How to Combat Speaking Anxiety with Stoicism: Stoicon 2024 Talk

Last week, I gave one of the lightning talks at Stoicon 2024. The topic: How to Combat Speaking Anxiety with Stoicism.

Want to see the video? Head to my Substack 👉 Citizens of the World

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sarahmikutel.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome. I am so happy to be speaking to you again and to share what I shared at the 2024 Stoicon. So, stoicon is an annual Stoicism conference put on by the Modern Stoicism Organization, and they have a lot of academic people who talk at these conferences. But my favorite part is what they call the lightning round, where people talk about how they are incorporating stoicism into their own life, whether it's just them as an individual in the work that they do. It's fascinating. People told such good stories.

Speaker 1: 0:43

This year I was asked to contribute one, which was really exciting, so I gave a lightning talk on how to combat speaking anxiety with stoicism, showing up as who we really are and sharing parts of ourselves instead of holding back. You know, a lot of people I work with are excellent listeners, but they're not always the best contributors. So how can we move past that? Because part of our role in this world is to contribute. So I love stoicism. Well, maybe I should just jump into. Maybe I should just jump right into the talk, and these lightning talks are quick, hence the name, so they're about five to six minutes and that's what mine was. So I'm just going to jump right into it and I this was a video and there are some slides. So if you're interested in actually watching the video, you can check out my sub stack and I will put a link in the episode notes. All right, enjoy.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Hi, I'm Sarah Micatel and I'm a communication and mindset coach for introverts, and today I'm going to share how I use stoicism to help my clients reduce their public speaking anxiety and become more calm, confident communicators. So if you've ever felt nervous presenting in meetings or voicing your ideas in groups, this presentation is for you, and I could talk about communication and stoicism all day, but we only have about five minutes together. So I'm going to focus on three key areas One, understanding public speaking anxiety. Two, stoic strategies to manage anxiety. And three, applying role, ethics and communication. So let's start with why we feel anxious when speaking publicly, and we'll use an example.

Speaker 1: 2:41

So imagine Michelle is a bright and dedicated professional. She spent hours preparing for her presentation, so she really knows her material and she has a great rapport with her colleagues. But as she stands in front of the room before the meeting begins, her heart races, she feels shaky and panic really starts to set in. These immediate, involuntary sensations are completely natural and, as we Stoics know, they're not up to Michelle. Her fight or flight response is kicking in to keep her safe, even though she's not in any real danger. So if Michelle were my client, I would guide her to take deep belly breaths, to slow down her breathing, relax her body and stand in a position that feels grounded and stable and, most importantly, to accept what's happening instead of resisting it. Michelle can remind herself my body is reacting as if I'm in danger, but I'm not. I'm safe, I'm prepared.

Speaker 1: 3:47

By challenging the false impression that she's in a high stakes threatening situation, michelle can begin to calm her mind and her body. Now, let's say this anxiety stems from the belief that Michelle has to be perfect or everyone's going to judge her. Here's where stoic reasoning can help. So a thought pops into Michelle's mind If my presentation isn't perfect, they're going to think I'm incompetent. She starts to feel anxious, but then she pauses and evaluates this impression. Does the presentation need to be flawless to be valuable? No, her colleagues are much more interested in her insights and her effort than any potential imperfections. Plus, she's prepared well and she knows her material. So Michelle chooses not to assent to the impression that her presentation must be perfect or she'll be judged. Instead, she reminds herself I'm here to contribute and share my work, not to have to impress everyone with a flawless performance. So her focus shifts to delivering her message clearly and authentically. And based on this rational reflection, instead of running away, michelle steps forward and presents with more equanimity. She uses hand gestures to articulate her points and also to give her adrenaline a way to escape, and she focuses on connection instead of perfection.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Now let's talk about the premeditation of adversity, and this is the stoic practice of mentally preparing for obstacles. So before her presentation, michelle can mentally prepare by visualizing how she would use her rational mind to respond to potential setbacks. So she can do things like practice accepting nerves as just natural physical sensations that she can simply allow. These come up when we care about something that's important to us. She can practice responding to a question she doesn't know with a plan to follow up, addressing technical issues with humor, challenging unhelpful thoughts with more useful ones. There's lots of things that she can visualize before her meeting. And by visualizing rational responses to challenges, michelle increases her emotional resilience and also her stress tolerance, and this allows her to face her fears with more poise and more equanimity. And she can also imagine her colleagues responding positively to her presentation and feel a sense of stoic joy that she showed up with courage and integrity.

Speaker 1: 6:18

Now let's talk about role, ethics and how to align your actions with your identity and your values. So Michelle realizes that part of her role as a colleague and team member is to share her insights and participate, even when it's uncomfortable. It's not about performing for others or having to prove herself. It's about contributing to the team and connecting authentically. Speaking Up isn't a performance review. It's about collaboration and adding value, and this idea ties into what Epictetus said about the nervous liar player. Epictetus explained that it's not the act of playing the liar that was causing anxiety, but the belief that the audience's judgment determines one's worth.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Michelle's fear of presenting comes from a similar misconception that her value depends on external validation rather than her own virtues and efforts. And in Stoicism, we know that virtue is the only good and vice is the only true bad and everything else. Praise, criticism, success, failure they are all indifference, because it doesn't define who we are at our core. So Michelle has been wrongly valuing external praise as good and fearing criticism as bad, and this was making her overly anxious about how others perceive her. Instead, she's starting to learn to value the virtue of contributing her knowledge and supporting her team and fulfilling her role. And this is the true measure of success, not whether she receives praise or avoids criticism, but it's about developing her character and being a good person. By challenging her false impressions and properly categorizing what is good, bad and indifferent, michelle can shift her focus from seeking approval to fulfilling her role with integrity. She can remind herself that her worth is not determined by others' opinions, but by her commitment to acting with courage and contributing to the greater good.

Speaker 1: 8:24

Thank you so much for your time and attention today. I love meeting fellow Stoics, so if you would like to connect, you can find me at stoicwellbeingcom or sarahmigatelcom. You can visit me on Instagram at sarahmigatel, or you can listen to the Citizens of the World podcast. So that was my lightning talk for the 2024 Stoicon event. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it and again, if you want to watch the video, you can head on over to my Substack page. That's all for now. Thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are.