Apr 23, 2020
Stress Management
In today's episode Kathy Gruver talks about Stress Management For Professional Speakers.
The outbreak of COVID-19 (coronavirus), and its profound impact on the speaking business, means the topic of stress management for professional speakers has never been more timely. In this episode of The Speakers Life we hear from stress and communication expert Kathy Gruver on what we can do to survive and thrive.
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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/sl059-stress-management-for-professional-speakers-with-kathy-gruver/
James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was
first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's
largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like
to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with
over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you.
Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to
register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of
the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and
tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking
business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not
before you listen to today's episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor. He a keynote speaker on creativity and artificial intelligence and the founder of International Speakers Summit. Today I speak with Kathy Gruver. And we talked about how to take the stress out of your speaking different ways to improve your presence on stage and developing resilience in the face of rejection. Enjoy this session. Hey, there is James Taylor. And I'm delighted today to be joined by Kathy Gruver. Kathy Gruver PhD has graced stages on three continents to cruise ships and a handful of islands including TEDx. She hosts a TV show based on her first book The alternative medicine cabinet and has earned her PhD in natural health. Kathy, is the 12 time award winning author of seven books including conquer your stress, workplace wellness, conquer your stress at work and journey of healing. She has studied Mind Body medicine at the famed Boston Henry Institute for Mind Body mess and Harvard, and has been featured as an expert in numerous publications including glamour, time and Dr. Oz is the good life as well as appearing on over 250 radio and TV shows, including lifetime NPR, CBS Radio and Sky News London in 2015. She had the privilege of creating a stress reduction program for the US military and worked to help stop the underground sex trade in her community. For fun and stress relief. Kathy does hip hop and flying trapeze, not something you normally associate speakers as well. So it's my great pleasure to have Kathy joining us today. So welcome, Kathy.
Kathy Gruver
Oh, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, you know, it's conference season. So I've got a lot of travel
coming up a lot of really great talks coming up a lot of trapeze
coming up with Yeah, it's, it's unusual. I just planned my own
retreat, a woman's empowerment retreat. So it's an experiment.
We'll see how that goes. I think it's a really good outlet for what
I do. So we're going to do everything from meditation, mindfulness,
yoga, dance, trapeze, organic food in an eco resort. So I'm really
excited about that. So fingers crossed that it goes the way I
expect it to, so
James Taylor
How did you will begin to how did you get involved in the world of
speaking specifically?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, you know, I have a background as an actor. I was a theater
major. So being on stage for me was totally natural. And when I
moved cross country, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and
when I moved cross country to Hollywood, and then after about 10
years, that quote, didn't work. So many people were like, Oh, what
a waste. And that's such a shame. And I'm like, but I don't think
anything's a waste. So I ended up falling back on that massage
thing. I've been doing massage for 28 years. I don't know how
that's possible because I'm only 35. So, but you know, I started
doing this healing work. And I started working with stress work,
and it just sort of built into then I started writing articles.
Then I wrote a book and then somebody, I know what it was, I was at
one of my first conferences, just as an attendee, and I saw these
people up on stage. And I found in my notebook, I would take notes
on the right hand page about their content, and notes on the left
hand page about them as a speaker, because as a performer, you
know, I mean, we're a little critical, but I was constantly going,
Oh, that doesn't work. And oh, that's really cool. They're really
funny, and oh, I wouldn't do that. And I set the goal of I'm going
to be on that stage. And it was a natural path conference and they
didn't pay and, you know, but three years later, I found myself on
that stage. And that sort of when I realized the blending of the
healing and the performing is perfect. So here I am
James Taylor
amazing. And so I'm interested when you were making that transition
into from being a being an actor and then into into speaking as
well. There's obviously there's a lot of things. There's a lot of
similarities on on stage in terms of certain performance things use
the body voice blocking and, and stuff like that as well. But what
were some of the, the kind of superpowers you managed to have from
your your time as an actor that that felt very natural to be able
to kind of move in and maybe was something you didn't necessarily
see in other speakers?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, I think part of it is that storytelling ability, some people
specifically based themselves as a storyteller, and I kind of am
except that I use the story as the lesson and I realized the more
speaking I did, the more people were interested in those stories.
And you know, we all have personal stories, we all have a journey,
and mine all seem to lead to this really specific conclusion and
this nugget of a lesson or a personal Failure which lead to
something. And so I found that I just have this ease of
storytelling. And because I'm used to acting and using my voice and
using my body emojis, I'll even throw funny voices on if I'm, you
know, pretending to be somebody else. So I think that's one of the
things and I think that sense of humor too. I also have I get total
I have an ease on stage. Because to me, it's just I'm just I'm very
conversational. I'm very, very down to earth in my in my
performance, but you know, in my presentations style, so it's what
did someone say the other day? I'm a West Coast mentality with all
the meditation and stuff. And then East Coast delivery. It's very
direct, but it's very, you know, so that's my new kind of thing.
Don't anybody take that West Coast mentality with the East Coast
delivery? That's my new that's my new thing.
James Taylor
So you're somewhere in the middle of the country
Kathy Gruver
The flyover states.
James Taylor
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that because, like you I mean, I
come from the deck of the world. I come from World of music and
being a drummer and to being very intimidating and sometimes I
think sometimes the least stressful part of my job is actually the
being on the stage bit. That is the other bits that are more
stressful in terms of like getting there. I do all the marketing
and blahdy blah and all that stuff as well. And stress. I know a
lot of speakers that deal with stress in different kind of ways.
But obviously, this is a this is a recurring thing, pretty much
every speaker I know of either they have something that they've
just developed themselves in order to get them in, you know, a
place where they can, they can do their best work on stage, or
they've learned techniques from someone or they're just almost
crippled by it and somehow they just managed to push themselves to
the stage and just just gonna get there but they don't really
necessarily enjoy enjoy the process. And so what advice would you
give in terms of other speakers how we can better think about
stress and maybe manage stress is the idea of managing stress.
That's completely wrong. Should we not even be thinking about
managing is we think about something else?
Kathy Gruver
Oh, that's a really good question. Okay, so we can manage stress to
the extent that we can. But the thing is stress is this
uncontrollable thing that's outside of ourselves. If we could
handle it, it wouldn't be stress, it would just be that thing we
have to do. So the fact that stress is external to ourselves, and
it's not controllable, we can't control the flight delay. We can't
control the traffic, we can't control that the speaker before us
went 20 minutes over. And now we get two minutes of our half hour
talk to do. You know, we can't control any of those things. So you
can manage stuff, you can get to the airport early, you can have a
back up plan, but that's not going to stop those external things.
So to me, the key to stress is really understanding that it's not
the problem because we can't control it, and then controlling our
thoughts about it and our responses to it. And so often, we have a
reaction to stress. We have this knee jerk reaction. I did it
yesterday morning. I had this sudden panic, that a talk that I'm
giving in a couple of weeks. I wasn't getting any emails on that I
didn't have the template for the PowerPoint that I didn't have the
registration as I just suddenly had this. Oh, and I had this
reaction. So what did I do? I emailed the the organizer, and I
went, Oh my god, I'm not getting any of that. And I sent it off,
and then about 10 minutes later found it all, and went. And I wrote
back and I said, I'm so sorry, I'm juggling. I've got six
conferences in two weeks, please forgive me, and I'm sure I kind of
look like a spouse to her. And I don't normally do that. I normally
have the ability to take that pause and respond. And I jumped the
gun. I sent her a frantic email. I look like an idiot. I felt
stupid. But it was that reminder to me of take a breath. Hang on,
go see if what you think is true is true. And then form a response
from there and I didn't I reacted. And we all do that. We all have
that reaction, whether it's something our husband says or it's the
guy on on the freeway, or you know, but that's what's in our
control is how we respond to these external events. And so much of
our stress is in our minds, it's these things we're thinking about
it's the past we're remembering the future we're ruminating on
those what ifs that keep us up at two o'clock in the morning. So
that's the key is recognizing that most of the stress is actually
in our in our control internally, but we can't change that external
stuff.
James Taylor
So that little in the internal dialogue I mean, the one the one I
was always told was if you're feeling stressed they're gonna say
I'm feeling stressed saying just say to yourself I'm feeling
excited, you know, just I just a little pattern interrupt a thing
as well. But what if you're, you're you're know you're maybe you're
coming up your week or two weeks before your speech and you're
getting really quite anxious about it and you know, you're kind of
having they're not able to sleep and maybe you're you're you're
having this early morning Oh, you know, what if I blank What if I
can't remember my lines? What if, what if something happened?
What's the light the power goes out? What if What if What if What
kind of self talk can we can we be doing with ourselves to just
come down and and just enjoy enjoy the process more?
Kathy Gruver
Well, here's my first comment on that and I hope this doesn't come
across as rude but if you're freaking out that much about speaking,
maybe this isn't the perfection for you. Okay, just throwing that
out there I mean because you cuz I mean serious but if but if it's
like if it's that nerve racking for you. Now I know that fears and
phobias come over time I'm working with I do hypnosis as well. And
I'm working with a client right now who used to be very comfortable
on stage. And over time, he has started to have fears about it,
which is really interesting. So we're gonna we're gonna go really
deep inside and figure that out but but if speakings what you do
and you do have that what if thing but if you look at those what
ifs James, where are those? Those are in the future. What if the
lights go out? What if I blank on my speech? What if I get cut
short? What if no one likes it? What if that joke doesn't land?
What if I offend somebody? What that's all someplace else. That's
someplace else isn't here yet. What do we have right here is you
and me sitting in our prospective offices talking, respective
offices talking. So it's a matter of staying present. And we can do
that a couple ways we can meditate. We can do mindfulness
practices, we can do breath work. And like you said, basically
doing that pattern interrupt of affirmations, I am calm, I am
comfortable, I am in control. All of my speaking gigs go smoothly.
I am hilarious. And people laugh at every joke that, you know, it's
that anticipatory stress, that actually talking about what stress
does, it messes with our memory. It disturbs our cognitive
function, so we're not as on it deals with our immune system. So if
we're so worried about getting sick on the flight, you worried
about getting sick on the flight is actually depleting your immune
system and you're gonna be more apt to get sick on the flight. So
stress has all these negative things to it. So if we can control
that stress, which is basically just staying present Everything's
those things that we're afraid to get are gonna happen have less of
a chance of happening.
James Taylor
And then when we get in so I'm thinking about something I did. When
I kind of got started speaking, when I start to feel maybe a little
bit nervous about something usually was about the content. For me
that was a bit nervous about the particularly the new type of
content that I was going to be doing. And I just went full on
stoicism Cicero and I said, What is the worst is going to have
Okay, I'm gonna imagine the very, very worst that's going to happen
if I totally screw this up. And it was so ridiculous, as I imagined
like this is happening and like, really, if that's the worst that's
gonna happen, then. That's okay. Yeah, I can recover from that. And
it actually, it took away a lot of that stress because I basically
I played out of my head the worst it was gonna happen. It really
wasn't that bad. So I can admit, okay, that's fine. I can come back
to it. But then I find a slightly different challenge is this idea
about, especially the first few times being up on stage being
present on stage. And it just feels I know there's first time
anyone's spoken will probably feel this like some of these first
bit cover speeches you do. It just goes like like that it's gone.
Like what what did I say? I can't remember
anything about that. And so and then it took me some time I'm still
working on it now is like being really more present and and really
have feeling the energy of the audience and playing with that and,
and doing that doing that sort of thing. But how do we start to
kind of get the how do we start to develop our presence? Actually,
when when we're on stage?
Kathy Gruver
I think breathing is fabulous. I mean, that sounds ridiculous,
right? We have to brave but there is no. People are really afraid
of silence. They don't want to pause. And what I just do, I not
pretended. But I took that moment to formulate my words that
actually sucks people in because if I wait then people suddenly go
Wait, What's she gonna say now? You look panicked if you that's a
very different look. That's six people in a different way. That's
Oh, crap, she forgot what she was doing. And you're flipping
through notes and you're looking at you know, that's, that's chaos,
that's adding stress to it. But it's totally okay to pause for a
minute and have that silence. Because, you know, you played music,
what makes the music music is those spaces in between notes. And
it's totally okay to vary your tempo, to slow down to speed up and
get really excited and then drop it back down. And that's where
that actor thing comes in. And on stage, I think about that, I
think, where am I going to speed up? Where am I going to get
louder? Where am I going to get a little and then where can I drop
that back down. And in that slowing myself down, I have the ability
to reconnect with the audience, because they slow down and they
kind of lean in and you can see their expression change when you
vary your tone, your temper your speed. All of that stuff. So I
think that connecting with the audience is really about just being
aware of how you're saying what you're saying. And being
comfortable just stepping back for a second and taking that pause.
And I remember years ago, we have something here in Santa Barbara
called mind, super mind. And these are thought leaders and people
who would come and they would do an evening I think they did like
three or four a year. And I can't remember who it was. It was
somebody like Christiane Northrup, or someone who was, was a very
powerful Female Speaker until like female empowerment and health
and spirituality and stuff like that. And she walked out on stage,
and everybody clapped and she sat on the chair. And she must have
sat there for three minutes. Just sitting there, and we were all so
like, sucked into what is she? What is she gonna say, you know, and
you could see like 150 people leaning in simultaneously to see that
commanded so much power. And I think so many people are so afraid
to be silent on Stage because it's really scary. It's really naked.
It's very vulnerable. Just try it and see what happens. It's a
really interesting technique. It's a really interesting technique
and it sucks you back in with them. And I also I'm, I'm all about
meeting people's eyes when I'm speaking. And you can tell who in
the audience is up for that and who's not because they'll turn away
or they'll keep meeting your eyes, I tend to go back to that person
to get it again. So by the end, I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm picking on
you. So, you know, but it's like and if you're not comfortable
meeting their eyes then kind of look over their heads. That's the
trick without from the acting thing. But um, but yeah, it really is
about just taking that pause and consciously reconnecting with
them. And then yeah, the talks gonna fly by and later, you're gonna
watch the video and go, I was fabulous.
James Taylor
And essentially, I mean, I was I was watching two talks recently,
actually, I went to one attended one i was i was a guest at an
event and it was your former president, President present Obama.
That was the keynote speaker at it. And the thing that Putting
politics aside, the thing that was very interesting for me, for him
as an orator is his use of pacing and pausing, you know, quite
deliberate, you know, and if I probably if I worked out how many
words per minute it would be quite low. And so I experimented with
that just in my own speaking at certain stages, if I wanted to add
more like power, more weight to something, I almost couldn't have
thought of that timing. And then I listened to another speech
recently, Oprah Winfrey's one that she did for the Golden Globe
Awards, amazing speech, and especially towards the opening of that
speech. And also towards the end of the speech, she uses some
certain gift devices and certain ways in terms of rhythm and timbre
and everything I thought, I really liked that I really like how,
how she's kind of used, and I get kind of like stuff, experimenting
with some of those things couldn't be mine. And I think this is
where you start to once you know your your material, your content
material. This is the things that act as like a really, really good
app is being able to then That fine tuning being able to just get
all the nuances really pull everything out of that that story to
help help your brain so you mentioned going quiet going into the
audience you know you losing as well one of the things I'm most
fascinated with if I go and see theater is how it always feels that
actors are much better the use of their bodies on stages than than
speakers speakers and I put my I kept myself but you kind of end up
going into these kind of like quite static more like no kind of
things powered by their power poses or whatever the term is for
them. But you can you have you can set things and I will see what
like the great actors I see on stage are great performers musicians
as well. There's there's a there's a fluidity this additional real
naturalness as well. That must be trained that must be not
something you can you immediately can come out of the box with
Kathy Gruver
That's a tough one for me to comment on because I shot out of the
womb and my mother strapped ballet shoes to my feet. So and my dad
had handed me a football so I was a very confused child. You know,
I've been using my bodies since I was three or four, because I grew
up as a dancer, so I'm very comfortable on stage. I'm very
comfortable in my movements. There's also just some people who are
comfortable in their body. And then there's those who aren't who
are constantly tripping bumping into things, knocking things over.
They, like their limbs aren't like that baby fall, the cult that
tries to walk for the first time, they just sort of fall over. I
mean, that's just some people just aren't kinetic, they're just not
connected in their body. So that is something that can be trained.
But yeah, I mean, one of the things that, you know, I was a theater
major, and our choice was we either had to take downs, or we had to
take movement, movement classes, and whether that was stage combat,
or blocking or using our bodies in a certain way. But yeah, totally
I have, you know, I'm very animated when I talk. And so someone
could take 300 pictures of me and I'm always kind of like going,
like I'm always looking for headlines because I'm always making
these weird faces. But it's so funny because I tend to do this a
lot. And so I have all these pictures will be Doing this and it's
like, I kind of stopped doing that, because it's like, My face
looks fine. But I'm, I don't know what I'm measuring, but I'm
parallely measuring something. So you're right. I mean, we do get
kind of locked into these physical things. And that can be really
distracting because I watched an amazing keynote at a conference.
And she kept and I can't demonstrate because I'm sitting down, but
she kept kind of like, hitting her hips like this. And I'm
thinking, why did she keep doing that, and then she kind of let her
hands bounce up, and I'm like, it was just distracting. So I don't
know if someone blocked that for her, or if that was a natural
movement for her. But I was very aware of going, whoo, that's
jarring to me. You know, she's talking about this very emotional
thing of, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna mention any of
that. But it's like, she was telling this emotional thing, but she
kept doing these violent movements. And when I coach other
speakers, I work with the pacing, but I also work with when is the
time to gesture, you know, because if you mute somebody, and
they've done with this with politicians and they've had body
language Experts analyze their gestures and their hand movements
and their facial expressions. And it's fascinating to see
unconsciously how we look at those movements and what they
communicate to us. Yeah. So yeah, I'm gonna stop measuring things.
And I want this woman to stop banging on her hips like she's trying
to mate. I don't know what she was doing.
James Taylor
The one we had Mark Bowden is a great body language expert here on
the summit, and he was a lot of politicians as well. He's great
speaker. We also watch a lot of politicians. And one of the ones he
said to me was, he said, one thing is some speakers can do is they
can do the pointing thing a lot with, you know, pointing in the
audience. And he said, what they've The reason, actually Bill
Clinton and Bill Clinton's speaker training or for speeches that he
got, he was he had this terrible habit of pointing and pointing at
people and putting on your speaking it could be quite an aggressive
kind of move. Like I'm telling you this kind of wagging your
finger. And so he was told, do this. And now this this thing here
that you see all the time. But I speak by every port if you watch
CNN, a TV show, if you'll see politicians using this a lot, and
that comes back to the body in language expert that trained Clinton
and Clinton started doing this rather than the finger is also we
start seeing all these things happening all the time. I'm one of
the things that you I know you've spoken about before is I can move
to like future pacing or or how you can use your incredible
imagination, your visualization abilities that we have as human
beings with the brain that we've got to really help you achieve
your goals, your goals as a speaker. Can you talk a little bit
about that?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the first things is we have to be
clear on what we want. And we can't just say I want success.
Because what does that mean? I mean, Success to me might mean
something very different than to you than to everybody else. So I
think it's really important to pinpoint those goals. And numbers
are very symbolic. our subconscious totally understands numbers. So
put a number on it. I want to do 30 paid talks this year. Or I will
do you want to put it in the present tense? I do. I am hired for 30
paid talks this year. Okay, what is paid mean? Just paid me they
give you a chicken sandwich for lunch does paid me and you get 10
grand does paid mean, you know, really make it specific and then
then ask for it. Now, as my husband said the other night, you can
sit around and visualize till you're blue in the face, you still
have to work at it. So you still have to be good at what you do.
You still have to put it out there. You know, you can't sit at home
and visualize the perfect spouse and then hope it's the UPS guy
because you never leave the house. You know, you actually have to
go out and do the work. But I think oftentimes we get so vague in
these that I want success. I want to be a speaker. Okay, what does
that mean? And I remember during my acting days, I was doing this
manifestation thing and this visualization these affirmations of I
want to be a paid actor. I want to be a paid actor. I'm gonna be a
paid actor. I am a paid actor. I was doing this whole thing. And I
got a gig. I got a touring children's company and I was so excited.
It paid $7 an hour,
James Taylor
you did a bit more specificity.
Kathy Gruver
Okay, that's not what I was going for. I want to be a six, you
know, but it's like, but I got what I wanted. Yeah, I got what I
wanted. You know if your horoscope in the morning paper says you
will get in prosperity today and you find a penny on the street, it
was kind of right. So you know, the more specific you are. And
here's the cool thing about our brain, we can't tell the difference
between what we're thinking about and imagining, and what is
actually happening. So this is why when we're having those negative
fantasies about the future when we're dwelling in the past and
remembering that awful thing, when we're telling that story again
and again and again about the jerk that cut us off on the freeway,
what we're doing is actually completely re triggering that fight or
flight response, which we don't need. It's really detrimental to
our health to our memory to our like I said cognitive function, all
this stuff. So when we're fantasizing about the future, make it
positive. Because if not, let's say you're going for a A job
interview or speaker interview, you're about to have this interview
on the phone with this fabulous meeting player, you want this so
bad. And this is your inner dialogue. Oh, man, you know, I don't
know if I'm actually qualified for this. And they're probably not
going to have enough money to pay me. And you know, they probably
want a guy because they wanted a sports figure, and I'm not really
a sports figure, I'm just a trapeze person, what the heck do I know
and I don't really look like my picture. And maybe I'm not as
funny. And I'm probably gonna have a bad hair day cuz it's raining.
And, you know, if that's how you're going into that phone call,
just hang up, because you're probably not going to get it. I mean,
just because you're worked yourself up into this negative space,
where you're going to get on the phone with her expecting to hear
no, and you're going to in some very subconscious way, or sometimes
conscious way. Create that for yourself. Whereas if you think ahead
of time, oh my gosh, this is gonna be the best phone conversation
and she's gonna love me, and I'm gonna have the best hair day ever.
And we're going to have this great rapport and we're going to have
a fun conversation and she's going to be so excited to hire me. She
might even give me more money than I asked for. And you know, if
you build that up, if nothing else, you go in with such enthusiasm
with such excitement with such presence of mind, the interview is
going to turn out better. But here's the other thing, even if you
don't get it, you're going to be better equipped to handle the not
getting it. You know, if you're already so stressed, you're at an
eight and upset and they say no, and you shoot off the church to a
12. And now they're never gonna hire you again, because you reacted
like a giant baby. If you go in at a stress level of two, and you
start to react and maybe you go to a four, that's still manageable,
that's still like, Oh, I'm so disappointed. You know, maybe, maybe
in the future, we can work together again, as opposed to Oh, okay,
well, great. You know, it's like, it's gonna change how you react
and respond to these things. So going into a situation fantasizing
about the most positive outcome is going to present you better.
Same thing on stage, you're going to present so much better if you
go in thinking this is gonna be the best speech ever.
James Taylor
And he said that on the visualization. I you As well, if I
bizarrely I found, I have lost a little post it notes around my
goals and things that I'm wanting to do. And my usual approach to
these things is, I will write, think about them. If I want to write
them down, this is something I want to do. But then I will figure
out a way of not becoming overly attached to the thing. So I'll
give you an example. One of the ones was to speak NSA, I actually
have a note I found areas of my board, which is speak at NSA
convention. And this year, you and I, we both spoke at the NSA
winter winter conference, which was great. But here's what I what I
did is I use my imagination for thinking about that. But I don't
get overly attached to that as being the outcome. Instead, what I
get really, really attached to and not really attached, but really
think about is, well, what are the rituals and the daily things I
need to be doing each day in my practice and in my work, in order
that that will be it'll just be it'll be a natural repercussion of
doing that. So for me, it was Working on my keynote for me, it was
having conversations other great speakers. For me, it was outreach
to meeting planners every day. So those are actually extremely
structured. In my week, I've got really focused on trying to do
those things by doing get, particularly if again, after the speech
happens, it's fine. The other one I was told, which has made life a
hell of a lot easier is visualize what it would look like if it was
easy. And it was an interesting one, because then it made me think
it was and building a business or speaking, like, Okay, what would
that look like? What if being a like a wizard, international
keynote speaker, whatever your thing is? What if it was easy? What
if it was easy, and I'm thinking about it just now and it actually
very quickly creates a very quick through line to what you're
trying to achieve and, and district distresses as well. So those
are just some of the things I just heard from my experience of how
I use. I've used visualization and use kind of goal setting in that
way. as well. So I'm guessing your, your journey through speaking
and you've had ups and downs and different things as you built your
speaking career. Can you talk about maybe a key insight or a
lightbulb moment where you went, Okay, this is the direction I want
to go with my speaking or this is who I want to serve with my
speaking or you just made a very important discovery yourself and
your work as a speaker.
Kathy Gruver
You know, it's tough because I'm still traveling this journey. I
mean, I am in no way an established speaker yet. I mean, I've done
tons of gigs. And like I said, I got to speak at NSA, which was
such a huge honor. That was gigantic. I got to do a TEDx, which was
huge. I've gotten to travel all over the place, but I'm not where I
want to be with my rights. I'm not where I want to be with who I'm
speaking to yet. And I think it's a constant exploration of Who are
you? And who is your audience? Because you don't stress Oh, my God,
I can talk to anybody. I can talk to school kids. I can talk to
teachers. I could talk to parents. I could talk to nurses. I could
talk to you know Like, my audience really is endless. And I
remember when I was writing my dissertation, my advisor said,
narrow, and I went, Oh, but it's already so narrow. She goes, No,
no narrow. And I said, but now it's too narrow. She's like up three
more narrows. By the time I had this teeny little thing, and I
thought I'll never be able to find enough research on this 165
pages later, you know, and there is that fear, though in Oh, but if
I only speak to 911 dispatchers, what happens when I run out of 911
dispatcher? You know, we we do have that fear of limiting
ourselves. But if you look at TV, I mean, if you're a Seinfeld fan,
you know, we all know who George Costanza is, and no matter what
role he does now, he's George Costanza. I mean, that's just that's
all we see. But that's okay. Because he was a damn good George
Costanza, you know? But they know that getting that typecast thing.
We're so afraid of that but that is how so many successful people
made their living. You know, if you look at really big well known
speakers, they're not going out and just doing anything for
anybody. Yeah, they do have that laser focus. So that's one of the
things I'm working on right now is honing down. I'm ripping apart
my website. Again, I'm you know, I'm redoing all my material. And
I'm really trying to figure out what are the words I want to use?
Because stress kind of isn't doing it anymore. Three years ago,
everybody wanted stress. Now everybody wants mindset, corporate
culture, emotional intelligence. So it's like I'm having to change.
It's not really changing my talk, but it's changing the way I'm
phrasing it, so that people go, Oh, we want her. And I think the
biggest one of the biggest lessons I've learned, and I actually
mentioned this in my little five minute talk for NSA is, yeah,
we're all on this path. And occasionally we look over and we see
somebody else go other speaker to Oh, thank God, I can totally
commiserate with them. But we get really jealous of other people's
paths, we get really judgy of other people. paths. And I have a
dear friend of mine who he put a book on Amazon. It wasn't even
available yet. It was just literally the thumbnail. And a giant
corporation saw the book called him and said we'd like to give you
$20,000 to do our keynote. He's never been on stage before. And he
calls me and says, I don't know what to do. And I'm thinking, geez,
I kind of don't know what to do. I mean, like, I've not gotten
$20,000 working. I haven't, you know, I'm not there yet. And so I
helped him with a contract. I helped them with the negotiations
thinking, I haven't even done this for myself yet. He got three
more spin offs from that gag at 20,000 apiece. And this morning,
I'm talking to him and he goes, Oh, yeah, I just got a call from a
bureau to send them my stuff. And I'm thinking, ah, because I've
been working so hard at that, and him seemingly with complete ease,
just got it and I was so happy for him. But there was also that
sort of petty jealous childish frustration of why am I not getting
that? You know, and I sat back and went, Okay, let's pause. And
let's think about this. I don't know what his path is. I don't know
what his journey is. I don't know what the end game for him is,
frankly, I don't even know what it is for me. But I can't compare
myself to his journey. I can't compare myself to his success and or
failures. Because I also know his entire life has not been a walk
in the park. Nobody else has. But it was just this clear thing to
me of crap. I thought I was over all that you know, I thought I was
over that that little hurt kid thing that happened when you were
rejected so much as an actor. So it really it bubbled that like
pain body back up for me and I went, What a great experience. Now I
can deal with this in a different way. And what can I learn from
him that helps skyrocket my career a little bit more. So it was it
was frustrating, but it was really interesting and I'm really glad
I I'm, I'm glad I felt that because to me if a negative thing comes
up. What is the last I learned from that I don't want to hang on to
it. And you're probably the only person I'll tell that to you and
I'm done with that story. But what can I get out of that? What
positive Can I pull out of that emotion that I was having?
James Taylor
So you mentioned a word there rejection. Now actors of any
profession actors probably have the highest levels of rejection
because you know, and it's it's it's just part of the of the
industry part of the trade of doing that job as well. Did that help
you when it came to when you're, you're speaking with meeting
plans, event professionals for the conference, and you don't get to
win every every gig. Did that help? Having had rejections as an
actor so you've kind of built in some kind of resilience in
yourself?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah. Massively, you know, I mean, it's still never feels good. No
One No one has ever like Yea, they said, No. Sometimes I question
why they've said No, and I do a lot of submissions through things
like you know, speakers and speaker magic where you don't really
get to have that one on one contact with them. And it'll just To
say, declined, and I'm like, ah, why? Because I want to, I want to
be better. And if it was, maybe they didn't like my video. Maybe
they didn't like maybe I look like their cousin who they hate.
Maybe they booked it already. Maybe they change the theme. You
know, you never know why. And even if someone says you, you really
suck, we're not hiring you. If you're confident in what you do, if
they say you suck, you kind of go alright. I don't think I do. Most
people don't think I do. But I'll take that and, or you follow that
up with but what about it sucked? Oh, well, the way you phrased
that in your proposal. Ah, okay. So I don't suck. That thing I
wrote sucked, you know. So it's like, I think if you can have
feedback from people, I mean, it's fabulous. Sometimes it hurts.
It'll I hate it. I hate ripping apart my videos and get it you
know, because you do want to think everything you do is fabulous.
And I know it's not and I've directed theater, where I have had to
actually shred actors a part to get them to give me what I need in
that role, and I've had it done to me That's the process of getting
better, if everybody just thinks you're perfect, and you know, they
won't give you any negative feedback, then you're not going to grow
as, as a speaker as a performer, as a marketer, as a wife as a, you
know any of that. So that's where that constructive criticism comes
in. And you have to learn to take that. And because we are wired as
humans, to respond to negative things faster than positive things.
So if you're about to cross the street, and I go, No, you're our
brain picks it up quickly and responds because it's for your
safety. So we're actually wired to respond to negative things more
than positive things. So if I tell you 30 things that were great
about your talk, and then I end with Well, I mean, that one joke
kind of fell short. What are you going to hear? That's what I'm
gonna focus on. Because one, you know, it just we think we're
fabulous, which we are, but you know, we hear that one negative
thing in our brain goes, Danger, danger, danger. Something's Didn't
you know, we're actually wired that way? That was one of the
studies I found in my dissertation. So that's the problem is
shutting that part of the brain off and going, hang on? Why did it
not work? And you have to be confident enough and have the balls
enough to ask someone. Okay, I'm going to take office, tell me why,
you know?
James Taylor
Yeah. The way I've always, not always, but more recently done this,
especially with my team. So I have a team that does a lot of the
outreach for potential speaking gigs, is, you know, when they were
starting to feel like they were getting rejection on certain things
when hiring or they were only closing a certain amount of our, our
business. And I said, well, let's just why don't we just focus on
on the numbers. And so we know our numbers really clearly how many
people that we need to get to watch that video that speak of video.
And then of those people, how many people we need to get on it on a
call and all those calls, how many we need to convert and then and
you can you can go on from there. And I said, let's just let's just
get to like geeky. Let's get up Like that you would be going if
you're sitting playing a computer game or something, and you're
just trying, how can I get that number up? And so what that does is
and this only I appreciate this only work for some people that like
think this way, but for us ended up becoming more of a game. So we
knew that we like had, we had to do a certain number that we wanted
to do every week or every month. And we knew and we kind of just
got like, Well why is it that why are we only converting on that
when that campaign where we could be so we approach it more like
almost like scientists were experimenting with stuff and knowing it
was gonna fail, but that's fine. And but we were just trying to
find the things then as quickly as possible kill the things that
definitely weren't working and won't bring it anywhere. So what
about your circle in your you're kind of speaking now, and I'm
interested in are there any kind of tools or apps or online
resources that you find really useful for yourself as a
speaker,
Kathy Gruver
you know, I'm going to open up an actual appointment book girl and
just write it down. I can tell you my new frustration with
technology is people are now forcing you to adopt certain
technologies which kind of drives me crazy because I don't want to.
So like right now I'm, we're I'm in speaking at five different
conferences where their main way of communicating is Facebook
Messenger. I don't want to be on Facebook all day and the problem
with that is you know, you send 30 put 30 people on that link. And
every time somebody comments boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop,
boop, it propagates more messages. So I literally spent like seven
minutes the other day scrolling through gifts and funny comments
and people doing before I found out that they needed my bio. Just
email me and tell me, Kathy, I need your bio. Like, I don't want I
don't have time for that. I still have a full time job as well as
all the speaking stuff. So. So it's like, forcing people into
adapting technology. And we talked about this at the power women at
the NSA. We broke up into little groups during our morning session
and talked about that and that was one of the things we all kind of
went I don't Want to use your scheduling program or I don't want to
use your new video programmer, I don't want to, you know, and so
many people now are kind of forcing you into that. And I've been
doing tons of video interviews where you have to use a certain, not
only a certain program, but it has to be through a certain browser,
and I don't have that one and my laptop's full and, you know, so
this is actually to me, one of the downsides of technology is
there's so much happening so quickly, that I personally can't keep
up. And I am definitely not technical. I'm not technologically
challenged. I love technology. I am excited about technology, but
so much of it is being thrown at us at once. And there's so many
different things are being thrown at us at once. That I think it's
overwhelming for a lot of people. Yeah, even people younger than me
who grew up with us, you
James Taylor
know, I'm in this camp as well. I'm thinking about I'm doing one
booking just now with people in Singapore. And it's we're using
what's the community primarily communicating by WhatsApp. I'm doing
something else in Russia, and they're using telegram, which I never
use. My British clients and American clients, they've used them
messenger and they're using email and they're using all other
slack. I'm doing one thing, I'm to beat using slack for it. And I
know you could feel overwhelmed a little bit you know, and
sometimes that frankly, is old school getting on a phone, a phone,
and you can get I've got a call later on today. And it was all
these threads were going and finally I just had to say, Can we just
do a call? Can we just like do this one call or we could just get
get all this stuff done? And I don't have to see all these gifts of
cat pictures as much as I love cats, but I'd love to see anybody
get cabbages.
Kathy Gruver
Exactly. That's that's my point. You know, because Yeah, I don't
want to have to dig through all that. And frankly, I don't want to
be on Facebook all the time. Because one, it's a time sock. And
two, I get into what's happening with my government right now. And
then I start to lose my mind. And then you know, so I don't want to
have to have Facebook on all the time. But now I feel like I do.
Because I turn it on. I've got 30 notifications, but now I can't
tell what is my friends lunch? What is my friends sharing her
friends, friends lunch? What is actual business that I have to do?
And so I'm now forced to adopt some of these things. And that would
be fine if I wasn't forced to adopt 30 things. Yeah, but yeah, I
got Twitter and I got LinkedIn, I got fat and I you know, it's
like, ah, someone just texted me Do we still do that?
James Taylor
You know, but what if we go to like 17th century technology that's
what books What is your favorite favorite book that that you've
really made me go a lot from it could be on speaking could be on
we'll be talking about a lot today which is presence and, and think
about stress as well. What would that be you'd recommend?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, you know, I love Eckhart Tolle. Work. I've not only read his
books, I've listened. I'm in some of his audio programs right now.
I really did like Brendon Burchard stuff, too, is the idea of the
funnels. And you know, that was kind of the first. I was always
resistant to this. I'm not, I shouldn't say I'm not a good
salesperson, because I mean, we all have to be, but that selling
from the stage thing, I always really shied away from that to the
point where I'd get to the end of my talk, and I'd see my husband
in the back holding up my book and going tell them you have our
book. I mean, it was like I was so into giving information. I
forgot I was there to actually sell books, you know, so I had to
remind myself of that, and somehow I got connected with Brendon
Burchard stuff, and it was it triggered enough in me that I went,
Okay, let's take this to the next step. So I think from a business
perspective, you know, I'm reading a bunch of stuff now. Because I
want to learn from other speakers who have had that me To me, it's
like I want to learn constantly. I would be back in school if I
could. So I love deck artola stuff. Carolyn mace was one of my
people back in the day and Louise Hay that kind of stuff but but i
think i think there has to be a spiritual. I don't mean religious,
but there has to be some sort of connectivity base under all this
business that we do. And I think that's one of the reasons why
presence is so important. And 2016 was the year of mindfulness, and
a lot of people on what the heck's that and I don't want to
meditate, and you know, they're to type A, they're too driven.
They're too whatever it is, and it's like, but I now see a benefit
to that. Because I'm very type A and I'm very driven, and I'm very
East Coast, and I'm very, but I found that through that presence,
through that mindfulness, it has allowed me to be so much more
successful, and handle it's so much better when I don't find a
success. So it's just it's it's all around all around a good thing.
And
James Taylor
there's two examples you gave of a car and Brendan, totally
different types of speakers. The the violence age is completely
different. And Brendan is an absolute master. It comes from selling
from the stage and especially online programming. He's brilliant at
that stuff as well. A car is really much more about can Unity comes
after obviously the Louise Hay Hay House kind of model as well, but
they're both brilliant. They've kind of chosen their thing. And and
they've committed to it, you know, 100% as well, which I love about
the both. What about a final question for let's imagine you woke up
tomorrow morning and you have to start from scratch. So you've got
all the knowledge you've acquired over the years, you're I think
you're speaking, but no one knows you. You know, no one you have to
restart. What would you do? How would you restart things?
Kathy Gruver
Oh, go back to bed now. Um, you know, I think the first thing is,
to quote Michelle villa-lobos, you've got to have your back end in
order. And you know, I didn't do that. At the time. I just launched
in I went, I'm a speaker and I had a couple books, but especially
when you're starting out and you are doing free speaking, selling
the $15 book, at that point was a $10 book, the back of the room
isn't going to sustain you financially. I think I would have my
website better when I started, I would have my online programs
together. I'm a little behind the eight ball on that because I was
so resistant to, I don't want to sell. And now as I've gone through
this journey over the last two or three years, I've realized, you
kind of have to, you know, I'm seeing less and less. And this could
just be me in my field, but I'm seeing less and less well paid
speaking engagements. I'm seeing more people that want to give you
a really low rate, but we'll let you sell from the stage at the
Angela let you make that offer. And I never had an offer to make.
And I think had I started with a stronger offer had I started with
my online course if I had that stuff in line. When I was doing all
those magazine and radio interviews, I told a publicist I was
working with I said, I want to be on the Today Show. It'll be on
Good Morning, America, I want to be on and he looked at me, he
said, Why? And I said, Well, why wouldn't I want to be on the show?
And he goes, do you remember anybody that wasn't famous that you
ever saw on Good Morning America? And I said, No, he goes, Okay, so
let's say you're on Good Morning America and you have your $10
book, and people love you and they go to your website, they buy
your $10 book. Now what
I want now what, what I wasn't getting what he was saying. He said,
You need to not only have the $10 book, you need to have the $30
module with tapes, and then you need the $160. And then you need
the $10,000. He said, What is the point of wasting that opportunity
to get in front of millions of Americans? If you have no reason?
They're going to stick with you over the years. And I went, Oh, you
know, it suddenly struck me and I meet so many people who are like,
I want to do radio and TV to which I now say, Why, yes, it helps
your credibility. I mean, I've done hundreds of radio and TV shows
hundreds of magazine interviews, and that has absolutely helped my
credibility as an international expert. But I think had I had more
to offer on the back end ahead of time, I think it would have been
an easier journey. So now I feel like I'm kind of going back to
square one and how To start again, it's a little frustrating
James Taylor
and if people want to like learn more about you connect with you
maybe they're speaking or something and they they know there's a
spot there and they want to bring in someone that speaks about the
topics that you speak about as well especially around presence and
what's the best way for them to to connect with you?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, you know, I'm on all the social media because I have to be
and Kathy groover calm is the best and there's all my books and my
topics and all my stuff there so that's probably the best Kathy
groover calm and there's a contact me there form as well.
James Taylor
Well, Kathy's been a pleasure speaking to you today and learning a
little bit more I feel I should still be distressed actually after
this call. I've got a surprising feeling pretty chilled now. Thanks
so much for coming on. I wish you all the best with your
speaking
Kathy Gruver
thanks so much.
James Taylor
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