Performance Psychology Consultant, Dr. Alexander McWilliam, Talks Presentation Anxiety and Performing Under Pressure with MBM CEO, Darren A. Smith.
Join Darren as he asks; 'What makes Dr. McWilliam the best person to talk Presentation Anxiety?'. With perhaps the only PhD, globally, that specialises in why and how we feel nervous when public speaking, Dr. McWilliam has the utmost knowledge and expertise on how to combat presentation anxiety. Watch or listen to the podcast episode to experience Darren and Alexander exploring the ins and outs of this subject.
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Read The Full Episode Transcription Below:
Darren A. Smith
Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. My name's Darren Smith, and more importantly, I'm here with our guest. Thank you for coming. Alex, how are you?
Alexander McWilliam
I'm very good. How are you doing?
Darren A. Smith
Hey, I'm good. I'm good. We've both got our funky shirts on and striped. You're in check. We better not go to the same party. We'll clash. But hey, we're good. We're good. Let's get back to you. We're going to talk about presenting and about being nervous and speaking up and those types of things. We'll get to that in the nicest possible way. Why should we listen to you when you talk about this topic?
Alexander McWilliam
Well, we said my name is Alex, which is true, but my full title is Doctor Alexander McWilliam. I've got a PhD in public speaking anxiety and performing under pressure. To my knowledge, the only person in the UK potentially globally with a PhD specialising in this field, and I've been coaching presentation skills confidence when presenting for almost decades, so a wealth of experience. It makes me feel old, but.
An expert in the field of anxiety and performing under pressure.
Darren A. Smith
Two decades we haven't even got any grey hair. What's that about? OK, so you're the only one with the PhD potentially in the world in this. So just tell me about that. How long did you study for to get this?
Alexander McWilliam
So my PhD took 1/ years in total, so it was three years. Multiple studies I looked at AI looked at all the interventions available for public speaking anxiety into reduction. That was one area of study. I developed a questionnaire to help identify specific public speaking concerns because there's so many in the world. But actually when we're coaching, we need to identify what it is specifically.
Darren A. Smith
Yeah.
Alexander McWilliam
And then a last study was using acting and improvisation to help reduce public speaking anxiety.
So over the three years, there was all of these studies going on with multiple participants trying to figure out why they get anxious. How do we overcome that? And as there's so many interventions available, can something alternative, like acting in improv, which hasn't seen many mainstream sort of interventions, you see CBT, you see exposure therapy, things like that. But acting in improv, that was the unique route I wanted to go down and bring on my own expertise of being an actor and being an improviser.
Darren A. Smith
Yeah. Yep.
Alexander McWilliam
With that so 3 1/2 years of lots and lots of studying, lots of reviewing, lots of writing, and if anyone's doing it, if anyone's done it, they know that it is a mammoth of a task. But so rewarding once it's done.
Darren A. Smith
Impressive. OK, so 3 1/2 years doing that and and just would you just paint a picture for us? So what did you do? You did some research, not some. You did research. You looked at research you practise it. Is that we did for 3 1/2 years.
Alexander McWilliam
I read a lot of papers looking at theories, different theories from sports psychology, from psychology, looking at why people fail to perform when it when it matters, and what's happening in our bodies and our brains when anxiety kicks in, fears, anxieties, how we develop those. So looking across the board over the last years worth of literature, looking at what interventions are available, which ones are effective and which ones aren't effective because again.
There's a lot of interventions available. People go, Oh my God, there's so many things I could try and do to reduce anxiety. What works? Well, luckily, I published a paper earlier this year which identified which ones were good, which ones weren't, and how we overcome them. And also, it's been a while developing this questionnaire to identify those specific worries and having to test it, validate it. All of those things with thousands of, I think we ended up having around participants to validate this questionnaire. So it's not that because.
Darren A. Smith
OK.
Alexander McWilliam
You get a questionnaire, you know the online ones are going. Ah, what's my biggest worry then? You know, it could be anything's anyone's written that. So we took a lot of time doing that. And then also the intervention testing out a six week improvisation course to go. OK. If we got people in over six weeks once a week for a few hours, can we use those techniques to do that? And then we have to do all the steps work which again.
Darren A. Smith
Yeah.
Alexander McWilliam
I've I've never learned stats when I was younger, so that was a new area of statistics of how to do.
Which again is a mammoth task of maths and data and analysis, but again very rewarding, but a very complicated at the same time. So three years of lots of that and then presenting at conferences, writing papers, editing that took a long time because a my thesis I think was around , words. Trying. Yeah. Trying to get and that's a short one that's that's quite a short version some people's thesis.
Darren A. Smith
Yeah.
OK.
Off.
Alexander McWilliam
Are , words like a lot of history thesis? Are there like hundreds of thousands of what? Not hundreds, but maybe ,? So trying to make it so that it was rather.
And not waffling is the other things there's such. It's like there's so much content you could talk about and try to go one of it. What am I refining it? And actually I found during my PhD in the first six months, actually I started coming in with one idea and then six months later, that idea sort of change and amalgamated. And then it kept changing. I think when someone does a PhD, they realise that actually they start with one idea and it does.
Darren A. Smith
Yeah.
Alexander McWilliam
Modify a lot and for the better as well.
Darren A. Smith
Yeah, makes sense.
That makes sense. So over the next minutes, however long you and I are going to talk, I'd like to talk longer. People are going to understand why they're nervous when they present and how they can overcome it is that is that simply what we're going to get because that's powerful, right? OK. All right. Fabulous. Fabulous. OK, well, I'm intrigued. So over the next to minutes, I've got four or five questions that we've pulled from Google search that most people ask around this topic.
Alexander McWilliam
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Darren A. Smith
And then I think at the end of it, you've got a really handy mnemonic, a really handy takeaway for us to have. Is that right?
Alexander McWilliam
Yep, got one. It's called steady and I'll let you people can still go. Oh, what's that about?
Darren A. Smith
They've been treated us now. I like that. So that's the the culmination of , words. Your thesis down to things.
Alexander McWilliam
Yeah, essentially.
Darren A. Smith
All right. OK. All right. Well, I'm keen. I'm going to kick off with our first question, if that's all right.
Alexander McWilliam
Yeah.
Darren A. Smith
How do I not feel nervous or panicked before presentation is the first question most people are asking how do I not feel nervous and panicked?
Alexander McWilliam
But the first thing to challenge that is go nerves aren't a bad thing. If we're nervous, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually be quite facilitative to our performance. We need it to energise us. If the issue comes, it become too nervous. It overwhelms us and it impacts our performance in a negative way. So that's the first challenge. Nerves aren't necessarily a bad thing.
Darren A. Smith
Yep.
Alexander McWilliam
And also and I'll talk about this later, our body doesn't necessarily know when we go. Oh, I'm feeling nervous. Is it nerves? Because actually.
There's a famous study where actually they reframed, oh, physiologically, nerves and excitement have the same physiological response. My heart rate goes, my handshake, I feel sweaty. The only differentiation is your mindset. When we're nervous, I'm worrying about the worst case scenario. When I'm excited, I'm dreaming out at the best case scenario. So you, I'd always recommend you reframe that and go, actually. OK, I'm feeling this is it nerves. Well, OK. I don't really know what it's. I could be nervous about, but maybe.
Darren A. Smith
I love that. Yeah, yeah.
Alexander McWilliam
Excited. I'm excited because I get to present to my peers and share my idea because the the nervousness comes from the unknown and the ambiguity. I'm nervous all about something. What's going to go wrong? However, I'm excited because I get to share my research and the audience get to share my story. That's why I'm excited by I use that when I go to the dentist. I hate dentists. I'm nervous, but I go. I'm so excited they get to clean my teeth. I'm so excited they get to do this.
And it it calms me down a bit.
So I think nerves isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's only when it becomes too overwhelming. But and there are in that steady Muni,
