AT: Perpetua I do a lot of pitching and I do a lot of public speaking but I still get nervous before I do it. I get nervous particularly when I’m pitching into an entirely new sector or there’s it’s a really important pitch I do feel the nerves so even though I’d pitch all the time and I practice two or three times a week let alone pitching that much I still get nerves.

Now I know for other people they talk about nerves and they feel like there’s a rash that comes up and they feel like everyone’s looking at them, they become slightly paranoid, they forget things and they come off after a pitch saying I forgot all these things — and I’d look at them and I would say — but, look you did well how can you think that you did so badly? And these people suffer from a terrifying level of nerves, sometimes the nerve stops them from pitching all together.

I am now in the chair — I have a problem with nerves — talk to me Perpetua how on earth am I going to get over my nerves?

PN: So tell me, it was it like when you go up to a new person in any social situation for your party to be networking how do you feel?

AT: I feel like they probably don’t want to talk to me and maybe they judge me but I always try and make an effort.

PN: And when you make an effort, after you make the effort how do they respond to you?

AT: I know, they respond positively back to me.

PN: And how does that make you feel after that?

AT: I feel better but at the time… I feel better10–20 minutes later but at the time I just feel nervous….

PN: And you know interactions — do you run it through your head and judge yourself for that?

AT: Yes. So perhaps the next day or on the way home I’ll think about it and I’ll say that was a lot better than I felt before but I can’t but help feel those nerves and anxiety before the event and at the event when I’m meeting people.

PN: So one really important thing is that for you, you don’t get obsessed with your performance after the event even though you’ve done well because, there’s a subset of people who do you know, no matter how long to perform they go — it was shit, it was terrible.

So for the next few week, it’s a really great thing that you don’t. So before your next interaction a really important thing would be for you to tap into that feeling of satisfaction after you have a great interaction with somebody else and always ask yourself, you know, why am I condemning myself to the worst possible outcome?

AT: You know and so, I would feel better if I after an interaction and I try and think about how positive feeling and I focus on that before I meet people?

PN:Yes

Example

So let’s give you an example on how to make it real okay. So you know that feeling of accomplishment of satisfaction after you had a really great interaction with somebody.

Where do you feel it in your body?

AT: I feel warm.

PN: Around — what colour?

AT: Orange

PN: Orange, fruit, very abundant lovely okay so before your next interaction, connect this orange fruit here, okay that anchors you there, so every time your brain goes but ‘the next time it’s going to be awful’ you know your mafia mind tries, so instead of shutting away like most of us do and getting really upset trying to be rational about it — because human beings are irrational. Right.

Instead you just go ‘I hear you, you are my muscle that is so big’ and it tells you keep telling me all this horrible things to myself and I hear you but I’m going to focus on this gorgeous orange feeling.

AT: So acknowledge the fear but think about the positives by relating it to an object from a feeling?

PN: Yeah.

AT: And bring that back to me so before I go in for it — so translating that to a formal pitch situation I can feel the anxiety building up, I recognize it, I acknowledge it and then I think about that colour the fruit and that feeling that I had after the event.

PN: Yes. Because that’s something, because all those memories are stored in our body, in ourselves, you can’t just talk painful memories or happy memories away or into you so you got to find a way of tapping into this feeling that exists in your body….

And another thing would be you know often people believe that if I am fearful there’s something wrong with me.

But fear – it’s just evolutionary so, I often explain why we have fear – fear teaches us to run away to, you know, adrenaline surges through our body to charge us up to fight or run away so, anxiety, that adrenaline is completely natural and can be channeled positively or negatively.

AT: Yeah and I’ve got to see the anxiety recognize it acknowledge it and then make sure it works towards me

PN: Yes.

AT: But I consciously do something about that so before I go into a pitch into a room full of people who to whom I’m pitching I would concentrate my case on orange on, an orange feeling?

PN: That’s really unique to you. Okay, because you don’t want your brain to sabotage yourself.

Okay — I’ll tell you all the things about — ‘you’re so bad you’re never going to do well’. You want to concentrate on your victories because that’s the only way in which you’re going to develop competence. So the slogan I’ll tell my clients is something I made up, that’s called ‘doing is believing’.

AT: Okay

PN: The more you do it the better you’re going to get even if you do and you do badly and that’s okay it’s just feedback, because some days you’re just going to feel not so good about yourself, because the day just was crappy. You know sometimes for instance, people died in your life and you’re not going to be at your optimum performance — you got to let yourself have space to be a human being so anybody can get over that level of anxiety, yes

AT: And everybody can pitch?

PN: Yes

Dr Perpetua’s Fears

AT: Okay do you personally have any anxiety or fears when it comes to pitching or anything like that talking in front of lots of people?

PN: I used to have yes, just you know talking to new people I would consider myself as somebody who has social anxiety when I was younger, just that I never knew it had a name.

And then people started saying well when ‘you look so confident’, I was like that’s complete bullshit. As I grew older I started to realize that you know I can get over this, I can learn the right skills and I can trust myself, I can just be brave about it okay and so you know whether I think pitching is something that we do. Whether we are in formal setting or even meeting new people you’re pitching yourself.

But you got to take the whole stress away. You know if somebody doesn’t like you it’s okay sometimes people just don’t fit each other so you’ve got to think less about rejection and make it personal and maybe this person just isn’t right for me and, what can I learn from this how can I have fun doing this?

AT: Okay yeah that’s fascinating, thank you.