this isn't the root of the problem isn't a lack of reason or understanding, right? The root of the problem is kind of this, you know, autonomic nervous system function taking place, right? So it's not reason that is the root of the problem. So reason won't be the solution, right? So the root of the problem If you had to define it, like what is the root of the problem, right? It exists in that omygday, it exists in that autonomic nervous system. So like where why does this happen? Right. And then how can we overcome it? I know you have your method. I think now would be a time to dive into that. speaker-0: All right, all right. There's no cure. Right. It it happens because your internal bodyguard is trying to protect you. And that's beyond your conscious thinking. So there's not a heck of a lot you can do about it, right? Anytime those three factors are at play, Ian, right? You're, you know, if you're like seventy five percent of us at least, you're susceptible to getting nervous. Right? It's just a natural human response to a threatening situation. Right? Let me add this, right? There's something called a dead man's goal in therapy. I'm not a therapist, but therapy in therapy they often talk about dead man's goals. For example, a dead man's goal goal is I'm never going to get sad again. I'll never be angry ever again. That's a dead man, the therapists call that dead man goal because it's something only a deceased person is going to be able to pull off, right? So given what I just told you, those factors, and again, if you're like at least like 75% of study after study is shown, you're gonna get nervous, right? saying I'm never going to get nervous again when I give a a pitch, you know, especially when I know my stuff. That's a dead man's goal, right? But there is a solution to it. And it's essentially, and I don't know how much I should talk about what mindfulness is, but it it's essentially mindfulness. Right. And mindfulness has emerged over the years as kind of one of the gold standard forms of therapy for a particular reason. It doesn't get into all of that. You're thinking wrong about this, right? There's no threat. Don't worry. Yeah, it it's therapy. Therapy typically a traditional, more traditional therapy, wants to delve into why do you feel this way? All right. And okay, well, let's change your thinking about it. You know, let's turn this threat into an opportunity. Let let's redefine this threat as an opportunity. Well, your amygdala doesn't play along with that sort of thing, right? All right. What I developed for this is in Parallel with mindfulness, or at least one part of mindfulness. And let me explain. So when I'm fresh out of college and I'm suffering with some stage fright, as young people were wont to do in the day, I decided to explore Zen under a Zen master, not just read about it. I decided to, you know, go study under a Zen master. And I was very fortunate to study under a Korean Zen master named Song San. who had, you know, he would do these things. He would do the typical things about what's the sound of one hand clapping and so forth. But he had this all-purpose precept. He'd say, only go straight, don't know. Right? And, you know, I I would say, majority of the time, that was his answer to things. I remember asking him one time, Sung Sung, do I have need to be Buddhist to study sin? And he said, only go straight. Keep don't know mind. What that means is do what you want to do. Do what you mean to do. Give the pitch. You know, play the solo. Take the free throw. That's the only go throw. Yeah, in in in other words, the other way of saying that is then it's when you walk, only walk, when you eat, only eat. Right. Then then the second part of that is keep don't know mind is all those things. Am I going to make this free shot? not gonna make this free shot rather than for sure I'm gonna make this free shot and you're right. Don't do that, right? Don't do that to yourself. You know, and is this is this pitch going to be successful? Of course it's gonna be successful. You don't know. Don't and in the very least, just put that to the side, right? Just accept those sorts of nervous thoughts and feelings and return your attention to the pitch, the the solo. the free food. Right. And that became one of the important foundations of of mindfulness and gets applied to overeating, depression, PTSD, all sorts of things, right? And has been found to be as effective, if not more effective, than other approaches to such problems. speaker-1: Hm. Wow. That is good stuff. Could you repeat that saying one more time just to make sure I have speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Only go straight. Keep don't know mind. The only go straight part, I think, is pretty easy to understand, right? Just do what you right. I'm doing this podcast, so I'm putting a hundred percent of my attention and effort into this podcast. Right? Any you know, intrusive thoughts or feelings. Doesn't have to be nervousness. It could be Man, I I can see myself, right, on on on the image here. I'm looking old, man. Right? That's not I don't need to be worrying about that while I'm trying to do the podcast. Right? Uh-huh. Or, you know, kids, it's a little warm in here, you know. I I should turn down the the the aircraft. I don't have time or attention for that. I need to only go straight when I'm doing that. Right. And I know that here's the thing, Ian. Sounds like a Super simple solution. Right? It is. But that's what you want. When you're in the middle of giving a pitch, right? And you're nervous. You don't want some nine-point method that you need to be able to apply. First drink water, stare at the audience. Yeah. Yeah, I guess need you just need something simple to get your head back in the game. Right? Yeah. So and Mindfulness and study after study has shown that this is the best thing we got going for us to help. speaker-1: Only go straight, don't keep no no mind. speaker-0: Keep don't know minds. speaker-1: Keep don't know mind. Okay. That's right. Yeah, and when you're in your articulation, in your explanation, it makes a ton of sense, right? When you're the goal is to just be focused on just doing the thing, right? Just only go straight, right? Just do the thing that you're trying to do. And in route in doing that, it's natural. It's inevitable that other thoughts, other things are going to come up. And the the moment that you try and fight against it, right? This is something that I recognize from my own personal mindfulness practice. Right. When you take, you know, when you're sitting there and you're you're meditating and whatever form of mindfulness you do for me, I I take 15 minutes meditate every single day. Like what I've learned is that the thoughts, when they come up and I and I'm becoming aware of them, if I try and force them away, if I try and don't think, if my, you know, I have that dead man's goal of okay, I'm going to just not think for 15 minutes, right? It just propagates them, right? It just builds them up. So it's the practice of building that mindfulness to be aware of the thing that you're experiencing, recognize it, feel it, see it, and then just return back to the thing that you're attempting to do. Right. And one other thing that I it's kind of a funnier application, but it's you know, this moment of performance, this ability to be in Like be the best that you can be in the moment of performance is applicable to so many different domains. And it really does feel like the critical like meta skill to just doing your best, right? Like you do all of this work on your own, right? You build up your knowledge, you build up your expertise, you build up your abilities in practice. And then the moment of performance is where it's won or lost, right? And, you know, I guess maybe that's putting a little bit too much weight on it, but like that moment of performance is where you. You gain the grain or whatever ha whatever you wanna call it, right? speaker-0: yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: And so like another moment that like I'm thinking about this is like, okay, I'm standing over a chip, you know, I'm in a match with my buddies on the golf course and I'm standing over a chip and I can recognize this thought of like there's just nonstop, just this flood of thoughts that can come and it's like, all right, don't chunk it, don't skull it, right? Just like, you know, there's all these thoughts that just inevitably come up no matter I've been playing golf for twenty two years, right? And they're it's inevitable, like they're not gonna go away. So it sounds like this practice is really just the ability to build this muscle of mindfulness. That you can carry into that moment and then recognize. Is that is that about right? speaker-0: Yeah, good for you, muscle, right? I love to use this analogy, right? So we got one of these things. Real simple, Ian, you just bounce the ball against the paddle, right? But you know, if i to this day I can't do it, right? Because it's a skill. What you just described is at the heart of of mindfulness, right? But it's a skill that you need to develop, right? That returning to your your attention, right? Now, I I would say the only thing I would quibble about with with what you say is is to look at that thought, right? No. Just accept it as soon and as gently as you can, return your attention to what you mean to be doing. Right? Now, it's studies showed. that even in ideal situations, our kind of chunks of uninterrupted thought are only about nine seconds, right? So if you have to keep returning your attention to your you know to your speaking, the the per performing, competing, that's perfectly natural, right? give you an example of that. A friend of mine, he died about ten years ago, was the head of the Urasenki Urasenke Tea Ceremony School in New York. And and tea ceremony is very imbued with Zen and this, you know, mindfulness and and not active thinking and in Japanese they called it mushin, right? And you know, I I I asked the Almada sensei one time, I said, Well Yeah, but a sense that what do you have a big goal, you know, for the rest of your life? He said, Yes, once in my life I'd like to serve tea. And I did one of those. What do you mean? You do this, you know, day you know several times a week, if not more, serve tea. What do you I went, You mean to do it with such singleness of purpose, no random thoughts come into your mind. So that's like a chip thought. Yeah, your chip shot, Ian, right? Maybe your goal is one time in your life you'd like to you know, chip a shot without any, you know, without any of the distracting well, yeah, some of it's not times it's not distracting. Well I need to factor for the wind. I have to you know, how how wet is the sand, all all of those things that that go into it. But once you start to swing you bet y I I think you need to not be thinking about that, right? speaker-1: its own. Yeah. Yeah, and I can imagine like the things that come up Aren't just thoughts, you know, that just randomly come out of nowhere in the moment, right? But there's also if one time in your life, right, you just wanted to serve tea, right? One time in your life you just wanted to do the thing without the cloud of the other things that can rush in in the moment of doing anything. Right. It's not just thoughts, it's not just nerves. And and maybe these are just symptoms of these, you know, these expectations that you place on yourself, right? It's it's almost the performance and the doing of the thing without. the pressure that you can put on yourself of the outcome that you expect or the expectations that you have for yourself. Is that a part of it as well? speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. You know, in therapy they talk about brain chaos. And you know, you you're talking about your mindfulness meditation. Yeah, just try sitting for even thirty seconds with no random thoughts going through your head. You know, it it's it's it can become like thought whack-a-mole, right? You you knock that one down and then all of a sudden this other one you you didn't expect to come up, did. You knock it down. Now the first one you did know is in the back of your mind packs you know comes back up. So yeah, but that's the human condition. Right? That is the human condition. Yeah. And there's very little we can do about that except work with it. Right. speaker-1: Right. Work with it. Yep. Develop that mindfulness, that awareness of it. And one thing that in in my practice that I return I do guided meditation and the guide that I have oftentimes returns back to this idea of when you and we do different versions of meditation. Like sometimes I'll have eyes open and then we'll look at the you know, just have a wide view of of what I'm looking at and just kind of see the whole picture of what I'm seeing and then look for the seer. Right. Or if you have a thought, look for the thinker. Right. Or if you have like a feeling, a sensation, like look for the feeler. And then what we find, or what I find in that exploration in that moment, is that there really is no seer and what you see or thinker and what you think. Right. It's just the thing in itself happening in the moment. Like that is the full shape and picture of consciousness. And there's not many the words don't do it just as I'm not. speaker-0: no, it's just enough to be able to explain it. speaker-1: No. speaker-0: Well, listen, you know, Sung Sun used to say, and and this is used to say the second you open your mouth to talk about Zen, you're wrong. Right? that that this is a wisdom that goes beyond words, is before words, and and so to put them into words is you know actually kind of it invariably. Distorts them and you know and and and kind of puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable often. So but that's the human that's the human condition for for anyway, right? So you know, I and and and I will say, you know, going back to to Zen and and so forth, and and how you said this I forgot. It was I missed the moment to interject this, but when you're talking, you that's where you're that's where that's flow, right? That's ideally, that's where your expertise just turns into this, you know, fountain of of you doing, right? In that case, boy, that performance anxiety just melts away, you know, in and of itself. You're so full in the moment that that you often you kind of It it's like you're watching yourself do your thing, right? You know, there there's a wonderful quote from Paul Simon in one of his songs. He says, Have you ever experienced a moment of grace when your brain takes a seat behind your face? That's flow, right? When when that active kind of thinking consciousness, when it melts away, and we can enjoy those flow states. That's just, you know, that the as as a musician, that's what we lived for. We live for as musicians, right? I think professionals in all sorts of ways have those flow moments, right? So it's just the performance anxiety robs them. It undermines the performance anxiety undermines all of that. So you can't flow and you start to question your expertise or you know. speaker-1: Yeah. Right. Yeah. You can recognize those moments or I can recognize those moments of flow in my own experience again across so many different domains, whether it's golf or the work that I'm doing or speaking on stage or in this podcast, right? It's the the moments where I'm, you know, absent of thought is probably not the right way of saying it, but I'm just purely fo like just purely in the mode of doing the thing, right? Of going straight and doing the thing that I'm focused on doing. And that's what your work revolves around, right? Is just helping people to develop that ability to more consistently maybe step into that mode and kind of calm the performance anxiety, which enables them to more easily step into that mode. Because performance anxiety, again, it just stirs up all of these thoughts. It stirs up these autonomic responses, which jolts us full of general adrenaline. speaker-0: Yeah, ki kind of. I I boiled all of this down into what I call the read method, right? And I'll I'll get to what that R stands for in a moment. But the f but the first two parts of it engage, the only go straight, except the accept those intrusive, you know, worrisome thoughts and feelings, right? That leads to D, which is detachment. That leads you to detachment from The worried thoughts. They're still there typically. They just fade into the b background, and you experience a more workable situation. So now we don't need to worry about the dead man's goal of I'm not going to be nervous. Yeah, you can still be nervous. It's just not going to control you as much, right? So the R part now I think is is important to add to this, which is remember. It's remember the Core concepts, the core beliefs that you're bringing to this, right? That's what gives you courage and commitment. it's called courage and commitment therapy, right? That gives you the courage and commitment to stay there doing your thing, even when that you know, performance anxiety is, you know, heckling you, right? And you know, I I give the example of a father giving, you know, giving a speech at his daughter's wedding. Well, you know, what are what are the core beliefs that he brings to this, right? Love for his daughter, you know, maybe belief in society, culture, community, all of those. Those things can give him the courage and commitment he needs, right? So you put all those together, the read, you know, and the engage and accept. and detach, that's the solution. And and you know, what I do with students is give you know, help them to have a fuller n understanding of this and other some other aspects of performance anxiety. But then it's to gain in you know mindfulness skills. And so we go back to that paddle, right? And it's as simple as the sorts of things you do, you know, I try to give folks mindfulness exercises they can Put into their lives without having to add moments to them. Brushing your teeth is a great example. Just when you have extraneous thoughts come into your mind while you're brushing your teeth, just bring it back to the sensations of brushing. Drinking a cup of coffee or or tea. You know, when you drink tea, only drink tea, right? Waiting in line. That's a great one. Right? When when when you find yourself getting impatient about waiting in line or yeah, upset or I'm sure that guy has more t more than twelve items in his cart. this is the twelve item right, you know, you just go back to your mantra or or just observing your breathing, right? Developing those skills before you're giving the pitch to investors. Before you're in the final game of the championship standing at the free throw, before you're on, you know, a a big stage, that's the time to develop those skills. speaker-1: Yeah. And, you know, no matter how much you practice, right, those nerves, that anxiety, those things are still gonna come up, right? And that's where the accept part of your read method comes into play is just accepting that these things are inevitable. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. that's just that's your internal Yeah, that internal bodyguard's just trying to protect you, you know? Right. from that threat. You know, if I if I miss this free throw, I may not get my next million dollar contract. I may get booed by the the crowd. I may you know. So again, the threat's the threat. And you know, in in trying to reason with your amygdala. Or yeah, it doesn't work. It's our autonomic and nervous system, right? It's just doing its job. Yeah, just in a counterproductive way. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. And we can build, you know, the solution to this is is building our mindfulness ability. And that's done through small moments on a regular daily basis. And then maybe one last idea that we can finish on. We talked about, you know, confidence, right? So confidence existing, coexisting with anxiety in the nerves that happen right in that moment of performance. So where tough question, but where does confidence come from? speaker-0: I think confidence comes from expertise, right? You know, the there used to be, and and I forget which author made this a popular idea, that you needed 10,000 hours of practice to, you know, to for expertise to emerge, right? I have a friend who is a saxophone player in Prince's band, right? And The band just hated it because Prince would rehearse them and rehearse them and rehearse them because his idea, he would tell them, I want you to know this so well, there's not a chance you can make a mistake with it, right? So I think the confidence comes from expertise. Okay. And I'm kind of a specialty shop in a way. I don't help people with gaining that expertise. I do with musicians when when I teach musicians, right? But you know, you becoming an expert CEO, that's the next shop over, right? You know you becoming you know, a a a professional, you know, football player or whatever, having that type of that's the next shop over. What I do is, you know, I I help folks when the performance anxiety tries to, you know, pull that rug out from under you, man. Right. speaker-1: Yeah. And as I had mentioned earlier, like the overcoming, if that's even the right word to use, but just learning to live with and push through the performance anxiety so that you can step into the moment of performance and do your best, like more consistently and and step into that moment and and do your best, right? Is that meta ability, right? Because there you could build up your expertise, build up your confidence, all you want, right? But there's the moment will come where you have to perform, put it into practice. And you can't do that if things like performance anxiety are getting in the way and and robbing you of being the best that you can be. So I think the work that you do perfect is incredibly important. And I really appreciate you taking the time to share this work with me today and all of the work that you've done to to help the people that you have and will continue to help with this because I think you're enabling more just the best versions of people's contributions that they can make to to the world to come out there. So I really appreciate that. I thank you. One final question for you today. It's a recurring question that I ask every guest, but before we get to that, Dr. David Fish, how can people find you? speaker-0: Yeah, I I think it's been on the lower third there during our but it's at a website called riseup8.com. And the they'll find three courses. One speak with confidence, perform with confidence, and a third course compete with confidence, right? and there's even a free trial lesson that kind of it teaches them a little mindful practice. directed at at this and goes through some of the concepts and more that we discussed today. And and you've got a firm grasp of what I'm talking about. So, you know, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. And and you helped, you know, by putting it in other words, I think you made it even more understandable for your for your listeners, for your followers. That's wonderful. Thank you, man. speaker-1: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I think all credit goes to you. And if yeah, that we'll have that link in the description. That's riseup8.com. and if you want to more consistently show up your best in the moment of performance, I highly recommend that you check out David's work. I've I looked at your website, I listened to other podcasts that you were on, and yeah, the things that I've learned from you are sticking through sticking with me and I'm excited to see how they come through in the performances that I have ahead, including the golf match I got on Saturday with my friends. speaker-0: Here you go. Perfect moment. Perfect moment. Only go straight. Only go straight, man. Well that that kinda has a double meaning during speaker-1: Exactly. Golf match, doesn't it? Yep. Yep. For sure. That's always my mom's advice whenever I I'm going out to play golf. I'm talking to her on the phone or something. It's just like hit it straight. but I love it. my final question for you, again, thank you so much for your time today. It's a recurring question that I ask every guest. But Dr. David, if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds with one message to the world, what would it say and why? speaker-0: You're not broken. Right? And you're perfect. You're perfectly human. speaker-1: Yeah. You're not broken. You're perfectly human. Yeah. It's it's natural, right? It's just a natural thing that we've we've picked up throughout however many years of evolution. it's just a natural part of our system that's served a function for a long time. It serves a function in our day to day life still. But this whole performance thing is especially on the stages that we can access here today, are new in that scope of evolution. Absolutely. Yeah. Doctor David, thank you so much for the time. speaker-0: Thank you, Ian. I appreciate it. Only go straight, man. speaker-1: Thank you for listening. My main takeaway from my conversation with David is how much I like his idea of only go straight, keep don't know mind. I know from my own experience that when I get nervous, my attention can get pulled to everything but what I'm there to do, right? My thoughts, I can just everything just moves way too fast. So that phrase gives me something simple to come back to in those moments. All right. I can and it helps me to just notice the thoughts as they're rattling around, let them be there. and put my attention back on the shot, the conversation, or whatever it is that's in front of me. If you want to get connected with David, you can find his links to his social medias, his website, everything in the description of this episode. And if you're an author or a coach and you want to make it easier for your audience to engage with the ideas that you teach and follow through on what you teach, I put a free resource in the description that will help you build more execution support into your program without taking up more of your time. Thank you all again for being here. And I look forward to seeing you in the next one.