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From Fear to Confidence · Industrial Advisors

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You grow when you're, when you force yourself out of your
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comfort zone to do hard things.
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Um, and I think that every time we get up and speak or do something like that,
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it helps us and it makes you better.
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Even now, like it, you know, as, as you experienced as we are at it, like.
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Every time you do it, it becomes easier.
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Welcome to our industrial advisors podcast.
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You have Bill Condon and Matt McGregor.
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And one of my favorite all time guests that we've ever had.
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Maren McGregor.
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Maren is a sophomore at Clemson.
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And, uh, You said it with the P, good job.
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Hey man, I'm like, you know, I'm like family, right?
0:55
That's right.
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Yes.
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I've known Marin since she was a little, little girl and watched her really
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develop over the years into this amazing, amazing person, uh, who is extremely
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talented, a lot of different things.
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Our topic today is, uh, fear of public speaking.
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And it's great to have Marin on because Marin.
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Um, had a real fear of public speaking, uh, early on in her life, I would say,
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and kind of, you know, 6th, 7th, 8th grade, probably, and I'll let you talk
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more about it, um, and, and has overcome that, and we'll talk about some of the
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successes, but it's a really cool story, so great to have you on, Maren, um, couple
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stats before, We kind of jump into it.
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Um, you know, fear of public speaking is probably the number one fear, um,
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out there right in in society today.
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So it's a really good topic.
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I think to talk about.
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We all have stories about how we've overcome certain fears of public speaking.
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So happy to jump right into this.
1:57
Yeah, great.
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Well, I'll kick off with mine.
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Uh, unfortunately, Marr inherited it from, maybe from me, but,
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uh, certainly, uh, it's not a genetic thing, but, but I had it.
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And I had it due to my upbringing.
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So, as many of the listeners know, you certainly know that I have dyslexia.
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And they put me in a program at St. Luke's, uh, for dyslexia.
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But a lot of the nuns, there was only one class out of the six
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you took that was really for it.
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The other ones, you were just in the classes with the, and back
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then, nuns were the teachers.
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And so, I remember, like, it would be my turn to read and we'd all be
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reading a book and You know, each person would have a paragraph, right?
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And I would be counting the people trying to figure out my paragraph because I
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was dyslexic and was a terrible reader.
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So I'd be going, okay, there's six people, you know, freaking out,
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trying to read, trying to figure out which paragraph would be mine.
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And then I would go over it, like, you know, ten times and try to master it.
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And then, of course, like, the girl in front of me would take five paragraphs.
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Overachiever, right?
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Yeah.
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And then completely throw me off.
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I'd be in a panic.
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Next thing, I'm up in the corner.
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Like, literally, they'd think you were screwing around or whatever.
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They put you up in the corner.
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It was like torment, right?
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So I developed a big issue with public speaking to the point
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where I would sweat dry throat.
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You know, I just wasn't good at knowing where I was going to go in my career.
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That wasn't the option, right?
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That couldn't happen.
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So early on in my twenties, I signed up for Toastmasters, which basically you can
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go to different, different Toastmasters.
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Back then they'd meet at like Denny's restaurants or wherever.
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And there'd be a dozen people, a lot of lawyers would do it,
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getting ready for their trials.
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And so they'd, they would want to speak in front of people.
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And so this is, it's a national organization called Toastmasters.
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You can get on toastmasters.
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com.
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You can go to different formats all over the place and they'll meet.
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I did that.
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And then I did a 12 week course on public speaking with Dale Carnegie.
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Dale Carnegie obviously passed away a long time ago, but he's most known for
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Overcoming the fear of public speaking.
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So I did the 12 week course, loved it so much that I then worked for the
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organization for about a year after that and helping instruct those courses.
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Through that, I would say it covered 90 percent of it.
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And then it was, you know, then it was just repeating, doing constant
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conferences and it probably took another 10 years after that to really rid it.
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Cause there's a lot of baggage that came with it.
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Uh, you know, so that's how the, my, my history with.
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The fear of public speaking.
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What about yours, Mari?
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Yeah, well, funny enough, I wasn't, like, originally scared of public
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speaking at all, just because I've always been a pretty confident kid,
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like, always knew who I was, you know.
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My mom made me do pageants when I was young, so that's kind of, like, The
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biggest public speaking that you can do in that age and it started, I mean,
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you think fifth grade or so, I don't really remember it that way, but I
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have a key memory in seventh grade of I never really prepared for presentations.
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I was kind of always like, I'm just going to do this.
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Like, I'm confident on the fly.
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And I was, In a group presentation with another girl in my grade and we
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were doing some sort of historical presentation in front of a really small
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class like 16 people and I remember standing up there and I had my note
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cards and just all of a sudden like I started freaking out in the middle
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of it, you know, I'd gotten up there.
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It was fine.
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I started shaking and my throat got really tight and my mouth got dry to the point
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where I When I heard myself talking, I was like, Oh, I sound really bad.
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Like, people can definitely tell I'm nervous, which makes it so much
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worse when you think that other people think you're nervous, even
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though mostly they don't realize.
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So that's kind of my key memory of where it started, and I feel like the
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fear just kind of snowballed from there to the point where I thought every
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presentation or every time I spoke in front of a group, everyone could tell
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how nervous I was, which Originally, I'm sure they couldn't, but since it
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got so bad, I'm sure they could to the point in my senior year, um, obviously
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during covid, we didn't really have to practice public speaking being on zoom.
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So that fear kind of got pushed under.
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And since I didn't have to confront it at all, I didn't think about
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it until going back to school, you know, here and there with junior
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year, but there wasn't as much yeah.
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Talking in class, um, until senior year, I was in a marine biology
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class, and best teacher ever, Mr.
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Finn, I loved him, super engaging.
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Mr. Finnegan.
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Yes, best, yes.
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He's awesome.
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The best, he's awesome, yes.
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Great teacher.
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Amazing.
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Amazing person.
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Mm hmm.
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At the best high school in America.
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Exactly, exactly, yeah.
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So he was incredible in the way that he kept us engaged was kind of in an
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elementary way of popsicle sticks So he would put everyone in the class's names
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and like a little jar with popsicle sticks and he would call on us So
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review stuff we knew yeah last class.
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So Oh Ava, you know the octopus has whatever like stuff like that
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And so My fear had gotten so bad that, and again, this class is
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small high school, Blanchette.
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Yeah.
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All, all friends in my class.
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My boyfriend was in the class.
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I sat at a table with some of my best friends.
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This wasn't like a scary situation, but it had gotten so bad to the
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point where If I knew I was going to have the chance of being called on,
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I would have so much anxiety, all class, that I couldn't even focus.
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And I didn't know what we were talking about because the entire class, similar
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to you, saying you were counting, I was just waiting to be called on.
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So, so stressed.
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And it gave me such anxiety that I remember leaving class
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sometimes, pretending I was sick.
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Like, going and sitting in my car.
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Like, I just was totally Paralyzed by just the thought of being called for a
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one word answer that I knew the answer to like every time someone else was called,
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I was like, I know what the answer is.
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Um, and I remember I told my dad this and I was struggling with this in English
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class too with popcorn reading like such bad anxiety about having to read again in
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a class full of all of my good friends.
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Yeah.
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Um, so we were sitting on my bed and.
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Since it was my senior year, I had my tassel on my bed and I remember he had
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taken it and like twisted it up a bunch and he was like this is how you're feeling
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right now, super tight and we just need to like unravel that anxiety so for a little
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why don't you just ask to not be called on so I did which was really embarrassing for
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me having to email my teachers as a senior especially as someone who was seen as like
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a confident kid being like can you not call me in class and so They were super
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nice, super understanding, you know, Mr.
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Finn is awesome, Ms. Christensen, my English teacher, she was totally
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understanding, they were great, um, and so, that definitely helped to minimize
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just taking a minute and being like, okay, I don't have to worry about that anxiety,
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like, I don't have to have the thought.
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Of getting called on, but we knew that that wasn't going to work forever.
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You can't just push it away.
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Not a long term solution.
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And I also know that, you know, I probably want to be in development or real estate.
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So, like you guys, public speaking is a really important skill.
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Um, so, I don't know.
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I would say it followed me through freshman year a little.
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I feel, well, maybe as a transition to that, so that's what happened.
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Yes, that's the backstory.
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You know, and we'll get to, you know, where you're at now, but what
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did you do to start overcoming it?
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I think that it was really a struggle for a while, but I would, you know, try,
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I tried to do a lot of stuff, like the deep breathing and the, a big reminder I
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would always tell myself is no one's like paying attention and no one really cares.
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And the biggest thing I remember at the end of my freshman year
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of college, I had a pretty big presentation for a music class.
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Um, That I was so nervous for and I was just like Reminding myself that no one
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else can tell how nervous I am because my biggest anxiety was always Since my throat
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would close that my voice was really shaky and I always Thought other people could
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hear that and so I just decided to talk really loud And slow and I think that
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helped a lot and I Got a lot of praise.
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Like a lot of people were like, that was a great presentation.
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You know, you're great at speaking.
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And so I think through that, I reminded myself, no one knows how nervous I
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was, but I still knew I needed to figure out the anxiety beforehand.
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Cause that type of anxiety can be really debilitating.
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Like I was at the point where if I knew I had a presentation, even a
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month away, it was coming up at least once a day or every other day thinking
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about it and the anxiety of it, which.
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is not a way to go about things, um, but the biggest thing was this year.
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So Clemson, this is pretty amazing that they do it.
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They require you to take a public speaking class.
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Yeah, it's great.
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Once throughout your four years, you can do it first semester freshman,
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last semester senior, which I don't know why you would want to do that.
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But, um, it's a public speaking course and you.
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Basically, have this class, you know, you learn about different type of,
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like, commencement speeches, stuff like that, different speeches, humor, all
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of that, and through the course, you give to your class about five speeches.
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And all of them, except for one, are on note cards that can only
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have a certain amount of words.
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Um, so nothing's, like, memorized, it's kind of partially on the fly, partially.
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You've practiced it before.
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Yeah, and that Made all the difference in the world like I told my teacher this
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after I finished her class I was like, I never thought that I could get to the
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point of Where I finished in your class just being able to stand up and give
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an eight minute speech with a couple of note cards About difficult topics.
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They weren't all just, you know fun.
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Yeah, sure.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, that's incredible.
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I mean You know the story is you know, you recognize like you had a real fear
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right and And took a little bit of time off and then jumped into it, right?
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You didn't like, stay out of it, you know, so you jumped in and
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then, um, have developed this really good sense for doing it, right?
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Um, I remember for me, like, the first time I was really, I've,
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I've, I've never been like, fearful of getting in front of people and
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talking, but I was really nervous.
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The time I was named, um, managing director at like 27 or 28 years old
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and going into this company with a bunch of people that have been in the
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industry for 25 or 30 years, and I was going in getting introduced as this,
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like, you know, the leader of this, you know, basically organization where.
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You know, I'm walking in five, six years into the business,
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and I thought a lot about, like, what do I want my message to be?
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And, and ultimately, I just went in and was like, I'm going to be just
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authentic as can be and true to myself.
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And, you know, if people want to buy in, great.
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If they don't, you know, that's OK.
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We'll find a new place to go to work.
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But, like, just staying true to, like, what you believe and not
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trying to be somebody that you're not just being as authentic as you
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can, I think, is super helpful.
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Thanks for calling.
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in those situations for sure.
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But yeah, I remember that.
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I was like the new that that the young new person and I was like
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what do I, what do I want to do here, and I was nervous about that.
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Yeah, and you had a few people in there that were 50, 60s that certainly
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you know challenged you from a perspective of who the heck are you?
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Yeah, yeah I've been doing, you know, and like that's just natural.
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Like people fear change and.
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Someone comes in and like, you know, I've been doing this 30 years.
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You've been doing it five.
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What can you tell me?
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You know, it's like, you know, that's not uncommon, but but it is really so how
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do you like your friends like your peer?
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Your peers, right?
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Yeah.
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Are they nervous about this stuff or do you think like
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society is getting better at it?
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I still feel like it's a really big fear in people.
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It's a big I think it's for sure Like the number one fear and I think we're
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getting worse just because of so much technology I think it takes out A lot
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like a lot of probably even conferences that would happen in your guys's industry
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are happening on zoom whereas they used to happen in person and I feel like That
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takes out some of the anxiety because you're not standing in front of a room.
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I think that people are more isolated than they used to be just because
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of social media and everything.
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So, kids my age are way more anxious than probably when you guys were, you
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know, your guys age, just in general.
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Yeah, and the pandemic too.
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You made that point earlier.
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That, that was hard.
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I mean, for, for your era and, you know, give or take two to three years each way.
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Right.
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Like that was impactful for sure.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I would say it was mostly impactful for the kids, but it even
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took us being brokers, presenters.
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Out of practice for a while, because when I just did this recent keynote Yeah.
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I realized, wow, it's been a while since I've been on a stage.
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Yeah.
15:27
Right.
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Because you and I used to do it all the time.
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Yeah.
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Had and then really did.
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You had been on, but it hadn't been that long.
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I mean, through Covid, we weren't on stages.
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Right.
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But so you kind of, after the pandemic, like that keynote that you just gave,
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which I just gave a keynote at this.
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Huge conference, the Massimo Con, that's what it's called.
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Yeah, it was great, but in prepping for it, like, I would say prior to COVID,
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you and I were getting on stages, like, you know, Maren, giving speeches,
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a few times a year at least, right?
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Yes, yeah.
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And then all of a sudden we went through a few years there.
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Where we weren't going to conferences and not getting on stages.
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So to my point, that was the first big one I realized I had done in quite some time.
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Yeah, that's a good point.
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I mean, I did it a couple times last year.
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Yeah, because it's a few of those nerves came back and I was like, well, I
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thought I shook that it's like It's like a good It's like yeah the kind you get
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before a football game or when you're playing or a sport or whatever like you
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played basketball You know, you get that nervous energy before the game and then
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it's like the whistle blows and it's like game on let's go Yeah Um, so yeah,
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yeah, but I think doing it just like, and I told Carly, like, you know, when
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Carly went to high school and college, I gave her the same advice, like, you
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know, this is Bill's daughter, Carly.
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Yeah.
16:43
Sorry.
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Not everybody knows about this.
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Senior at Gonzaga.
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But I, I told her like, Hey, just challenge yourself to
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get out of your comfort zone.
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Right.
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That's how, that's when you grow.
16:51
Right.
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People talk about it all the time and it's really true.
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Yeah.
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You, you, you grow when you're, when you force yourself out of your
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comfort zone to do hard things.
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Totally.
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Yes.
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And I think that every time we get up and speak or do something like that,
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it helps us and it makes you better even now, like it, you know, as, as
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you experienced as we are at it, like every time you do it, it becomes easier.
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Mara gave us a term for the exposure therapy.
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Yeah, that was a term that my, I was like sitting there when you guys were talking,
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I was like, I know, cause my teacher, my.
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A public speaking teacher had said it, and I'd heard it before, but I kind of was
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always like, oh, it's one of those, like, another whatever therapy, like, term.
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Um, and it's so true, though.
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Like, the more that I spoke, that was the biggest thing, is I could tell myself
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to do the deep breathing and, you know, tell myself no one cares, which all
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helps a little bit, but the, really the biggest thing was practicing beforehand.
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Like, I would sit in my room, sit in the mirror, record myself, time myself.
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At least seven times to the point where I was like, I could do this in
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my sleep and then just doing it like there was, I mean, to your question
18:00
of do you think it's a big fear?
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Yeah, there was kids in my public speaking class who could couldn't do
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the speeches, you know, wouldn't be there on the day they did the speeches.
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There was a couple like, Stumbling and just having to stop overall.
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And I get that.
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Like I totally felt for them because we, a lot of us have that same anxiety.
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And so I think that just getting up there and doing it, even though
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it's so uncomfortable and scares you was the biggest thing that helped
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me like just doing it over and over mean like, yeah, this sucks, but
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like I have to do it eventually.
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And so, yeah.
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That helps.
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Before we close with your, you know, current successes, I will tell the
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listeners two things in addition to what you said that helped me a lot.
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Number one is, I think everybody knows this, but don't ever
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memorize a speech, okay?
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Start with a story, a personal story, because those are so easy to tell.
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And audiences love personal stories.
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So that can relax you.
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And going into it, if you're behind stage or you're in the queue and
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you're next up and your heart starts going, mention breathing.
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Before I learned something called square breathing a long time ago where you
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take a slow breath in for eight seconds You hold the breath for eight seconds
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and you release the breath breath for eight seconds and you're breathing
19:18
in a square It literally reduces your heart rate and so you can take
19:21
a high heart rate down through square breathing very quickly Relax yourself
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Boom, go tell the personal story and then you're, you're in the groove.
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Yeah.
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You know, that, those two things helped me a lot.
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So if you guys ever see me on stage, you will hear a personal story first.
19:36
Yeah.
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Every time.
19:38
Yeah.
19:39
So tell us a little bit about SIP.
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You, you mentioned that speech class at Clemson, um, but
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you, you, you, um, advanced.
19:47
Yeah.
19:48
Into something else.
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And then you are now, correct me if I'm wrong, cause I love bragging on you,
19:53
but I believe You're the only sophomore being, uh, looked at now through the
19:57
final set for the sales and innovation program for the traveling team.
20:01
I don't know about that.
20:03
There's a possibility of that, but I don't know who else is.
20:06
You might not be the only sophomore.
20:08
Right.
20:08
Okay, I see.
20:08
We don't know.
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But you're in the final round.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So, we'll see.
20:12
Or six people for the traveling team?
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Probably, yeah, small group.
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Yeah.
20:16
Very small group.
20:17
Okay.
20:17
So, yeah, but, um, yeah, with the class, it, really the class was
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life changing, clearly, because I'm talking about it a lot.
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But, I had such a sweet teacher, Miss Peichel, and she, Had pulled
20:28
me aside after, um, my informative speech, which was, or persuasive
20:33
speech, so we got to pick a topic and then try to persuade the audience.
20:37
You had to cite, uh, peer reviewed articles, all of that.
20:40
And I chose to do my speech on, um, How influencers are promoting like
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materialism and just overconsumption, which was a really fun topic to research.
20:50
I felt like it was very relevant, you know, having like TikTok all of that.
20:55
Um, so after I gave it in class, she told me that I should submit it for Clemson's
21:01
public speaking competition, which is called Tiger Speak Out, and they do it.
21:05
Once a semester, um, through the classes.
21:09
So you write your persuasive speech for the class, give it, and then
21:12
you can submit it and go through.
21:15
So I had submitted my outline that I wrote and I made it through the
21:18
first round, which I was shocked.
21:20
I really just did it to kind of appease her, um, and tell her that I did it.
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And then I filmed myself over Thanksgiving break giving it.
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Got through the second round, which again, I was shocked by
21:31
because that was a one take too.
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I did it and I was like, well, we'll see if it's good enough.
21:35
Um, because honestly, in my heart of hearts, I really didn't want to
21:39
do the public speaking competition because that is terrifying to me.
21:43
Um, so I got through and made it to.
21:47
The finals, which there was six of us in the finals, and I think there had
21:50
been like a hundred applicants and I prepared a bunch, you know, I'd given
21:55
this speech probably 15 times at this point in front of my friends, in front
21:58
of my class, to myself, to my family, and I put on my suit, walked in, my
22:05
friends came to support me, and I walked in, And it was this massive auditorium.
22:11
Like I was not ready.
22:12
I about died.
22:14
I thought it was going to be a few people.
22:15
I thought, I'm like, no, I'm like, who's coming to watch the little public, like,
22:20
yeah, like, I was like, I, as a student, wouldn't want to watch the student
22:23
public speaking competition, like.
22:24
Sorry, that's not, you know, what I want to do, um, but it was full.
22:29
There was probably a couple hundred people there.
22:31
So I walked in.
22:32
I was like, Oh, like there was mics and everything like these.
22:36
And I was just not prepared for that.
22:38
But I think that was actually a good thing that I didn't know how serious it was.
22:43
It was filmed, put on YouTube and everything.
22:46
And I was super nervous, obviously.
22:48
But.
22:49
And I could tell the kids next to me were too because, you know, they're
22:51
just like sitting there like this.
22:53
So I was just like, I'm going to make this as casual as possible,
22:56
talk to the girl next to me.
22:57
And I was fifth out of six speakers, which is, I would have preferred to have
23:01
gone first, you know, get it over with.
23:04
So I'm like sitting there like, sitting there like, oh my god, please,
23:08
like, you know, totally like shaking.
23:10
Um, and I was telling my dad this, I had gotten up and you Every person had
23:15
their own, or we had to share the same mic pack, so we switched, and I was, my
23:20
hands were shaking, I had these acrylic nails, and I couldn't get the thing, so
23:24
the whole audience is hearing, so I'm like, oh my god, like, this couldn't
23:27
be any worse, and I stand up there, like, in the middle, hundreds of people
23:32
watching, and as soon as I started speaking, no nervousness, like, it
23:36
was, and that was the first time that's happened since fifth grade, so, and,
23:40
Yeah, I'm on, like, the biggest stage too.
23:41
Right, yeah, and, I felt so good, like I was like, I wish my speech was
23:46
longer, because I just want to keep speaking, like I felt very confident,
23:49
very powerful, um, and I got last place, I got 6, and I did not care, like, I,
23:57
my friends, like, brought me flowers, and they were like, you deserve more,
24:00
like, you did so good, and I was like, I don't care, because the fact that I
24:04
did it, and felt good while doing it, I was like, I could have gotten 100.
24:09
6 But yeah, I was going to say, like, you're up there with the top people.
24:14
So, you know, whether you were first, second, sixth, fifth,
24:16
like, you know, you're up there.
24:18
Yeah, good job.
24:19
Thank you.
24:19
Yeah.
24:21
Well, that's a wrap, Maren.
24:22
Great job.
24:23
Thank you very much for being on the podcast.
24:25
Thanks to the listeners.
24:26
Yeah.
24:27
Happy Friday.