Apr 23, 2020
Stress Management
In today's episode Kathy Gruver talks about Stress ManagementFor Professional Speakers.
The outbreak of COVID-19 (coronavirus), and its profound impacton the speaking business, means the topic of stress management forprofessional speakers has never been more timely. In this episodeof The Speakers Life we hear from stress and communication expertKathy 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 wasfirst aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world'slargest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd liketo access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions withover 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you.Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able toregister for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 ofthe world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies andtactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speakingbusiness. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but notbefore you listen to today's episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor. He a keynote speaker on creativity andartificial intelligence and the founder of International SpeakersSummit. Today I speak with Kathy Gruver. And we talked about how totake the stress out of your speaking different ways to improve yourpresence on stage and developing resilience in the face ofrejection. Enjoy this session. Hey, there is James Taylor. And I'mdelighted today to be joined by Kathy Gruver. Kathy Gruver PhD hasgraced stages on three continents to cruise ships and a handful ofislands including TEDx. She hosts a TV show based on her first bookThe alternative medicine cabinet and has earned her PhD in naturalhealth. Kathy, is the 12 time award winning author of seven booksincluding conquer your stress, workplace wellness, conquer yourstress at work and journey of healing. She has studied Mind Bodymedicine at the famed Boston Henry Institute for Mind Body mess andHarvard, and has been featured as an expert in numerouspublications including glamour, time and Dr. Oz is the good life aswell as appearing on over 250 radio and TV shows, includinglifetime NPR, CBS Radio and Sky News London in 2015. She had theprivilege of creating a stress reduction program for the USmilitary and worked to help stop the underground sex trade in hercommunity. For fun and stress relief. Kathy does hip hop and flyingtrapeze, not something you normally associate speakers as well. Soit'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 travelcoming up a lot of really great talks coming up a lot of trapezecoming up with Yeah, it's, it's unusual. I just planned my ownretreat, 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 whatI do. So we're going to do everything from meditation, mindfulness,yoga, dance, trapeze, organic food in an eco resort. So I'm reallyexcited about that. So fingers crossed that it goes the way Iexpect it to, so
James Taylor
How did you will begin to how did you get involved in the world ofspeaking specifically?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, you know, I have a background as an actor. I was a theatermajor. So being on stage for me was totally natural. And when Imoved cross country, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, andwhen I moved cross country to Hollywood, and then after about 10years, that quote, didn't work. So many people were like, Oh, whata waste. And that's such a shame. And I'm like, but I don't thinkanything's a waste. So I ended up falling back on that massagething. I've been doing massage for 28 years. I don't know howthat's possible because I'm only 35. So, but you know, I starteddoing 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 atone of my first conferences, just as an attendee, and I saw thesepeople up on stage. And I found in my notebook, I would take noteson the right hand page about their content, and notes on the lefthand page about them as a speaker, because as a performer, youknow, 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 reallyfunny, and oh, I wouldn't do that. And I set the goal of I'm goingto be on that stage. And it was a natural path conference and theydidn't pay and, you know, but three years later, I found myself onthat stage. And that sort of when I realized the blending of thehealing and the performing is perfect. So here I am
James Taylor
amazing. And so I'm interested when you were making that transitioninto from being a being an actor and then into into speaking aswell. There's obviously there's a lot of things. There's a lot ofsimilarities on on stage in terms of certain performance things usethe body voice blocking and, and stuff like that as well. But whatwere some of the, the kind of superpowers you managed to have fromyour your time as an actor that that felt very natural to be ableto kind of move in and maybe was something you didn't necessarilysee in other speakers?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, I think part of it is that storytelling ability, some peoplespecifically based themselves as a storyteller, and I kind of amexcept that I use the story as the lesson and I realized the morespeaking 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 andthis nugget of a lesson or a personal Failure which lead tosomething. And so I found that I just have this ease ofstorytelling. And because I'm used to acting and using my voice andusing my body emojis, I'll even throw funny voices on if I'm, youknow, pretending to be somebody else. So I think that's one of thethings and I think that sense of humor too. I also have I get totalI have an ease on stage. Because to me, it's just I'm just I'm veryconversational. I'm very, very down to earth in my in myperformance, but you know, in my presentations style, so it's whatdid someone say the other day? I'm a West Coast mentality with allthe meditation and stuff. And then East Coast delivery. It's verydirect, 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 Coastdelivery? 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, Icome from the deck of the world. I come from World of music andbeing a drummer and to being very intimidating and sometimes Ithink sometimes the least stressful part of my job is actually thebeing on the stage bit. That is the other bits that are morestressful in terms of like getting there. I do all the marketingand blahdy blah and all that stuff as well. And stress. I know alot of speakers that deal with stress in different kind of ways.But obviously, this is a this is a recurring thing, pretty muchevery speaker I know of either they have something that they'vejust developed themselves in order to get them in, you know, aplace where they can, they can do their best work on stage, orthey've learned techniques from someone or they're just almostcrippled by it and somehow they just managed to push themselves tothe stage and just just gonna get there but they don't reallynecessarily enjoy enjoy the process. And so what advice would yougive in terms of other speakers how we can better think aboutstress and maybe manage stress is the idea of managing stress.That's completely wrong. Should we not even be thinking aboutmanaging is we think about something else?
Kathy Gruver
Oh, that's a really good question. Okay, so we can manage stress tothe extent that we can. But the thing is stress is thisuncontrollable thing that's outside of ourselves. If we couldhandle it, it wouldn't be stress, it would just be that thing wehave to do. So the fact that stress is external to ourselves, andit's not controllable, we can't control the flight delay. We can'tcontrol the traffic, we can't control that the speaker before uswent 20 minutes over. And now we get two minutes of our half hourtalk to do. You know, we can't control any of those things. So youcan manage stuff, you can get to the airport early, you can have aback 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 notthe problem because we can't control it, and then controlling ourthoughts about it and our responses to it. And so often, we have areaction to stress. We have this knee jerk reaction. I did ityesterday morning. I had this sudden panic, that a talk that I'mgiving in a couple of weeks. I wasn't getting any emails on that Ididn't have the template for the PowerPoint that I didn't have theregistration as I just suddenly had this. Oh, and I had thisreaction. So what did I do? I emailed the the organizer, and Iwent, 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 wroteback and I said, I'm so sorry, I'm juggling. I've got sixconferences in two weeks, please forgive me, and I'm sure I kind oflook like a spouse to her. And I don't normally do that. I normallyhave the ability to take that pause and respond. And I jumped thegun. I sent her a frantic email. I look like an idiot. I feltstupid. 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 responsefrom there and I didn't I reacted. And we all do that. We all havethat reaction, whether it's something our husband says or it's theguy on on the freeway, or you know, but that's what's in ourcontrol is how we respond to these external events. And so much ofour stress is in our minds, it's these things we're thinking aboutit's the past we're remembering the future we're ruminating onthose what ifs that keep us up at two o'clock in the morning. Sothat's the key is recognizing that most of the stress is actuallyin our in our control internally, but we can't change that externalstuff.
James Taylor
So that little in the internal dialogue I mean, the one the one Iwas always told was if you're feeling stressed they're gonna sayI'm feeling stressed saying just say to yourself I'm feelingexcited, you know, just I just a little pattern interrupt a thingas well. But what if you're, you're you're know you're maybe you'recoming up your week or two weeks before your speech and you'regetting really quite anxious about it and you know, you're kind ofhaving they're not able to sleep and maybe you're you're you'rehaving this early morning Oh, you know, what if I blank What if Ican't remember my lines? What if, what if something happened?What's the light the power goes out? What if What if What if Whatkind of self talk can we can we be doing with ourselves to justcome 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 comeacross as rude but if you're freaking out that much about speaking,maybe this isn't the perfection for you. Okay, just throwing thatout there I mean because you cuz I mean serious but if but if it'slike if it's that nerve racking for you. Now I know that fears andphobias come over time I'm working with I do hypnosis as well. AndI'm working with a client right now who used to be very comfortableon stage. And over time, he has started to have fears about it,which is really interesting. So we're gonna we're gonna go reallydeep inside and figure that out but but if speakings what you doand you do have that what if thing but if you look at those whatifs James, where are those? Those are in the future. What if thelights go out? What if I blank on my speech? What if I get cutshort? 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'ssomeplace else isn't here yet. What do we have right here is youand me sitting in our prospective offices talking, respectiveoffices talking. So it's a matter of staying present. And we can dothat a couple ways we can meditate. We can do mindfulnesspractices, we can do breath work. And like you said, basicallydoing that pattern interrupt of affirmations, I am calm, I amcomfortable, I am in control. All of my speaking gigs go smoothly.I am hilarious. And people laugh at every joke that, you know, it'sthat anticipatory stress, that actually talking about what stressdoes, it messes with our memory. It disturbs our cognitivefunction, so we're not as on it deals with our immune system. So ifwe're so worried about getting sick on the flight, you worriedabout getting sick on the flight is actually depleting your immunesystem and you're gonna be more apt to get sick on the flight. Sostress has all these negative things to it. So if we can controlthat stress, which is basically just staying present Everything'sthose things that we're afraid to get are gonna happen have less ofa chance of happening.
James Taylor
And then when we get in so I'm thinking about something I did. WhenI kind of got started speaking, when I start to feel maybe a littlebit nervous about something usually was about the content. For methat was a bit nervous about the particularly the new type ofcontent that I was going to be doing. And I just went full onstoicism Cicero and I said, What is the worst is going to haveOkay, I'm gonna imagine the very, very worst that's going to happenif I totally screw this up. And it was so ridiculous, as I imaginedlike this is happening and like, really, if that's the worst that'sgonna happen, then. That's okay. Yeah, I can recover from that. Andit actually, it took away a lot of that stress because I basicallyI played out of my head the worst it was gonna happen. It reallywasn't that bad. So I can admit, okay, that's fine. I can come backto it. But then I find a slightly different challenge is this ideaabout, especially the first few times being up on stage beingpresent on stage. And it just feels I know there's first timeanyone's spoken will probably feel this like some of these firstbit 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 stillworking on it now is like being really more present and and reallyhave feeling the energy of the audience and playing with that and,and doing that doing that sort of thing. But how do we start tokind 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 afraidof silence. They don't want to pause. And what I just do, I notpretended. But I took that moment to formulate my words thatactually sucks people in because if I wait then people suddenly goWait, What's she gonna say now? You look panicked if you that's avery different look. That's six people in a different way. That'sOh, crap, she forgot what she was doing. And you're flippingthrough 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 aminute and have that silence. Because, you know, you played music,what makes the music music is those spaces in between notes. Andit's totally okay to vary your tempo, to slow down to speed up andget really excited and then drop it back down. And that's wherethat actor thing comes in. And on stage, I think about that, Ithink, where am I going to speed up? Where am I going to getlouder? Where am I going to get a little and then where can I dropthat back down. And in that slowing myself down, I have the abilityto reconnect with the audience, because they slow down and theykind of lean in and you can see their expression change when youvary your tone, your temper your speed. All of that stuff. So Ithink that connecting with the audience is really about just beingaware of how you're saying what you're saying. And beingcomfortable just stepping back for a second and taking that pause.And I remember years ago, we have something here in Santa Barbaracalled mind, super mind. And these are thought leaders and peoplewho would come and they would do an evening I think they did likethree or four a year. And I can't remember who it was. It wassomebody like Christiane Northrup, or someone who was, was a verypowerful Female Speaker until like female empowerment and healthand spirituality and stuff like that. And she walked out on stage,and everybody clapped and she sat on the chair. And she must havesat there for three minutes. Just sitting there, and we were all solike, sucked into what is she? What is she gonna say, you know, andyou could see like 150 people leaning in simultaneously to see thatcommanded so much power. And I think so many people are so afraidto 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 areally interesting technique. It's a really interesting techniqueand it sucks you back in with them. And I also I'm, I'm all aboutmeeting people's eyes when I'm speaking. And you can tell who inthe audience is up for that and who's not because they'll turn awayor they'll keep meeting your eyes, I tend to go back to that personto get it again. So by the end, I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm picking onyou. So, you know, but it's like and if you're not comfortablemeeting their eyes then kind of look over their heads. That's thetrick without from the acting thing. But um, but yeah, it really isabout just taking that pause and consciously reconnecting withthem. And then yeah, the talks gonna fly by and later, you're gonnawatch 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 anevent and it was your former president, President present Obama.That was the keynote speaker at it. And the thing that Puttingpolitics aside, the thing that was very interesting for me, for himas an orator is his use of pacing and pausing, you know, quitedeliberate, you know, and if I probably if I worked out how manywords per minute it would be quite low. And so I experimented withthat just in my own speaking at certain stages, if I wanted to addmore like power, more weight to something, I almost couldn't havethought of that timing. And then I listened to another speechrecently, Oprah Winfrey's one that she did for the Golden GlobeAwards, amazing speech, and especially towards the opening of thatspeech. And also towards the end of the speech, she uses somecertain gift devices and certain ways in terms of rhythm and timbreand everything I thought, I really liked that I really like how,how she's kind of used, and I get kind of like stuff, experimentingwith some of those things couldn't be mine. And I think this iswhere you start to once you know your your material, your contentmaterial. This is the things that act as like a really, really goodapp is being able to then That fine tuning being able to just getall the nuances really pull everything out of that that story tohelp help your brain so you mentioned going quiet going into theaudience you know you losing as well one of the things I'm mostfascinated with if I go and see theater is how it always feels thatactors are much better the use of their bodies on stages than thanspeakers speakers and I put my I kept myself but you kind of end upgoing into these kind of like quite static more like no kind ofthings powered by their power poses or whatever the term is forthem. But you can you have you can set things and I will see whatlike the great actors I see on stage are great performers musiciansas well. There's there's a there's a fluidity this additional realnaturalness as well. That must be trained that must be notsomething 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 thewomb and my mother strapped ballet shoes to my feet. So and my dadhad 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 grewup as a dancer, so I'm very comfortable on stage. I'm verycomfortable in my movements. There's also just some people who arecomfortable in their body. And then there's those who aren't whoare constantly tripping bumping into things, knocking things over.They, like their limbs aren't like that baby fall, the cult thattries to walk for the first time, they just sort of fall over. Imean, that's just some people just aren't kinetic, they're just notconnected 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 theatermajor, and our choice was we either had to take downs, or we had totake movement, movement classes, and whether that was stage combat,or blocking or using our bodies in a certain way. But yeah, totallyI have, you know, I'm very animated when I talk. And so someonecould take 300 pictures of me and I'm always kind of like going,like I'm always looking for headlines because I'm always makingthese weird faces. But it's so funny because I tend to do this alot. And so I have all these pictures will be Doing this and it'slike, I kind of stopped doing that, because it's like, My facelooks fine. But I'm, I don't know what I'm measuring, but I'mparallely measuring something. So you're right. I mean, we do getkind of locked into these physical things. And that can be reallydistracting because I watched an amazing keynote at a conference.And she kept and I can't demonstrate because I'm sitting down, butshe kept kind of like, hitting her hips like this. And I'mthinking, why did she keep doing that, and then she kind of let herhands bounce up, and I'm like, it was just distracting. So I don'tknow if someone blocked that for her, or if that was a naturalmovement for her. But I was very aware of going, whoo, that'sjarring to me. You know, she's talking about this very emotionalthing of, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna mention any ofthat. But it's like, she was telling this emotional thing, but shekept doing these violent movements. And when I coach otherspeakers, I work with the pacing, but I also work with when is thetime to gesture, you know, because if you mute somebody, andthey've done with this with politicians and they've had bodylanguage Experts analyze their gestures and their hand movementsand their facial expressions. And it's fascinating to seeunconsciously how we look at those movements and what theycommunicate 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 tryingto mate. I don't know what she was doing.
James Taylor
The one we had Mark Bowden is a great body language expert here onthe summit, and he was a lot of politicians as well. He's greatspeaker. We also watch a lot of politicians. And one of the ones hesaid to me was, he said, one thing is some speakers can do is theycan do the pointing thing a lot with, you know, pointing in theaudience. And he said, what they've The reason, actually BillClinton and Bill Clinton's speaker training or for speeches that hegot, he was he had this terrible habit of pointing and pointing atpeople and putting on your speaking it could be quite an aggressivekind of move. Like I'm telling you this kind of wagging yourfinger. And so he was told, do this. And now this this thing herethat you see all the time. But I speak by every port if you watchCNN, a TV show, if you'll see politicians using this a lot, andthat comes back to the body in language expert that trained Clintonand Clinton started doing this rather than the finger is also westart seeing all these things happening all the time. I'm one ofthe things that you I know you've spoken about before is I can moveto like future pacing or or how you can use your incredibleimagination, your visualization abilities that we have as humanbeings with the brain that we've got to really help you achieveyour goals, your goals as a speaker. Can you talk a little bitabout that?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the first things is we have to beclear on what we want. And we can't just say I want success.Because what does that mean? I mean, Success to me might meansomething very different than to you than to everybody else. So Ithink it's really important to pinpoint those goals. And numbersare very symbolic. our subconscious totally understands numbers. Soput a number on it. I want to do 30 paid talks this year. Or I willdo you want to put it in the present tense? I do. I am hired for 30paid talks this year. Okay, what is paid mean? Just paid me theygive you a chicken sandwich for lunch does paid me and you get 10grand does paid mean, you know, really make it specific and thenthen ask for it. Now, as my husband said the other night, you cansit around and visualize till you're blue in the face, you stillhave 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 homeand visualize the perfect spouse and then hope it's the UPS guybecause you never leave the house. You know, you actually have togo out and do the work. But I think oftentimes we get so vague inthese that I want success. I want to be a speaker. Okay, what doesthat mean? And I remember during my acting days, I was doing thismanifestation thing and this visualization these affirmations of Iwant to be a paid actor. I want to be a paid actor. I'm gonna be apaid actor. I am a paid actor. I was doing this whole thing. And Igot 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, youknow, but it's like, but I got what I wanted. Yeah, I got what Iwanted. You know if your horoscope in the morning paper says youwill get in prosperity today and you find a penny on the street, itwas kind of right. So you know, the more specific you are. Andhere's the cool thing about our brain, we can't tell the differencebetween what we're thinking about and imagining, and what isactually happening. So this is why when we're having those negativefantasies about the future when we're dwelling in the past andremembering that awful thing, when we're telling that story againand again and again about the jerk that cut us off on the freeway,what we're doing is actually completely re triggering that fight orflight response, which we don't need. It's really detrimental toour health to our memory to our like I said cognitive function, allthis stuff. So when we're fantasizing about the future, make itpositive. Because if not, let's say you're going for a A jobinterview or speaker interview, you're about to have this interviewon the phone with this fabulous meeting player, you want this sobad. And this is your inner dialogue. Oh, man, you know, I don'tknow if I'm actually qualified for this. And they're probably notgoing to have enough money to pay me. And you know, they probablywant a guy because they wanted a sports figure, and I'm not reallya sports figure, I'm just a trapeze person, what the heck do I knowand I don't really look like my picture. And maybe I'm not asfunny. 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 hearno, and you're going to in some very subconscious way, or sometimesconscious way. Create that for yourself. Whereas if you think aheadof time, oh my gosh, this is gonna be the best phone conversationand 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 havea fun conversation and she's going to be so excited to hire me. Shemight even give me more money than I asked for. And you know, ifyou build that up, if nothing else, you go in with such enthusiasmwith such excitement with such presence of mind, the interview isgoing to turn out better. But here's the other thing, even if youdon't get it, you're going to be better equipped to handle the notgetting it. You know, if you're already so stressed, you're at aneight and upset and they say no, and you shoot off the church to a12. And now they're never gonna hire you again, because you reactedlike a giant baby. If you go in at a stress level of two, and youstart 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, maybein 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 reactand respond to these things. So going into a situation fantasizingabout the most positive outcome is going to present you better.Same thing on stage, you're going to present so much better if yougo in thinking this is gonna be the best speech ever.
James Taylor
And he said that on the visualization. I you As well, if Ibizarrely I found, I have lost a little post it notes around mygoals and things that I'm wanting to do. And my usual approach tothese things is, I will write, think about them. If I want to writethem down, this is something I want to do. But then I will figureout a way of not becoming overly attached to the thing. So I'llgive you an example. One of the ones was to speak NSA, I actuallyhave a note I found areas of my board, which is speak at NSAconvention. And this year, you and I, we both spoke at the NSAwinter winter conference, which was great. But here's what I what Idid is I use my imagination for thinking about that. But I don'tget overly attached to that as being the outcome. Instead, what Iget really, really attached to and not really attached, but reallythink about is, well, what are the rituals and the daily things Ineed to be doing each day in my practice and in my work, in orderthat that will be it'll just be it'll be a natural repercussion ofdoing that. So for me, it was Working on my keynote for me, it washaving conversations other great speakers. For me, it was outreachto meeting planners every day. So those are actually extremelystructured. In my week, I've got really focused on trying to dothose things by doing get, particularly if again, after the speechhappens, it's fine. The other one I was told, which has made life ahell of a lot easier is visualize what it would look like if it waseasy. And it was an interesting one, because then it made me thinkit was and building a business or speaking, like, Okay, what wouldthat look like? What if being a like a wizard, internationalkeynote speaker, whatever your thing is? What if it was easy? Whatif it was easy, and I'm thinking about it just now and it actuallyvery quickly creates a very quick through line to what you'retrying to achieve and, and district distresses as well. So thoseare just some of the things I just heard from my experience of howI use. I've used visualization and use kind of goal setting in thatway. as well. So I'm guessing your, your journey through speakingand you've had ups and downs and different things as you built yourspeaking career. Can you talk about maybe a key insight or alightbulb moment where you went, Okay, this is the direction I wantto go with my speaking or this is who I want to serve with myspeaking or you just made a very important discovery yourself andyour work as a speaker.
Kathy Gruver
You know, it's tough because I'm still traveling this journey. Imean, I am in no way an established speaker yet. I mean, I've donetons of gigs. And like I said, I got to speak at NSA, which wassuch a huge honor. That was gigantic. I got to do a TEDx, which washuge. I've gotten to travel all over the place, but I'm not where Iwant to be with my rights. I'm not where I want to be with who I'mspeaking to yet. And I think it's a constant exploration of Who areyou? 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 toteachers. I could talk to parents. I could talk to nurses. I couldtalk to you know Like, my audience really is endless. And Iremember 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 threemore narrows. By the time I had this teeny little thing, and Ithought I'll never be able to find enough research on this 165pages later, you know, and there is that fear, though in Oh, but ifI only speak to 911 dispatchers, what happens when I run out of 911dispatcher? You know, we we do have that fear of limitingourselves. 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 whatrole he does now, he's George Costanza. I mean, that's just that'sall we see. But that's okay. Because he was a damn good GeorgeCostanza, you know? But they know that getting that typecast thing.We're so afraid of that but that is how so many successful peoplemade their living. You know, if you look at really big well knownspeakers, they're not going out and just doing anything foranybody. Yeah, they do have that laser focus. So that's one of thethings I'm working on right now is honing down. I'm ripping apartmy website. Again, I'm you know, I'm redoing all my material. AndI'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, corporateculture, 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'mphrasing it, so that people go, Oh, we want her. And I think thebiggest one of the biggest lessons I've learned, and I actuallymentioned this in my little five minute talk for NSA is, yeah,we're all on this path. And occasionally we look over and we seesomebody else go other speaker to Oh, thank God, I can totallycommiserate with them. But we get really jealous of other people'spaths, we get really judgy of other people. paths. And I have adear friend of mine who he put a book on Amazon. It wasn't evenavailable yet. It was just literally the thumbnail. And a giantcorporation 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 hecalls 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 Ihelped him with a contract. I helped them with the negotiationsthinking, I haven't even done this for myself yet. He got threemore 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 abureau to send them my stuff. And I'm thinking, ah, because I'vebeen 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 thatsort of petty jealous childish frustration of why am I not gettingthat? You know, and I sat back and went, Okay, let's pause. Andlet's think about this. I don't know what his path is. I don't knowwhat 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 comparemyself to his journey. I can't compare myself to his success and orfailures. Because I also know his entire life has not been a walkin the park. Nobody else has. But it was just this clear thing tome of crap. I thought I was over all that you know, I thought I wasover that that little hurt kid thing that happened when you wererejected so much as an actor. So it really it bubbled that likepain body back up for me and I went, What a great experience. Now Ican deal with this in a different way. And what can I learn fromhim that helps skyrocket my career a little bit more. So it was itwas frustrating, but it was really interesting and I'm really gladI I'm, I'm glad I felt that because to me if a negative thing comesup. What is the last I learned from that I don't want to hang on toit. And you're probably the only person I'll tell that to you andI'm done with that story. But what can I get out of that? Whatpositive Can I pull out of that emotion that I was having?
James Taylor
So you mentioned a word there rejection. Now actors of anyprofession actors probably have the highest levels of rejectionbecause you know, and it's it's it's just part of the of theindustry part of the trade of doing that job as well. Did that helpyou when it came to when you're, you're speaking with meetingplans, event professionals for the conference, and you don't get towin every every gig. Did that help? Having had rejections as anactor so you've kind of built in some kind of resilience inyourself?
Kathy Gruver
Yeah. Massively, you know, I mean, it's still never feels good. NoOne No one has ever like Yea, they said, No. Sometimes I questionwhy they've said No, and I do a lot of submissions through thingslike you know, speakers and speaker magic where you don't reallyget to have that one on one contact with them. And it'll just Tosay, declined, and I'm like, ah, why? Because I want to, I want tobe better. And if it was, maybe they didn't like my video. Maybethey didn't like maybe I look like their cousin who they hate.Maybe they booked it already. Maybe they change the theme. Youknow, you never know why. And even if someone says you, you reallysuck, we're not hiring you. If you're confident in what you do, ifthey say you suck, you kind of go alright. I don't think I do. Mostpeople don't think I do. But I'll take that and, or you follow thatup with but what about it sucked? Oh, well, the way you phrasedthat in your proposal. Ah, okay. So I don't suck. That thing Iwrote sucked, you know. So it's like, I think if you can havefeedback from people, I mean, it's fabulous. Sometimes it hurts.It'll I hate it. I hate ripping apart my videos and get it youknow, 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 toactually shred actors a part to get them to give me what I need inthat role, and I've had it done to me That's the process of gettingbetter, if everybody just thinks you're perfect, and you know, theywon't give you any negative feedback, then you're not going to growas, as a speaker as a performer, as a marketer, as a wife as a, youknow any of that. So that's where that constructive criticism comesin. And you have to learn to take that. And because we are wired ashumans, to respond to negative things faster than positive things.So if you're about to cross the street, and I go, No, you're ourbrain picks it up quickly and responds because it's for yoursafety. So we're actually wired to respond to negative things morethan positive things. So if I tell you 30 things that were greatabout your talk, and then I end with Well, I mean, that one jokekind of fell short. What are you going to hear? That's what I'mgonna focus on. Because one, you know, it just we think we'refabulous, which we are, but you know, we hear that one negativething in our brain goes, Danger, danger, danger. Something's Didn'tyou know, we're actually wired that way? That was one of thestudies I found in my dissertation. So that's the problem isshutting that part of the brain off and going, hang on? Why did itnot work? And you have to be confident enough and have the ballsenough 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 theoutreach for potential speaking gigs, is, you know, when they werestarting to feel like they were getting rejection on certain thingswhen hiring or they were only closing a certain amount of our, ourbusiness. And I said, well, let's just why don't we just focus onon the numbers. And so we know our numbers really clearly how manypeople 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 acall and all those calls, how many we need to convert and then andyou can you can go on from there. And I said, let's just let's justget to like geeky. Let's get up Like that you would be going ifyou're sitting playing a computer game or something, and you'rejust trying, how can I get that number up? And so what that does isand this only I appreciate this only work for some people that likethink this way, but for us ended up becoming more of a game. So weknew that we like had, we had to do a certain number that we wantedto do every week or every month. And we knew and we kind of justgot like, Well why is it that why are we only converting on thatwhen that campaign where we could be so we approach it more likealmost like scientists were experimenting with stuff and knowing itwas gonna fail, but that's fine. And but we were just trying tofind the things then as quickly as possible kill the things thatdefinitely weren't working and won't bring it anywhere. So whatabout your circle in your you're kind of speaking now, and I'minterested in are there any kind of tools or apps or onlineresources that you find really useful for yourself as aspeaker,
Kathy Gruver
you know, I'm going to open up an actual appointment book girl andjust write it down. I can tell you my new frustration withtechnology is people are now forcing you to adopt certaintechnologies 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 differentconferences where their main way of communicating is FacebookMessenger. I don't want to be on Facebook all day and the problemwith that is you know, you send 30 put 30 people on that link. Andevery time somebody comments boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop,boop, it propagates more messages. So I literally spent like sevenminutes the other day scrolling through gifts and funny commentsand people doing before I found out that they needed my bio. Justemail me and tell me, Kathy, I need your bio. Like, I don't want Idon't have time for that. I still have a full time job as well asall the speaking stuff. So. So it's like, forcing people intoadapting technology. And we talked about this at the power women atthe NSA. We broke up into little groups during our morning sessionand talked about that and that was one of the things we all kind ofwent I don't Want to use your scheduling program or I don't want touse your new video programmer, I don't want to, you know, and somany people now are kind of forcing you into that. And I've beendoing tons of video interviews where you have to use a certain, notonly 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, sothis is actually to me, one of the downsides of technology isthere's so much happening so quickly, that I personally can't keepup. And I am definitely not technical. I'm not technologicallychallenged. I love technology. I am excited about technology, butso much of it is being thrown at us at once. And there's so manydifferent things are being thrown at us at once. That I think it'soverwhelming for a lot of people. Yeah, even people younger than mewho grew up with us, you
James Taylor
know, I'm in this camp as well. I'm thinking about I'm doing onebooking just now with people in Singapore. And it's we're usingwhat's the community primarily communicating by WhatsApp. I'm doingsomething else in Russia, and they're using telegram, which I neveruse. My British clients and American clients, they've used themmessenger and they're using email and they're using all otherslack. I'm doing one thing, I'm to beat using slack for it. And Iknow you could feel overwhelmed a little bit you know, andsometimes 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 allthese threads were going and finally I just had to say, Can we justdo a call? Can we just like do this one call or we could just getget all this stuff done? And I don't have to see all these gifts ofcat pictures as much as I love cats, but I'd love to see anybodyget cabbages.
Kathy Gruver
Exactly. That's that's my point. You know, because Yeah, I don'twant to have to dig through all that. And frankly, I don't want tobe on Facebook all the time. Because one, it's a time sock. Andtwo, I get into what's happening with my government right now. Andthen I start to lose my mind. And then you know, so I don't want tohave 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'ttell what is my friends lunch? What is my friends sharing herfriends, 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 wouldbe fine if I wasn't forced to adopt 30 things. Yeah, but yeah, Igot Twitter and I got LinkedIn, I got fat and I you know, it'slike, 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'swhat books What is your favorite favorite book that that you'vereally made me go a lot from it could be on speaking could be onwe'll be talking about a lot today which is presence and, and thinkabout 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 hisbooks, 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 thefunnels. And you know, that was kind of the first. I was alwaysresistant to this. I'm not, I shouldn't say I'm not a goodsalesperson, because I mean, we all have to be, but that sellingfrom the stage thing, I always really shied away from that to thepoint where I'd get to the end of my talk, and I'd see my husbandin the back holding up my book and going tell them you have ourbook. I mean, it was like I was so into giving information. Iforgot I was there to actually sell books, you know, so I had toremind myself of that, and somehow I got connected with BrendonBurchard 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 businessperspective, you know, I'm reading a bunch of stuff now. Because Iwant to learn from other speakers who have had that me To me, it'slike I want to learn constantly. I would be back in school if Icould. So I love deck artola stuff. Carolyn mace was one of mypeople back in the day and Louise Hay that kind of stuff but but ithink 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 thisbusiness that we do. And I think that's one of the reasons whypresence is so important. And 2016 was the year of mindfulness, anda lot of people on what the heck's that and I don't want tomeditate, 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 benefitto that. Because I'm very type A and I'm very driven, and I'm veryEast Coast, and I'm very, but I found that through that presence,through that mindfulness, it has allowed me to be so much moresuccessful, and handle it's so much better when I don't find asuccess. 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, totallydifferent types of speakers. The the violence age is completelydifferent. And Brendan is an absolute master. It comes from sellingfrom the stage and especially online programming. He's brilliant atthat stuff as well. A car is really much more about can Unity comesafter obviously the Louise Hay Hay House kind of model as well, butthey're both brilliant. They've kind of chosen their thing. And andthey've committed to it, you know, 100% as well, which I love aboutthe both. What about a final question for let's imagine you woke uptomorrow morning and you have to start from scratch. So you've gotall the knowledge you've acquired over the years, you're I thinkyou're speaking, but no one knows you. You know, no one you have torestart. 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 inorder. And you know, I didn't do that. At the time. I just launchedin I went, I'm a speaker and I had a couple books, but especiallywhen you're starting out and you are doing free speaking, sellingthe $15 book, at that point was a $10 book, the back of the roomisn't going to sustain you financially. I think I would have mywebsite better when I started, I would have my online programstogether. I'm a little behind the eight ball on that because I wasso resistant to, I don't want to sell. And now as I've gone throughthis journey over the last two or three years, I've realized, youkind of have to, you know, I'm seeing less and less. And this couldjust be me in my field, but I'm seeing less and less well paidspeaking engagements. I'm seeing more people that want to give youa really low rate, but we'll let you sell from the stage at theAngela 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 withmy online course if I had that stuff in line. When I was doing allthose magazine and radio interviews, I told a publicist I wasworking with I said, I want to be on the Today Show. It'll be onGood Morning, America, I want to be on and he looked at me, hesaid, 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 youever saw on Good Morning America? And I said, No, he goes, Okay, solet's say you're on Good Morning America and you have your $10book, and people love you and they go to your website, they buyyour $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 $30module with tapes, and then you need the $160. And then you needthe $10,000. He said, What is the point of wasting that opportunityto 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, youknow, 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 helpsyour credibility. I mean, I've done hundreds of radio and TV showshundreds of magazine interviews, and that has absolutely helped mycredibility as an international expert. But I think had I had moreto offer on the back end ahead of time, I think it would have beenan easier journey. So now I feel like I'm kind of going back tosquare 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 youmaybe they're speaking or something and they they know there's aspot there and they want to bring in someone that speaks about thetopics that you speak about as well especially around presence andwhat'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 beand Kathy groover calm is the best and there's all my books and mytopics and all my stuff there so that's probably the best Kathygroover 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 alittle bit more I feel I should still be distressed actually afterthis call. I've got a surprising feeling pretty chilled now. Thanksso much for coming on. I wish you all the best with yourspeaking
Kathy Gruver
thanks so much.
James Taylor
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