welcome to new beginnings with care and where we celebrate the creativity courage and wisdom of people creating change we highlight those who charge you pass make your life and career choices and face turning points welcome to new beginnings with karen dell and i am so pleased to have returning eileen senate who is the founder and president of speaking that connects you got it  and we are here the day after international women's day we wanted to come together because there's some interesting things that you're finding in the course of your helping people become better speakers that's true yes so welcome thank you so you and i had coffee and we were talking about your appearing on the show and some of the big fears that still exist despite you t instagram and all these things where people are instantly filming themselves but still public speaking is an issue why is that there are many reasons for public speaking fear and it's surprising actually as you're suggesting with so much education and instruction and digital cetera yet public speaking is still pretty high on the lift maybe second a little bit that and i've always been saying that education and training comes often too late or not at all so if you think back about being a kid you probably had to do a show and tell and you might have had to do an oral report which meant you stood in front of a group but whoever taught us how to stand in front of a group and the feelings are different and the skill sets are different for talking to many versus talking one on one i don't think teachers know that but speech coaches and communication trained people do know that a lack of training or insufficient training or training that comes at the wrong time or training that might come as a course and a benefit to corporate professionals but as a workshop with no immediate application right so by the time now that they need to use it it's long gone or just you know pixilated in some way right right and you talked about the levels of fear so certainly the training may not as you say come soon when you need to apply it so that's a problem but i want to go back to the fear piece because you know that's very real and the fear impacts people with their level of self confidence i would think absolutely i actually think they're islands of self confidence for example you might be really confident in your ability to manage a household financially or emotionally but not so confident being in front of a group or you might be confident as a driving a car or truck but not so confident in your role as a parent so i think we have different areas of confidence public speaking lack of confidence i think is one because of lack of training or not the right training at the right time but it also is suggests that to be in front of a group you have something to say that you have a mastery of a subject area that you're somebody and it's enhanced by the environment of your standing and everyone else is seated which often is the trigger people are staring at me what if i make a myst so the situation presents itself as something unique you don't get the training at the right time and if you have any doubt or now we're going to go deeper to history of criticism of shaming of being different of not measuring up some way being thought of in a step down manner or  appropriate to the me too movement that's currently exposed if you have a history of trauma sexual trauma molestation rape bullying this has shown up in my practice in my coaching practice for public speaking as another reason for being terrified and not speaking out and not speaking up and it could be even speaking up at a meeting when you're seated because i don't feel worthy i don't want to be laughed at who in my to say anything what if i say something and people don't agree with me how do i push back so it has to do with i think we're self worth and sometimes said so if worse is part of a culture of children should be seen and not heard but sometimes it could be that there was real drama and the cases that have been shared with me in confidence don't tell the people don't always know what's behind their fear into their safe enough or in pain enough and have the right trust enough to share their story yeah that ha d to be surprising i mean i know that people have many reasons why they fear public speaking you know certainly bullying i could see you you know if you were a former starter and you've overcome that they're working speech right exactly but you know you've worked on it and you can have small conversations but to your point about the elevation i thought that was interesting the point you're making and you know when you're elevated all eyes are on you you're put on the spot and that may be uncomfortable i totally get that but i hadn't thought about the elevation itself but i'm really curious about because i hadn't really connected these deeper trump traumatic issues and how that came up in your coaching people about public speaking how did you address that or you know were you taken aback by it yes ok so maybe twenty years ago i was at a corporate site and i was watching i was doing the training and one person i don't know if i shared this before so good that i went up to her afterwards and i said are you a ring or are you here to test me as a trainer because i don't know what i can teach you if you're so good and she shared with me and this will get to it eventually your question that she was on a drug that helped her racing heart beat and that without the drug she couldn't be in front of a group and even though she didn't know because it happened once if it would happen again she always would take this medication she was emotionally addicted to having this medication as a safety measure and she did a great job she never knew she did a great job because she just says he hated she did it it was done and she had no clue if it was a fly or die situation she later became a client and she wanted to get beyond the medication so i had uncover i mean by asking the right questions well why do you have so much panic so much terror so much fear and she said she didn't know so i asked her to look that in your life you know go through school but i kept on asking questions well was there a trauma in high school maybe you were laughed at what about grade school do you ever remember being criticized was there any trauma and she journal and uncovers for herself or disclose i'm not quite sure which at this point because i do have some that uncover and others that discloses that she had been abused raped as a five year old repeatedly by a family member and it was complicated because she did not know it five that there was anything wrong and to have a family person do this who you trust it's pretty you know part and parcel of the me too theory and this is and to be threatened to if you speak up you'll be in trouble and too complicated and i don't know that this is true for everybody she had a pleasurable physical experience so not until what she was older did she have any shame or guilt or concern but then it got  because it wasn't relevant anymore she had been able to go beyond it but in the fear of public speaking arena with the questions that got asked because she wanted to get beyond the medication and attachment this came forward and it was a very matter of fact it wasn't like a cry and a big first time kind of awareness it just was a link it was a dot that got connected and she was used to being grateful for that connection to her early experience was beyond the shame and guilt and all that because it was maybe forty years later while you know so that was an isolated case for me until a couple more years late when that was twenty years maybe fifteen years ago right and in the last five years i've seen a little bit you know more wow wow and is this is is this  women or you know i would have i would think that men i know men suffer abuse they don't all come forward and their voice also maybe tamp down you know due to that kind of trauma and bullying of of course i think i have not met or worked with a client male whose share any sexual molestation childhood trauma but the bullying situation didn't come from a male and he felt different gawky not muscular he was the kid that was picked on and it when he relocated and so he was new to an environment so though he did he come came from a victim sense of self was moved to a new environment a different culture and he was too afraid to be anything but quiet because of the past history and it was a harder adjustment so we carry that with him and maybe there was some boeing there too i can't quite recall exactly but it started you know in his first country because he was different to the to the group right to the to the macho group even if different right well you know it makes me think of the whole point of me too is finding your voice and speaking up and you know there's introversion extroversion that we know from myers briggs and this is totally different from that you know there's nothing wrong with being quiet there's nothing wrong with being vocal but what we're what you're helping people do is to be better and more off then tick as they speak and not just yep yep yep yep yep so i could see so much benefit from people working with you to kind of tap into that voice and have confidence but you know you're raising things that you just wouldn't necessarily ordinarily think would come up i think if the meat to movement had not been so front and center in the news these may be two handfuls of clients over thirty some years you know i would not have even thought to share this as one of the reasons behind public speaking fear because the numbers are so small right but it i k f a felt like i might be doing some justice for people who are in the closet who might not make that connection that their public speaking fear has something to do with their early abuse because it's not what normally comes up in fact some people have therapists for other issues but public speaking isn't something they are dress with the therapist because they have maybe relationship issues or work related issues or the family issues and so i feel like i have the duty or something to say here not  alone which i think is what they need to movement is all about is all about right is right you're not the only person who doesn't feel comfortable speaking to groups and has had a childhood sexual trauma were childhood bullying trauma right right the the ways that you help people to kind of tap into that you share the story where just kind of came up matter of fact then help them move forward right because they came to you and you're helping them identify what is causing the self doubt what his cause you to kind of tamp down your voice and once you identify that then what oh so different people react different ways one person with a very happy marriage who never told her husband this was something that he kept in her thirty years and she made the once the connection was made pretty much she was aware of that's why i'm so over protective of my is out there in social workers that this is not to take away from that discipline i am very respectful of mental health clinicians and services and i will tell a person who's shared this with me i've asked them first do you have a therapist because i don't want to you know compete and if not you know it's like i want to take  coaching plan of ten sessions before i determine that this is too deep needs more professional you know attention and so what do i do i support i reflect i ask questions i neutralize by sharing that you're not alone because i've met others i asked people to journal as people to list all the situations where use speak up comfortably sometimes we are so oriented to the negative you need to balance out you know like oh i'm a fearful speaker very globalised well are you fearful when you speak to your children you know are you fearful when you talk to your cousins  so let's find all of those places where you succeed and it's nurturing a better sense of self so that's one journaling is one and journali about success speaking to deflect the global ised perception of a client that i just can't do this i can't do it without medication i can't do this in my work i can't you know because it may have been one incident i may have been one deep incident but that doesn't mean yesterday is tomorrow right right so what you're really hoping people do is on burden themselves and realize that as you're saying one instance or many instances doesn't have to be the path going forward you can make a change that's right and you can rid yourself of what you were carrying and then if necessary i hear you also saying that you know you point them to professionals who are therapists or social workers if they need that kind of assistance absolutely carrying a injustice and i don't know about you but i can't say i wasn't raped you know i was in violated that way but there was criticism there was sha there were issues that parents educators clergy lay on you with now full consciousness and if you're a sensitive individual you might absorb that and  take it to heart yeah and then carry it with you with maybe under the umbrella of i'm not good enough i'm not worthy enough my value validated and carrying that with in takes up a lot of energy not to share the pain some people i mean i did therapy very young and for a long time i'm not an off but some people don't go that route right and they don't have to but sometimes people who carry that within are i just feel like they it takes energy to hold things in yeah and then if they may be overweight and they don't know why they can't lose weight or they have a problem in their family it's like there's so little energy left great to work on the things that they want to work on it so i think it's their choice always but that to know somebody who will listen  if you want to let it go right right where you're doing such great work and i'm glad that you know we're going to be airing this because as we discussed the time is now for people to feel that they can unburden themselves it's the time has always been but we understand why people have you know the media has said the time is rather media has said that and that is now creates that creates awareness and people from all walks of life rich poor different ethnicity ethnicities cultural backgrounds it has spilled over in all engender as we said both  genders it has spilled over in all aspects so we have just a little bit of time left i wanted to ask what is your kind of land going forward with this aspect of your  commute you know speaking that connects or did you see that you my help more people who kind of fit this paradigm or you really just wanted to raise it because it's something that you're discovering because of the timing of the two yeah well i'm always a coach and a trainer so you know i'm doing some training in my studio in plainsboro coming up in april and may and that's for skill sets but if some and people come because they're to petrified sometimes sometimes they're just i want to be better i want to learn something new but for people who hear this and resonate with the stories that we've discussed they i want them to know that some speech coaches are really mental health trained and very can be very helpful to them and so i'm not changing my career i've always been both a coach and a trainer and i'm writing about it i'm writing about it so that if you don't see this show and you don't come as a client it may show up in a newspaper or a magazine and perhaps other speech coaches will follow and share and maybe if i help one person to come out of the closet of secrecy about childhood abuse related and their current concern about speaking then i've done my job absolutely absolutely because each one of us has something to share and it's important to gain that voice and and take that burden off as just i could be feels like a weight and to be able to you know drop that weight off and move forward you don't have to carry that that's to me the power of me too and to see the level of celebrity non celebrity politician you know ordinary you know woman or man come forward and describe both how they've overcome why they've kept quiet it's really the common thread is there and i think it's really healing up and be heard i think that being heard part is as important as the speaking up absolutely absolutely yeah yeah it's it's connected with definitely listening to someone's pain as well as that person sharing their pain right it's important yeah well it ties to you know your business speaking that commit right why speak if you're not going to connect again so it has to do with being heard and speaking up yeah yeah well eileen thank you so much for joining me sharing this important topic for the work that you're doing with individuals to help them achieve their voice and to speak to connect thank you very much yes thank you happy to be here thank you you know and thank you for two