[00:00:00] I am teaching, sharing, giving based on on what I'm seeing with my clients, what's going on with my voice clients, and I'm bringing to you suggestions, quick fixes, tips. Not everything is a quick fix around our voice.

But I am here to offer my expertise and see if I might be able to be of service. So, just a couple things. Today we're gonna be talking about how nervous is normal and some things that you can do about it. But before I do that, I have to give a shout out. To, first of all, last night was so fun. If there are any itty bitty authors coming in today that was wonderful.

Shout out to Susie Pruden. Thank you so much for inviting me. And to meet some of my co-authors. I'm still writing my itty bitty book, but that was a wonderful time with a almost about a dozen. Gals all about the voice, what I've been sharing in, in the group. Find your voice, rock your confidence, and a lot of different things came up in that group.

You know, some of the comments were, and I'm so [00:01:00] focused on the content and what I'm, I'm wanting to share that I forget about. How I'm delivering it, the tone of my voice, the speed there are all these other variables involved. So that was awesome. I loved the one, there was a request someone, I'm not sure what her book is, but feels very serious, has a lot of earth, very grounded, and the question was how to get out of that serious, grounded.

Earth state, how to make the presentation, the podcast, the interview. Give it a little more pizzazz, my quick fix tip in that moment by suggestion, if you are one of these that are like this all the time, very serious, grounded, gotta keep that game face on all the time. One simple thing you can do to spice that up and turn it around is add more fire, add more spice, add more energy.

Add some passion. To what it is that you're presenting. And it doesn't have to be the whole thing, but I love scripts. Okay? Scripts. If you are an [00:02:00] author, a speaker, a presenter. If you're getting in front of people, you really should have things printed out. I like printed, I like pen. Where you can go in and make notes and highlight what are those points in your presentation that you really want to get people's attention.

Using the printed word when you're preparing for a presentation is still a very valuable skill. In the singing portion of what I do, I, we call it working your lyrics.

That's where you are putting a little hash mark where, where you need to take a breath before you go into a long phrase that is circling something and highlighting something that you really wanna make a point. This is a place where you get excited, give some extra energy, some extra fire. So simple things like that.

It was a great, great talk last night. Great. Share. Let's get to our subject for today. Nervousness and being normal and what we can do about it. So quick story. Some of you, if you've been online you cut The [00:03:00] Lemon Festival is an annual event. I get the privilege to manage this stage and all the talent going up and down. Just that things, you know, stay on task in their paycheck and lots of love, and they go.

So one of my clients, one of the opportunities you get if, if you are a singing client in Santa Barbara area when this festival rolls around every year you get to make an appearance. And for, for. I think just about every performer this last Saturday, it was their first festival performance ever. So you, you think about this for a second and, and fear, oh gosh, we've got all kinds of fun stuff on fear.

But right now you go from working with me one-on-one in this case, and then from that one-on-one, you know, put you all together in a group. This is for the singers in Santa Barbara who aren't necessarily professional artists yet that may not even be in their, their future. They're just doing this for fun as a hobby.

You get into a group and then you go from a group to some sort of a performance at a live venue. Our last live venue was at soho here, local little restaurant [00:04:00] dinner club. Real fun. So that's a very different stage, you know, a group in a classroom setting to a restaurant. To a festival stage with over 300 people looking at you.

These are very different situations and you know, unfortunately in this case, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare the singers as, as well as I would've liked to. For that big of a crowd. It's a lot. It can be traumatic and that's what we're trying to avoid. Whether you are getting on a festival, sage to sing, or you're going to be doing a presentation to a large group and a company and large can be.

You know, 10 to 20 people. That, that's a lot of people. So what can happen when you're faced with this is you are in a situation, this applies to all kinds of situations, but specifically with your voice, you've got the tools, you have the exercises, we've got the breathing stuff, we've done the workouts you know, the mindset piece we've been working on.

But until you're there, Until you're actually on the [00:05:00] stage with all those eyeballs looking at you, you don't know how you're gonna be feeling. You don't know how your body's gonna react. And, you know, we all respond differently. There's a difference between reacting and, and running the acronym we talked about acronyms last night in the Eddie Bitty Group.

Face everything and, and recover. Whatever's going on that's causing the anxiety just, you know, deal with it. My favorite, I shared last night a little bit naughty, and I, I don't want to be edited, but it's, it's the, it's F e a R, the acronym fear. And that, that f f everything. F everything and run.

I'm outta here, which is what we're trying to prevent from happening when you're in a situation, on a stage, in a room, in a situation where you're having to communicate. There was another fun one that didn't, I, I don't have the picture here, but we took that situation. Let me back up a [00:06:00] second.

Speaking to you, anything you're using your voice for, if you're speaking with people, if you're doing presentations, if you are a singer, an artist, Lot of people coming in wanting to rekindle their emerging artists songwriting stuff. That still exists too. But when you're faced in that instant, your body will go into fight or flight.

So reacting is fleeing. There's a lion chasing me. This is old stuff downloaded in our, our body just as being humans. Homo sapiens going way back, caveman days. If that gets into the body and we don't have a way to reverse that or a tool to deal with that, it, it could be a potential mess. So we had a situation, young woman got on the stage, and this is what happened is, is she started to go into that fight or flight.

And what I was able to do in that instant, which. You know, it could have gone gone either way. [00:07:00] But what I was able to do, these are the things you can do when you're nervous. First of all, nervous is normal. What we wanna do is respond with tools. Wanna take a breath? I, I was gonna ask you if you wanna take a guess what the first thing is that you can do to recover is to take a breath.

That's the first thing that you can do. So, stayed up there, kept the man playing. Total professional. You know, that's the other thing. You're not working with a backing track either these festivals when or, or live performances. We're working with real musicians in real time, so they did awesome. Shout out to the band last weekend, continued to play and all I did was get this young woman back to a state in her body that she recognized.

It was. It was just, I just kind of got behind her, put my hands on her shoulders, you know, talked her down, back into the breath, back into the solar plexus, right? We get [00:08:00] nervous. We disconnect from all of that. Everything slips up into the throat. Now we're speaking up here because we're nervous and we don't know how to get back out of that.

So breath, calm. Body scan right now. Granted, in that situation, there were a lot of people watching, so that in itself was very uncomfortable. But within it was really just moments it doesn't take very long. And I'm gonna give you a couple of things we're gonna do here today. Things that you can do to counteract nervousness, doesn't mean the nervousness is going to go away.

The nervousness might still be there, but your body won't be in this reacting mode. Wanting to flee. So, stayed up there, hands on the shoulders, breathing the note. What we needed to do with, with, with singing, when you get nervous, same thing. Those notes all. End up up here. And then the next thing you know, the National Anthem is a perfect example.

You've seen some of my videos on the [00:09:00] national anthem. The problem with the national anthem is if people don't know where that first note is, that starting note, not just the note you're hearing. Where are you feeling the note in your body? That's what I program into singers. If, especially if you're doing an acapella, meaning no instrumentation at all, we program that note in the body and you start that note, those first two or three notes, and you sing them over and over you know, a hundred times.

So that that is programmed your body. Same with speakers, if you're presenting. If there's a certain tone or an element, we, that's another thing we talked about itty bitty authors last night. The elements in your voice, the earth, air, fire, water, metal element, earth and water are two wonderful elements.

Earth is going to have a more grounding, more serious. Earth makes you an authority and what you are presenting on water is a wonderful companion with Earth. It's flowing, it moves. Think about a creek. Beautiful. Yay. [00:10:00] Okay. Hillary's in the house and I only know it's you, Hillary, because Yes, I'm gonna see you when I'm off of this slide.

So, thank you so much for being here. I have eyeballs on the screen. I love it. I, I don't know who you are because I think you have to give Streamy yard permission. For me to have access to you. So look around for a button and you can't find it. Now when we get up, look for that. So the next time you come in, but if you can find it now, I can give you a shout out.

Yay Hill. I'm glad that you're here. So come back to, what was I talking about? Find programming the first thing into your body. So if you're a presenter, You're getting on a stage, maybe you're just going to be leading a company meeting. Maybe you just have a, a staff. You're gonna have to lead the next staff meeting and there's eight people in that meeting and you're already freaking out.

Cause you're like, oh my gosh, I, I am not comfortable doing this. This is outta my comfort zone. This is not in my world. I don't know how. And you're, you're stressing out. And the meeting isn't even for three weeks. Okay, come on people. So this is what you can do. Simple things. [00:11:00] First of all, we wanna identify.

You know, so our head makes stuff up, right? So I like the example of the staff meeting because it is just that it's a staff meeting. And are people going to be looking at you? Yes, they're going to be looking at you. They might be looking to you for leadership. Right. Maybe there's something you have to present.

Maybe there's a to-do list for your company and you have to designate people to take care of certain things to make the project complete, right? So here's some things that you can do. First off, let's deal with, with connecting the mental brain to your physical body first. Right? Breath is always gonna be the way to do that, and this is what happened.

On the stage, this is what happens. Anytime I'm working with somebody who's getting nervous is let's, let's put left hand on your heart. I think I've done with this with you before, right hand on your solar plexus, and what you wanna do is take that breath through your nose or mouth [00:12:00] past the lungs, all the way down into your solar plexus, that muscle that sits below your ribcage, above your belly button.

On the inhale you want that hand on your solar plexus to move forward. On the inhale, try that with me. Nice big breath, and move that hand forward away from your spine with the inhale. Here we go together, and then exhale out. This is something you can do if you're sitting at a desk right now. If you are if you're in your car at a stop, stop light.

Preferably, well, you wouldn't be watching this in a car. Hello. Nobody should be in their car doing this. Wherever you are, try that breath again. Breathing all the way down. Move that hand on your solar plexus muscle forward with the inhale and then back towards the spine on the exhale. And one more Last one.

Best one. Breath in and release and [00:13:00] exhale. And this is something, 10 breaths just like that. And a million more breathing exercises. 10 breaths will immediately, first of all, gets you out of your head, gets you to stop thinking, gets you in your physical body, cuz now you're focused on your breath and moving that hand on your solar plexus.

Forward and back on the inhale and exhale. The other thing that's happening is it's slowing down your respiratory rate. It's slowing down your nervous system. It is letting you know that you're okay. We're not in that old caveman fight or flight state. It gets you back in your body. You can start a body scan, feel your feet on the planet, feel the weight of your feet on the planet.

Right. That's the first thing. The next thing that you can do, again, nervous is normal, whether you're running a staff meeting or you're getting on a stage in front of over 300 or 3000 people, whatever it is. The [00:14:00] next thing is what, what is it that you're going into? Is it any of those things? Is it, is it a staff meeting with eight people?

Is it a, a corporate event? Maybe you've got a few more people, you know, 30 people gonna be in the room if you're getting on a stage. To sing as was the case this last weekend at Thele Festival. It's just a festival. It's a bunch of people that are there to have a good time. If you're in the corporate or a staff meeting situation, it's part of your job.

You've been picked. You have the honor to go in and lead this meeting or make this presentation. I'm really, really, really big. You'll hear me say this a lot being of service over self. When we're getting nervous and we're getting up in our head, it's because we're thinking about us. We're thinking about, what am I going to say?

Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Oh my goodness, what if I'm not well received? What if I mess up? What if I, all those things. That's all about [00:15:00] you, and if you keep it about who you're presenting to, if it's a staff meeting, oh my goodness. You have the privilege, you get to take charge you. You've got the to-do list there.

You've got the names, you're the coordinator. Go be of service to your staff. If it's a corporate event meeting, presentation, something you're doing. Again, it's not really about you, it's about whoever you're presenting to, right? As soon as we make that shift, the festival this weekend. It was about all those people out there that were there to have a good time.

This festival has, it's the first time it's happened since this first post covid event. We haven't had it. A lot of other things happened last year, but the Lemon Festival postponed I think one more, one more year. So, It was just about a good time. And at the end of the day when all was done we found that grounding centered place.

We got her back on key in the pocket as we say. She delivered wonderful lots, love, support, and the crowd went [00:16:00] crazy when they saw her be able to change the situation that was happening up there and just see her be able to relax and have a good time. So, Those are just a few things you can do.

Again, nervous is normal. It, it's, it actually serves us right. That fight or flight is there for a reason and there is a time that it's we're, we might need it. If there's a crisis, if there's Something happening where you need to make a fast decision. Maybe you know there's been an accident or you know, it, it actually is there to service for a purpose.

So I think the first thing about nervousness is, you know, what is real? What's really happening? Are you, are you in a, a life-threatening situation? Which is usually the case that the brain, that fight or flight is, oh my gosh, I'm going to die. And, and I'm not exaggerating, when people are, are getting ready to get on a stage or they even think about getting on a stage, this, this is how the [00:17:00] brain reacts, I might die if I do this.

And then what happens is you, you do the staff meeting. And it ends up being awesome. Maybe you do the corporate presentation or lead the event or whatever it is. Were you nervous? Were there some uncomfortable moments? Probably. Absolutely. It happens. Lot of things we don't have control over. Things happen.

Did you live through it? Yes. Maybe you even inspired somebody. And received some feedback, some positive feedback. At the end of the day, live performance for anything. Comedy, music plays and live theater. Oh man. Anybody who's done live anything, you all know, anything can happen. So it's, you know, how, how to do it gracefully, you know?

And one of the ways we can do that is being of service and keeping the focus on who are you being ser of service to? Who is your audience? And keep the focus [00:18:00] there because it takes so much pressure off of you. It doesn't, you know, it, it, it, we don't want it to be about us. We want it to be about. Your, your audience.

And I've gone over, I'm trying to keep these at 20 minutes.