How Public Speakers Boost Energy and Minimize Stress | Episode 25

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Have you ever wondered how performers like Beyoncé have enough energy to do all of the cool things they do?
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Speaking is a performance.
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In today's episode, we're going to talk all about the performance of speaking and how to manage your energy in a way that allows you to show up your best on your next stage.
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Welcome to Mic Drop Mindset.
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I'm your host, Jen Spingo.
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This podcast is for professional speakers who want to turn their message into a movement.
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Listen for bi-weekly episodes on mindset and mechanics to grow your speaking brand, connect authentically with audiences, and most importantly, deliver mic drop moments that matter.
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When is the last time you performed while you were exhausted, burnt out, overstimulated, or maybe even hungry or thirsty?
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Managing your energy as a speaker is something we don't hear a lot about.
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And as somebody who came from the health coaching space, I think it's important to understand that there are many ways to manage your energy.
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Some of them are physical and some of them are mental.
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And what I can tell you as somebody who's been on many stages over the past 10 years is if you don't manage your own energy, you cannot give what your audience is willing to receive.
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And your energy won't be high enough for your audience to hear your message in the same way.
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Let's talk about different tips and tricks on how to manage your energy, both the highs and the lows from a mental and a physical standpoint.
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This topic is one that my email community wanted to learn more about.
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So shout out to my email community.
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If you're not already on my email community, what are you waiting for?
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I'd love to have you join the community.
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I will link in the show description here how you can get access to that community.
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And while you're there, I'll give you a free guide on how to elevate your next presentation because I like you so much.
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But let's talk a little bit more about some of the ways of managing that energy so you can show up on stage.
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Now imagine if you traveled every single week on red eye flights.
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So those late night flights, somebody drove you to the airport at 3 a.m.
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You transferred multiple times from one airport to the other, maybe using public transport, maybe using taxi service.
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You laid your head down in an unfamiliar bed in a place that smells a little funky, and you have to wake up refreshed and ready to deliver an amazing experience for hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
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That sounds like pretty bad odds, right?
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There's a lot that's working against you.
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And I want to make sure you have all of the advantages to succeed within this business.
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Even if that's not your current speaking reality, or you know you're not that keynoter who's gonna jet set every single week.
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Some version of this could be in your future because the speaking business requires a lot of energy.
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Not gonna lie about that.
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It requires an incredible amount of energy.
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Now, personally, when I'm done speaking, I feel super energized.
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I am not worried.
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Being in the room with the audience gives me energy.
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It's a give and receive, but I get more.
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Well, I don't know if I get more than my audience does, but I feel so energized after I'm done speaking.
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Unless I've spent the entire day peopleing and networking in the room, then I have zero energy to spare after I'm done speaking.
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And you might be similar to that or have the reverse happen to you, where you're super excited to go in the morning, or you're nervous in the morning, and afterwards you're like, I get to talk to people now.
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I get to shake hands and do the meet and greets.
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Regardless of what that looks like for you, I think it's important for us to dive into what personally gives you energy when it comes to speaking.
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So I'm going to lay out a few scenarios here for you and let's see if we can find you within this mix of scenarios.
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So, do you find energy when you're preparing your content, maybe getting some slides together, getting lost in the creative process, or maybe in those pre-event calls or those conversations with the planning committee where you're kind of crafting this tailored experience and it feels very exciting to be innovative and brainstorming with other people.
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Maybe that's where you get energy when it comes to speaking.
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Or you might receive energy when you're traveling on your way to the event.
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You've put everything in your office behind you, out of office replies are on.
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You are traveling to the event, whether you're driving or flying, you're pumping yourself up with mantras and saying, I am ready to deliver a rock star experience.
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Or is that just me?
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Anyway, whatever you do to pump yourself up on your way to that event, you know, getting into the mindset, the zone where you're eating food that maybe your family doesn't let you eat when you're in town and you're traveling and seeing new places and you're excited about the destination, but you're enjoying the journey, maybe that's where you get energy.
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Or you might receive energy when you enter that room, whether it's for the tech check the night before, or you're entering the room the day of you've got your beautiful outfit on, or your handsome outfit, and you're shining, you're sparkling, you're ready to go, and you soak in the environment, you meet your A V team, you meet some folks in the room who are the early birds like you, and you just soak it all up, and maybe that energizes you.
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Or maybe it's in the first five minutes of your talk.
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Maybe before that is just the window dressing, and you're like, Can we get to the point already?
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And you wait until you're five minutes into your presentation before you kind of relax, calm, shake those shoulders, settle into your body, and say, This is what I'm here for.
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Maybe that's where you feel the most energy.
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Or it might even not be until you exit that stage.
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You've delivered an amazing presentation.
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There were some nerves here and there, but you got through it.
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The audience was super engaged with you.
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You hear that applause.
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People are saying you did a great job.
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You're getting the feedback in from the client, everyone loves you, and you know you did a job well done.
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Maybe that's when you experience the most energy.
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Or maybe it's after you leave the event and you know that you have a list of new friends, colleagues, connections, and potential speaking partners in the future.
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Maybe that's when you receive your energy.
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So I listed quite a few scenarios here.
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As you go back over that list, when do you receive energy around your speaking business?
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And it could be more than one of those.
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If it is awesome.
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So let's lean into those areas and enjoy that.
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However, there are things that could drain your energy as well.
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You receive energy from some of these activities, the creativity, the connection, the people in the room, the reading of the room, the intuition.
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And then there are things that could drain your energy.
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Let's be real about that, because there's give and take.
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It's a flow with everything in life.
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So some of the things you're managing, and this could be logistics.
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If you're a planner, logistics may not be a stressor for you.
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I'm a planner to a certain extent.
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So logistics do get stressful for me.
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But here are some things that could drain your energy.
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So looking at the flip side of where you receive energy, but what drains your energy as a speaker.
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Travel plans are its own beast.
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If you don't have someone managing that for you, or the client is not managing that for you, that could be a drainer, right?
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It could be like, oh, I don't want to figure this out.
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Uh figuring out transportation or transfers, having specific dietary concerns.
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If you're not, if you're vegan and you're not sure if they'll have vegan-friendly options at that event, okay, fine, but you have to pack your own snacks, pack your own food, find restaurants nearby to your hotel where you can find options that meet your needs.
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Technical requirements.
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If you're not a techie or you're introducing a new visual element to your presentation, if you've never done it before, there could be some stress around that.
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Like, what if it goes wrong?
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There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and introducing a new element could be a stressor for you.
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What about communication?
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What if you haven't heard from that event manager or the person who brought you in for three days and you're literally just about to deliver your presentation?
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You can always reach out to them.
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But if they're not responsive because they're receiving a million other emails from other people who want to know what's going on, that could stress you out.
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I've worked with so many people who have different communication styles than me.
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And I have to just roll with that.
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They may not be as communicative as I am.
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And that's okay as long as we all know what the expectations are, but sometimes you don't know what those expectations are, or you're in a position of over-communicating and you feel like they're under-communicating.
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That can be a stressor.
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What about attire?
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So this may sound weird, but as a person who has gained and lost a bunch of weight over the past 15 years, I can say that finding the right outfit for a stage can be stressful.
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Finding the right shoes for a stage can be stressful.
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If you follow me on social media, I've gone through my own hesitations with heeled shoes versus sneakers and what to do about that.
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And as a woman, I typically wear a dress on stage and I don't wear short dresses, but you got to be careful like where the audience is sitting in comparison to where you're standing and what view they have of you.
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And for guys, it could be like your suit.
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Are you very sweaty underneath or things like that?
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You might be considering like, is that embarrassing if they see my sweat stains?
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Sometimes your attire or bringing more than one outfit for the stage can feel uncomfortable and stressful.
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And you're like, well, how do I fit this in my luggage?
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And then what about deliverables or props?
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If you send a luggage of particular props that you're going to use on your presentation, what if it doesn't arrive?
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What are you going to do?
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How are you going to pivot from that?
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If you're ordering a bunch of books or having the books shipped to the client and the books don't arrive, if you're hosting a booth and you're making the booth beautiful and maybe you have fresh flowers and they're dead when they arrive, there's a lot of logistics that could stress you out the day of.
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And then I want to say, on top of logistics, there could be people in general that stress you out.
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I'm not speaking from personal experience necessarily, but these are some scenarios and some people that could stress you out.
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Hosts who don't have clear expectations.
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I have participated in many entrepreneurial events where some hosts communicated beautifully before the event, and some hosts, I didn't know anything until I arrived in the room.
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That is very stressful for me because I'm a planner.
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I certainly reached out.
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I was not waiting back for somebody to communicate with me.
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Sometimes they don't have the time, especially if they don't have a team.
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And sometimes when you're in the room, there are difficult people in your audience.
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Now, I'm not saying that anyone is out there to see you fail or to mess with you or heckle you.
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This is not stand-up comedy.
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But there are some audience members who can be difficult during QA sessions or are rambling on a tangent that has nothing to do with the content.
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Everyone likes to be heard.
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I'm not gonna pretend that it's a bad thing for somebody to just share something on that's part of the experience.
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But sometimes they're a difficult person and it's really hard to bring it back to the main topic of the event.
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That can be a difficult or stressful situation that drains your energy, especially if you end on a QA, which is why you never end on a QA.
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You might also have an A V team in the room, but they may not be experienced.
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They may be the first time in this venue and not know how to navigate things.
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I've been to events where the AV team knew exactly what they were doing.
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It was no big deal.
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They helped me troubleshoot entirely the entire process and I didn't feel bad.
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I'm not a techie, but I'm also not completely ignorant.
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But if you have an A V team in the room who doesn't know what they're doing or is unfamiliar with the setup or the tools or equipment they're using, that can be very stressful.
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Or if the audio is not working, that can be a bad thing, especially if you hired a videographer who's in the room with you and the dynamics in the room are just not ideal, or the lighting in the room does not get you the headshots you're looking for, or the action shots from the audience.
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Those are things that as a speaker, you might get involved in, you might not, or you won't know until after the event.
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But again, a stressful thing.
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And then people who might stress you out.
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I'm gonna be real about this.
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I'm a mom, and there are times that I had to leave my kids and go travel somewhere, different ages of life, and they're like, mommy, why do you have to go?
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Mommy, we want you here.
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I've missed my daughter's sweetheart dance in high school.
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I didn't want to miss it.
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Sometimes we get booked for something and then later on find out there's a family thing going on.
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I've missed family reunions.
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There are things that you might miss and your family might miss you.
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And sometimes that's a stressor as well, where you might feel guilty or you should be somewhere else, even though you had already committed.
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So sometimes those situations come up, and that's okay.
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But understanding that these can also drain your energy is an important piece of energy management as a speaker.
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So, what do you do with that?
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How do you manage your energy?
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Because I'm a strength-based coach, I'm gonna help you figure out where your energy already is before tweaking what works for you.
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So I have two different personality profiles I talk about when it comes to speakers.
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There's the nervous Nelly and there's the slow Samuel.
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Nervous Nelly is that person who gets really jittery, very excited, maybe hasn't figured out how to turn a fear into excitement.
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So it might feel fearful and butterflies in the stomach, talks very fast, maybe starts pacing as soon as they get on stage.
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So nervous Nellies, their preparation might be grounding techniques, like physical grounding.
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Can you go outside for a little bit?
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Can you wash your face or put a cold cloth on the back of your neck?
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Can you do some breathing exercise or vocal techniques before you get on that stage?
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Now you have time at the back of the stage to prepare yourself.
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This is when you might do that.
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If you arrive early enough to the event, you can get the lay of the room and understand your place in the room, and that could help ground you as well.
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If you're able to go barefoot outside, that's awesome.
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You can close your eyes and do a brief meditation.
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There are many things you can do to ground that energy and not feel so fearful.
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You can also breathe and just be there.
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Come to center and get clear with yourself.
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You don't have to network 15 minutes before you go on stage.
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That's your time to prepare yourself.
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Now, what about the slow Samuels?
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Now, slow Samuels are my methodical speakers.
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And it doesn't matter which one you are, you could still be an amazing speaker.
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It's just a different approach to your energy.
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Those are the people who are methodical, very analytical, very data forward, and might have very little vocal variety within their presentation.
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They have more of a very calm pace.
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They never hurry, they never feel like they're in a hurry, and they get through their slow but steady content and everything in its place.
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You don't need grounding because you're already grounded.
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What you need is energy.
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For you, it might be exercises, literally, like jumping jacks before you get on stage.
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It might be doing different going up and down vocally to kind of warm up your vocal cords.
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It's performance, right?
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You have to warm yourself up.
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So getting that energy within your body is really important for you.
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And you can do small things as well.
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I've dealt with pre-diabetes in the past.
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So I know that lunges and squats are really good for working those big muscles in your legs, and it brings blood flow and circulation to you.
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So if you're a slow Samuel, do a few squats in the bathroom before, or find a place where you could go on your toes and practice your vocal techniques, and that will get that energy moving within your body.
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Now let's look at after you're done speaking.
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Because yes, your job is not over when you're done speaking.
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You still have to manage the expectations of that event.
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And this is something you can agree to before you say yes to the event.
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So, what did you agree to as a speaker at that event?
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It's always a big surprise for my event planners when I stay for that event, because a lot of speakers say what they need to say and book out of there.
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I'm not that kind of speaker.
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Now, sometimes you have another speaking engagement that you actually have to leave for so you can make it on time and be early.
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But what did you agree to do or participate in at that event?
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And do you need time to decompress when you're done speaking?
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If you're like, oh, I'm still jittery because there's so much energy from the audience, I need a moment.
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Take that moment.
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Whether it's in the green room or outside of that big conference room, take that moment and then make sure you fulfill your obligations.
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So paying attention to what did you agree to for that event as part of you showing up and speaking, and what do you need, and finding the right balance of those two things.
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Now it's important to say that speakers typically have a season, and this is going to be highly dependent on what market you speak for.
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I typically speak for corporations and associations.
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I will share more with you on my website if you want to learn more about who I speak for and what topics I bring to them.
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But I will say that certain months tend to be high volume speaking months.
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So as you're looking ahead to the year ahead for yourself, you've declared you're going to be a speaker.
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That's awesome.
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Know that some months will be busier than others.
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Typically, October, January, March, and May are very busy months.
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Depending on what markets you speak to, the summer months typically are a little bit slower.
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Entrepreneurs and nonprofits host events over the summer months.
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Education, not so much.
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And September is a bad time to get into education.
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You want to get there ahead of September because they're back to school season.
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So you have the cycle of your client and you have the speaking cycle as well.
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Obviously, November and December are not good months for events.
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Most big events do not happen during those months because of holidays and vacations.
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Now, January and February can also be slower months depending on what part of the world you live in or where you're traveling to, but definitely some events and organizations take advantage of those winter months or bring you to a warmer place during those months.
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There are some seasons where you're going to do a higher volume of speaking than others.
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And I would encourage you to look at your energy management needs in between those high volume months and those low volume months.
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Of course, you still want to be out there prospecting, doing those weekly activities that keep you visible without overwhelming your own needs when it comes to delivering on stage.
00:18:49.599 --> 00:18:54.720
And personally, one thing that I do is I've been planning by moon cycles for many years.
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I've attended a retreat on using my astrological birth chart and tracking my needs, not just through the week and through the business activities I do, but through seasons as well.
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So how that looks for me is there are certain seasons that I am higher energy than others.
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Fortunately, I'm highest energy during the busy months of October and also November, which happens to be my birthday month.
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And I'm also high energy in early winter.
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Like December is a great vision time for me, visioning for the next year.
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And January is a great time for me to implement long-term strategy.
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And because I came from the health area, a lot of topics I spoke about on health, New Year's resolutions.
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So that tended to be a very busy time of year for me.
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In general, you know, the other busy part of speaking season, March and May.
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May is one of those months that I lean into more family-oriented activities.
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That's usually the end of the school year for my children.
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So I'm less likely to say yes to events in the end of May.
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I'm less likely to say yes to events in April, just in general, because I know my energy is super low in April.
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And I respect my own needs for energy.
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So I'm not likely to overbook my schedule in those months when my personal energy is at its lowest.
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But I also recognize that the events that are going to happen, I want to get ahead of them and understand my energy needs.
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So if I'm speaking typically three times a month in my lowest months, I might ramp that up to nine times in my highest energy months.
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So looking at the right mix of business for you, and you can't always control when events are, but you can control when you apply for the events and what time of year they tend to happen.
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What looks ideal for you?
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What are your own energy needs throughout the year, throughout the seasons, throughout the months?
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Keeping that long-term perspective on it will help you design a speaking business that you won't just love, but that you can sustain over time because you cared to pay attention to your own needs first.
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Performers can't do what they do when they're exhausted or overwhelmed.
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And I want to make sure you're performing at your best level with the right amount of energy to wow that audience and deliver those mic drop moments.
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Thank you for listening to today's episode.
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Until then, I'll see you on stage.
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If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to leave a review on Spotify, Apple, or share a comment over on YouTube.
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Subscribe to discover your own unique mic drop moments.
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In the meanwhile, don't forget to visit my website, Jen with2n spingo.com