Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking. It comes, like all the other phobias, from the ancient Greeks, more specifically the Athenians, who spent time thinking about speech communication.

The word itself comes from the Greek word for tongue (glossa) combined, of course, with the more familiar root word for fear (phobos.)

For those of you who are Jackie Gleason/Ralph Cramden fans, it means, “Hummina, hummina, hummina,” accompanied by an urgent finger inserted between neck and shirt collar, with an audible “Gulp,” at the end.

Glossophobia is a disease to which all of us are susceptible, and is associated with several co-morbidities.

Hyper-Infoitis: The swelling of information in the body of a talk, usually caused by an insecure speaker trying to impress her audience with her expertise.

PowerPointitis: The proliferation of PowerPoint slides, caused by the mistaken belief that a presentation is what the speaker says, and not what the audience can take away.

Oldnewsatoid Syndrome: An illness that causes the speaker to tell the audience what it already knows (common in Medical Education.)

Laser Pointer Obsessive Disorder: The need to clutch, fondle, and wiggle a small, thin, pointed object with a magical little hole in the end from which comes a beam of intense light

Hyper Logorrhea: The tendency for speakers to speak so rapidly that the audience has to conclude that the speaker is brilliant but completely unintelligible.

Uhmatosis: The swelling and swarming of inarticulate groans and pre-verbal utterances that get stuck in the cracks between words and stink up the flow and impact of human speech.

Repetitive Uptalk Illness: Occurring primarily in young females, debilitating to their professionalism and credibility, it corrupts the intonation patterns of their speech so as to make them appear needy of approval, paradoxically earning them disdain.

These are just the first seven co-morbidities associated with glossophobia. Our speech scientists are hard at work diagnosing other illnesses that cascade from this terrible human scourge.

Stay tuned.

Recently, a client of mine, who is also a childhood friend, left me a voice mail saying that he did not think my short article on the power of gesture to create emotion was appropriate for the market I serve. Essentially, the short piece tried to make the point that speakers can alter their inner emotional state by finding a gesture to do (in private) that can move them out of fear and anxiety and into calmness and confidence.

He said that the suggestion seemed too “pop” and “retail” and inappropriate for sophisticated people. To him, it seemed like something he would find in an airline magazine.

I am grateful for his honesty, and for his trust that I would take his comment in the right way. I know he is watching out for my best interests.

I would like to try to make the point again (and here in public) in a way that makes it more palatable to him and those who might think as he does.

We all agree that just as feelings create physical gestures (happiness puts a spring in your step), gestures can stimulate feelings (raising your hands above your head and punching the air in triumph tends to lift a sagging mood.)

As speakers, we want to present ourselves as enthusiastic upbeat people who are excited about our material. If we happen to be nervous, a few fist pumps, or jumping jacks, or whatever, done out of sight of the audience, will serve to prime our emotional pumps.

Also, while sophisticated people may reject the idea that they could benefit from using creative gestures as an offstage tool to create more positive inner states (even though they admire dancers, actors and singers who use just those techniques to bring their material to life) they themselves might more effectively bring their own complex messages to life with a bit more expressiveness.

I taught acting for many years under the tutelage of Michael Chekhov and his disciples, and I now serve on the board of MICHA–the Michael Chekhov Association. Michael Chekhov was the nephew of Anton Chekhov, and he was considered the greatest actor of the 20th century in Russia.

Michael Chekhov disagreed with Stanislavsky about how actors should create the inner life of their characters. Stanislavsky suggested, for instance, that when called upon to cry, the actor should recall his “dying grandfather” or some other sad event, a technique he called sense memory. Michael Chekhov, on the other hand, suggested that creative gesture can stimulate sensation, and that sensation is the vessel into which we can pour our creative feelings.

I think both can work, but I tend to lean toward Chekhov. The technique of sense memory removes us from the immediate circumstances, and asks us to visualize something that occurred, or will occur, at another time and place.

Gesture, on the other hand, gives me an immediate physical and psychological jolt that arouses my vitality and sense of play. I can walk out on stage with an inner feeling that I have the energy and will to do my best.

The body can speak to the inner life, and when necessary, we can use gesture as a tool to create a more appealing and effective presence.

A friend of mine, who is a very successful consultant, told me that she has lost her confidence as a speaker. For twenty years she has been speaking to large groups of clients and potential clients with success.  Now she feels very unsure of herself.

She reports to me that she’s terrified of going blank.  While she used to trust herself to speak without slides, and instead drew pictures on a flipchart or whiteboard, now she prepares a script and a set of detailed slides.  She says that her voice shakes, her hands tremble, and her eyes dart from side to side as she speaks.

I respect this person, and feel honored to be trusted with her struggle.  She told me that she has gotten a medication to help her, and it works.  She’s feeling better.

But that solution is not appropriate for everyone.  It’s expensive, might cause side effects, and some of us are opposed to pharmaceutical assistance when it comes to our “valor under fire.”  Plus, it could take the edge off–the edge that makes great musicians play dramatically better when under pressure to connect with a live audience.

What can you do if you lose your nerve, and feel your performance skills deteriorating?

Refuse to speak?  Few of us have that option.

Confess to the client or the meeting host that you are having a crisis of confidence and ask to be relieved of the duty to address the room?  Not a good idea–not unless the client or host is a long-time friend who will keep your secret and cover for you.

Lie, and say you’re not feeling well?    That’ll work.  Once.

Pray?  That could work for some.  After preparing like a maniac, throw yourself on the mercy of your God.  Trust your fate to His/Her guidance.  Give it everything you’ve got and hope that Someone is watching.

Rehearse more than usual?  Prepare so thoroughly that even if you pass out with anxiety you can still get your point across?   Yes!   The knowledge that you did everything within your power to ensure your success will strengthen you.  Anticipate everything that could possibly go wrong and develop a strategy for dealing with each potential disaster.  The performance will probably seem easy compared to the rehearsals.

Act as if you’re confident?  Absolutely!  We know instinctively that confidence is the essential ingredient for our success, and we constantly make every effort to demonstrate confidence to others.  A speaker without confidence does not inspire others to have confidence in her.

As a matter of fact, you can use posture and gesture to alter your inner state.  Just as emotions tend to shape our bodies, our bodies can also influence our emotions.  In private, find a gesture that gives you a good feeling (like Tiger Woods pumping his fist) and do it over and over.  Try it at different tempos.  Then, simply imagine you’re doing it while standing still.  The image of the gesture will inform your behaviors and stimulate a sensation that can help you overcome your negative feeling.

Smile?  Yes, if you can manage to do so.  Anxious speakers tighten the muscles of the face which makes a mask that listeners recognize.  Work hard to smile.  Charles Strobel of Yale University demontrated that a smile literally changes your brain chemistry and diminishes your experience of fear.

Lift your eyebrows?  Believe it or not, yes!  Lifting the eyebrows is a universal gesture that indicates surprise and delight.  It will help you feel those emotions, and it will make the audience respond positively to you.  By the way, raising the eyebrows also brings the voice forward and helps you be more expressive.

Remember to breathe?  Yup, that works too.  As you prepare for the event, and you feel anxiety rising, sit quietly and become mindful of your breathing.  Watch it come in and out.  Try counting your breaths while saying to yourself, “I’m breathing in ONE; I’m breathing out ONE.  I’m breathing in TWO; I’m breathing out TWO,” all the way to TEN.  Then start again.

While you’re doing this, send your mind on an inspection of your body.  Check out your legs, your lower back, your shoulders, your neck, your forehead.  See if any area is experiencing tension.  If so, tell it to relax.  Or imagine that you’re breathing in and out through the tense spot.

Here’s another technique.  Count your breaths from 100 to zero.  The effort to concentrate on your breath while counting backwards takes the mind away from your pre-occupation with your anxiety.

Finally, envision yourself succeeding–over and over again.  Picture it in detail.  What do you look like when you’re succeeding during the speech?  What do you sound like?  What are you doing?  What’s the audience doing?  How do you feel while you’re succeeding in your vision?

Confidence can be defined as the expectation of positive outcomes.  Talk to yourself in a positive manner, so that your subconscious mind absorbs positive messages.  Do that long enough, and your self-image changes.  You begin to think of yourself as, “The kind of person who speaks well in public.”

And that can make a huge difference in your performance.

Trying to master a mental task?

Acting it out can help.  In a study reported in Cognition, when kids were told to use gestures as they learned to do a type of math problem, the lesson stuck.  Embodiment gives you–literally–another way to grasp an idea.

Actors use gesture in a similar way–to grasp the feeling and intention of the character they’re playing.  When trying to discover the best way to speak a line, some actors will say the line using different gestures–even random and counter-intuitive gestures–to expand the range of possible interpretations of the text.

Gesturing also helps us find the right word in conversation.  It’s almost as if we use gesture to “reach” into our own minds to find the word we need.

As reported in another posting, speakers with their hands in their pockets are more hesitant and awkward as speakers.  Speakers who gesture say fewer “ers and uhms.”

Lesson to be learned?  Let your body talk!

They are mostly women.

I have now spent 20 years in the speech trade, and most of the people I run into who speak too fast are women.  I have no idea why.  I can only speculate.

1. they are more ambivalent than men about being the center of attention,
2. meaning they simultaneously want to be present and disappear
3. so they speak fast in the hope of being heard and ignored at the same time
4. or they have turned the old saying, “children are to be seen and not heard” on themselves and think that “women are to be seen and not heard.”
5. or because they are more verbally skilled than us men, and have bigger verbal centers in their brains, they are bored chunking through the analog process of speech and instead zip through the verbiage on their way to other thoughts.

I have explored these issues in a more responsible and scientific manner in a new High Stakes Presentation newsletter called The Price of Speaking too Fast.

I hope you will visit the site and read it or download it.  It’s available as a PDF or as HTML.

Speaking above the speed limit is a very common problem, and a dumb thing to do, because it can get your career arrested.

One of my consulting firm clients came to me with a problem that surprised me.  Although they hire the most accomplished students from the most competitive colleges and B-schools, the firm is concerned about their unwillingness to speak up at meetings during their first two years.

I recognize that it’s human nature to sit back in a new setting to observe how people behave and learn how to calibrate your style to be most effective.  In fact, the film Tweleve Angry Men is a perfect example of this.  The character played by Henry Fonda is inconspicuous in the beginning, and only asks questions as he begins to participate in the deliberations of the jury on which he is serving.

I further recognize that when one is surrounded by bright, confident, assertive people, each one older and more experienced than the next, (some of whom are your bosses) it is only natural to be cautious in what you say.

Nevertheless, if you are being paid for your ability to think and communicate your thinking, you’re not doing your job if you remain silent throughout the meeting.  This client of mine told me that one of the senior executives at his client company asked, “Who was that guy you had at the meeting?  He never said anything?  Why was he there?”

This kind of overly-cautious behavior can slow down the development of good client relations because it can undermine the trust the client has placed in the consulting firm.

What can we do to help younger people feel comfortable enough to speak up in meetings with more senior colleagues, and with clients who have vastly more experience?

Here are a few ideas beyond telling the shy and the silent that if they don’t talk they’re in big trouble.

1. Become a better listener
2. Become a better questioner
3. Trust your mind.
4. Refrain from thinking while others are talking.  Just listen.  Thoughts will come.
5. Fear is misplaced attention.  Focus on what’s being said.
6. Don’t try to be the smartest person in the room.  State the obvious.
7. Dare to be dull.  Get out of the “Impressing” business.
8. Recognize that what seems obvious to you may be a revelation for others.
9. Agree and add.  You don’t have to find something to disagree with.
10. Ask questions if you don’t understand or you need clarification.
11. Enter the fray.  Get grass stains on your knees.  Have an experience.

I know audiences don’t exactly jump for joy when attending presentations, but speakers are often puking in the bathroom minutes before they go on.

I am interested in cures, or coping strategies, for intense speaker anxieties.  We need to put our heads together to figure out a smorgasbord of techniques to calm us down.

I’ll go first.  These are the ones that I use.

1.  Work on the content until I’m convinced that it will do the job and hold the interest of the listeners.

2.  Rehearse aloud so that I can deliver the talk in my sleep.

3.  Practice making big, whole-body gestures during rehearsal and just before I go on.  This helps me break through the physical tension and “holding” that may constrict my expressiveness.

4.  Memorize the beginning and the ending.

5.  Remind myself that I am a pretty good showman when I make up my mind to be one.

6.  Remind myself that the audience wants to be entertained, even if they’re at a funeral.

That’s the first half dozen.  I welcome your home remedies, and any research that you know of.  Let’s build a stockpile of cures that lead to courage, presence, and expressiveness.