Hey, this is the Daily Overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps.
Now today, I wanna talk about Coming Unglued.
At the beginning of this year, I shared with you some of my new years resolutions.
I made this little mind map here, I still carry it around in my back pocket, of some
of the things I wanted to try and do this year.
And some things are going really well so far, some things not so much.
But I still carry it around in my back pocket and it's kind of falling apart and everything.
But one of the major things I talked about for the YouTube channel was to stop saying
filler words, "you know", "um", "ah" and so forth.
And to just get better at doing the videos and get better at speaking.
So, I've done a few things this year - I started an online course from Roger Love, some online
speaking course.
I also joined the local Toastmasters group, so the toastmasters group in Oxford.
Toastmasters, for those of you who don't know, is a public-speaking type of thing, where
everyone gets together and they practice speaking in front of a group, being more confident
and all that kind of stuff.
It's been going pretty well, every two weeks I go.
But last Tuesday was my first speech in front of the group.
So, I had one impromptu speech which wasn't so bad, but I had my first prepared speech.
So I spent some time reading the speech and rehearsing it and learning it and everything.
And let me tell you what - I was super nervous.
See, part of me was like, before the speech, I thought, you know, from a logical point
of view, I thought that I used to get really nervous about this kind of stuff, but I shouldn't
be anymore because I've been doing the videos, I'm trying to practice this kind of stuff,
everything should be fine.
But, let me tell you, and from a logical point of view it's a supportive group, nobody was
going to heckle me, everybody's really supportive.
They'll point out things you can improve and some things that you've done really well,
but as the day approached, I started getting more and more nervous about it.
And I couldn't even pinpoint, from a logical point of view, I wasn't thinking of the worst
happening, I was just getting really, really..my heart was racing, before the speech my stomach
started to have all kinds of problems, which I won't go into.
And I just really tensed up, right.
My big fear was that when I got up there on the stage, I would become unglued and not
remember anything.
but fortunately, I rehearsed it so many times in my head that when I got up there, it was
almost like I was reading it from memory.
so, I was going through it and trying to focus on not using filler words, pause at the right
moments, breathe properly - all this kind of stuff.
But man - it was awful!
It was just the internal, the stress of everything and I didn't have that with the impromptu
one.
With the impromptu one it was just, they called me, I panicked for a few seconds, launched
into a speech, talked a little bit and then sat back down, kind of like the daily video.
So, the thing is, I used to feel that way at these when I started doing the videos.
I got really nervous the first few, and if you look at some of the early videos on this
channel, I was kind of shaking a little bit, even though ultimately not many people watch,
but it was really hard to get over that.
And I used to feel that way when meeting with clients, or job interviews too.
I would get really nervous, like I was sitting for a test and think "don't mess this up,
don't mess this up", and it was that stress and nervousness that caused me not to perform
at my best because I wasn't relaxed and confident, and everything like that.
So, I'm gonna continue doing these public speaking toastmaster-type things, just to
get used to that, because I need to get used to it.
There's a few other areas in life, in business, where I tend to come unglued and tense up
and everything like that.
Another one is, not so much with dealing with clients, once I have a meeting with a client
I sit down.
I've done that so much that I'm just completely comfortable with it, I feel like I belong
there, but I didn't at first.
That was really hard.
But it's doing the cold-calling, doing prospecting.
Prospecting is something I'm trying to do more of.
A lot of our clients are inbound so people find us on the web, they find us on YouTube,
all that kind of stuff, and they'll call and we start a project, all that works really
well but I kinda feel like I should be going out there and bringing some people in.
And I told you about this before, in the early days I tried to do cold-calling and I've got
so many books on cold-calling - here's one of them over on my bookshelf over there.
But that's just really bad.
It's like when I was a teenager and asking a girl on a date, you know, you do the approach,
and then you walk right past.
So when you have the phone, you have to make the call, I just can't do it.
It's something I'm gonna try to work on a bit more this year.
A lot of you guys who are gonna meet with clients, you might feel this way, you know,
that you get all tense up, become unglued and everything like that, the same way I do
speaking in front of a group of very supportive people.
It wasn't even a large group, it was about 15 or 20 people probably.
So, a lot of you guys get that way standing in front of people, but I think it's just
gonna be the case of doing it over and over again, so I'm gonna keep doing it over and
over again with the public speaking thing, until I get better at it, until I get more
confident in it, and hopefully that'll work out.
But, I know a lot of you guys, when you meet with clients, I just have to say keep doing
it.
Every time you sit with a client and you don't get the job, it's still worth doing.
or, if you go to a job interview and you don't get the job, it's still worth doing, because
it causes you to be more comfortable about the whole thing.
So, hopefully that makes sense.
Now my question for you guys is What causes you to become unglued?
Where the panic and the stage fright starts to build up inside you and your heart starts
to beat and you start to sweat.
What kind of things in your life does that to you?
Because for me, it's talking in front of a group of people, definitely, cold-calling,
definitely, if I had to ask people out, there's no way I'd be able to do it, but in sales
situations, cold-sales situations, I don't think I would be able to do that either.
Anyway, that's it for today, I'll talk to you tomorrow.
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