ANDREW HORN: So, you've all had that moment
where you're at a bar, you're maybe dancing
a little bit, moving around.
You see someone looking at you out of the
corner of your eye and then your movements
become a little more constricted.
You become a little more in your head and
you're worried about what they might think
about you.
So that's that external motivation.
In any moment you can ask yourself, 'Am I
doing this because I want to, or because I
think people will like it?
Am I doing this because I want to or because
I think people will like it?'
If we're basing it off of the reality that
someone else will like it we'll never really
know.
We open ourselves up for that social anxiety.
The fear of negative judgment, the unknown
of external validation.
So, we can always ask ourselves, 'What do
I want to do right now?
What is interesting to me?
What would feel good to me?'
And act off of that to eliminate social anxiety
to bring more confidence into our conversations.
So, that's how we find our authentic voice
and use it.
And your authentic voice is a deep down understanding
of who you are, what you care about, and what
you believe.
And it's only when we have that foundational
understanding that we're able to bring confidence
into social situations.
Because if we're not basing our actions off
of this internal understanding, we're constantly
looking for external validation, for other
people to tell us what is cool, what is acceptable,
what is appropriate.
And if you look at the actual definition of
social anxiety it's literally the fear of
negative judgment.
So again, it's based in that external validation.
AMY CUDDY: In your sort of day-to-day life
when you're not facing one of these big challenges
you're naturally expressing who you really
are because you're not afraid to tell your
friends what you care about or show your family
who you really are.
When you get into those stressful situations
the last thing you're thinking about is, 'I
need to make sure that I show them exactly
who I am.'
And so instead showing them who you are becomes
very threatening, and that wall goes up and
now you can't access those things.
Even if you want to you can't access them
because you're into kind of fight or flight
mode.
ANNE MARIE ALBANO: The fight or flight response
evolved to protect us.
So there's two components to it.
The oldest being the amygdala, which is deep
in the brain in the reptilian part of our
brain, signals whether we should fight something,
flee something, or freeze.
When it goes awry is when it's perceiving
immediate danger that really isn't there.
Somebody's heart starts to race and they think,
'Oh, my goodness.
Is something wrong with me?'
That's panic, and that can send somebody into
a panic attack, which is the clinical manifestation
of the fight or flight response.
The other thing with anxiety is again, as
we evolved and became thinking human beings
and started building communities and cities
and civilizations, is our brain evolved and
there's the cortex.
It's within the cortex that we think.
It's within that system that we worry.
And so we can worry ourselves into states
of anxiety where we are fraught and not knowing
what to do and we actually get stuck with
anxiety, and so we're tense and irritable
and upset.
Anxiety is perfectly normal.
In any form it's perfectly normal.
Having your heart racing because somebody
is walking behind you and you don't know who
it is, is kind of normal.
But if you let that happen to you when you're
sitting alone at home and you start having
panic, then that gets out of control.
HORN: The American Psychological Review just
put out a study a couple of years ago and
they found out that 60 percent of all people
identify as struggling with shyness or social
anxiety.
Sixty percent.
So if you've struggle with that kind of intimidation,
if you've had that self-critical internal
dialogue you're in the majority.
And so you need to be easy on yourself and
say that those feelings are natural and they're
ubiquitous.
Everyone has those.
And so when we have those feelings we should
notice that most times when we have that kind
of intimidation factor we feel unworthy.
We're comparing ourselves to others.
We're looking at other people and saying oh
wow, they're so much smarter than I am, or
oh wow, I'm never going to be that good.
And so comparison is the thief of joy.
If we're constantly comparing ourselves with
other people we're not going to be able to
enjoy the process and it's going to be very
hard to maintain the effort and energy that
it takes to be really good at something.
So what's more important, what's more effective
to focus our energy on is what we want to
be really good at and comparing ourselves
with who we were yesterday.
If all we do is focus our attention on being
better than we were the day before, we can
live that process for the rest of our life.
Because again, knowing who you are, what you
care about and what you want to be is something
that you'll keep defining for the rest of
your life.
CUDDY: When people self-affirm it is the simplest
exercise.
It really is one, what are your core values?
Two, why do they matter to you?
Three, write about a time when you expressed
this.
When people do that it dramatically lowers
their stress and anxiety, self-reported stress
and anxiety.
It lowers their neuroendocrine measures of
stress and anxiety, like cortisol and epinephrine,
and it allows them to perform much better
in a stressful task.
So somebody might self-affirm and write about
why family matters to them and then they go
take a really hard math test.
Not only are they less stressed out, they
actually do better on the math test.
Now, what's funny about it is it's not somebody
saying to him or herself I'm a math genius.
I'm a real Einstein.
It has nothing to do with math.
The self-affirmation can have nothing to do
with math.
Why does it work?
It works because when we are reminded of who
we really are, it's okay to not be perfect.
So you can go into that stressful situation
and know that no matter what happens you are
leaving it as yourself.
So, I think it's a pretty wonderful little
intervention.
HORN: So I learned this from my friend Andrew
who's a hypnotherapist here in New York City.
He works with a lot of the Fortune 500 brands,
quickest growing startups.
And basically what he talks about with some
of these leaders is helps them to identify
where they have anxiety in their leadership
roles and helps them to overcome that and
really achieve peak performance.
And so when I first met him I said, 'Okay,
so how would you use hypnosis to alleviate
something like social anxiety?'
And so what he would tell me is he'd say,
'Okay, so what I want you to do is think about
a social situation where you might have some
anxiety.'
And I'd say okay, 'I'm going into a big tech
conference with a bunch of really influential
people and I might be nervous,' and he'd say
'Articulate the undesired state of being.
What is that?'
And so I'd say, 'I'm worried that I won't
have anything to say.
I'm worried that they won't think that I'm
high up enough to actually care about what
I'm going to say.
I'm not going to add value.'
He'd say, 'Great.
Just by actually articulating the undesired
state you are naming it and you're taming
it.
You're going to be more aware when those undesired
states manifest and that's the first step.'
And so he said step two is that you have to
articulate the desired state of being.
And our brains are really good at telling
us what is going to go wrong in social situations
because it wants to keep us safe.
It wants people to like us and this traces
all the way back to caveman days when we were
much more tribal.
And if we were ostracized by the group we
were going to get kicked out of the group
and then it was a literal death sentence.
And so our brain is still responding with
that type of intensity to social ostracization.
And so, articulate the desired state of being.
So, I want you to tell yourself three ways
that you would like to feel in this social
situation.
For me, coming into that conference I'd say,
'You know what?
I want to be authentic, curious and present.'
And so now I've given myself three desired
states of being and I can even take the first
letter of each of those desired states of
being – authenticity, curiosity, presence
– ACP.
So anytime any of those fears or anxieties
actually pop up I can just revert right back
to ACP and those are intrinsic motivators,
ways that I want to feel.
And I can say if I wanted to be authentic,
if I wanted to be curious or present what
would I do right now.
And now I'm grounded in the present moment,
in those desired ways of being.
I'm in the present moment.
I'm back towards accomplishing and creating
presence in conversation.
