Thank you for joining us, Eric. As I say with all these interviews, I’m sure, but I am sure that your interview can provide insight for a lot of people. To begin, can you just give a general profile of what you do? I respect your anonymity, but could you do a general profile of what you do in your career? Sure. I run a technology organization where I’m responsible for about $400 million in spend for a company that has annual sales of approximately $30 billion a year. And I guess over the years with this company, I’ve held different levels of leadership positions to the point where I’m now a director in the company.
So I’m sure you’re very skilled at what you do. That being said, when I first met you, you had a substantial problem with public speaking performance anxiety. Could you describe for the audience what that was about? Sure. So, yeah, I was at a point when I reached out to you where I had fear before every meeting. I had anticipatory anxiety thinking about meetings or presentation. I was avoiding opportunities due to social anxiety and public speaking anxiety. I was avoiding meetings. You’ll notice I was avoiding everything. It sounds like when I’m saying this. I essentially had a fear about being fearful, which sounds strange.
I had anxiety over anxiety. I’d be nervous that somebody would see me be nervous and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I’d be nervous about it. I would get into the situation, physically be nervous, and then kind of fulfill itself. So then it would just build on itself. So at the point that I reached out to you, I was in pretty bad shape, I would say. So typically, let’s say that it’s the weekend and this is back when you started treatment. Let’s say it’s the weekend and you knew that you had an important meeting where you had to do a presentation on a Wednesday. What would go on for you? Yeah. So for me, the less time that I knew about something, the better. So a scenario like you’re talking about there, I would find out that I had to give a presentation for following week and instantly I would have an adrenaline reaction.
I would have an adrenaline spike and immediately I would likely have some negative self-talk. And then… Like what? So I would think something along the lines of you’re going to be nervous. Everybody’s going to see you be nervous. You’re going to embarrass yourself. You know, there may be some leadership personnel that are in this meeting and they may not think you’re competent. You’re… And what would you… What would you’re worrying in general be like a week leading up to this event? So it would be a situation where you’ll have to be initial, I guess.
It would be in the back of my head, constantly. So over the weekend, even while I’m spending time with my wife and kids, it would be in the back of my head. So instead of fully participating in my life, I would have this anxiety going and maybe be… While I’m having these thoughts, I could be short with my kids or my wife instead of, you know, more understanding around some situations or I’d be thinking about it at night and it would be impacting my ability to sleep. I would be having a higher level. I call it just walking around anxiety. My baseline anxiety level would be higher. So it would be easier to set me off on an anxiety or an adrenaline rush than it ordinarily might be.
So I would say it was impacting my personal life. It was impacting, you know, my work life. A meeting that I might not have been nervous about. If I was already thinking about a major presentation coming up the week following, you know, I may not be… I don’t know the right term, but, you know, I’d be overly anxious for a meeting that normally would not have impacted me at all. Okay. And you’re also saying that the obsessive worry was substantially impacting your mood in the process of anticipation of the challenge event. Absolutely. Okay. So what I do in all of these interviews, just because I really do believe in statistics, is I reduce everything from one to ten.
So measuring the severity of your overall problem, there are layers to it and this is what’s important for listeners to understand is the anxiety of the challenge situation itself in fear of being noticeably nervous and panic. There’s the anticipatory worry, the obsessiveness that can be really draining. How these dynamics impact mood, the avoidance in your lifestyle, what you avoid and the degree of it and how it impacts your performance and your career and productivity. But anyway, you put all these things together and if the initial severity of the problem was a ten and one is perfect, where are you at now? I would say that today I’m probably right around it too.
All right. Now there’s a lot of things that we could talk about, mind states and nurturing and critical script and whatever. What I’d really like you to tune into, which I think you did an excellent job with, is explain to the listeners how you made adrenaline your friend. Yeah. So there’s no quick fix to this one. It took time for me. Yeah, but wait a minute. I’m going to give a statistic there. You were intrigued because people always ask me how long is it taken, all that. And my response is what’s your learning curve. There are many variables to go into a learning curve. You graduated in 28 sessions. I think that’s pretty fast given the fact that how long could you have this problem?
Yeah, I would say almost as long as I can remember, but certainly got much worse following high school. So a long time, you’re how old now? 40. Okay, so go back to the question. How you made friends with your adrenaline? So for me, it started with trying to accept it, which is a very strange idea. You know, it’s a very thing that you’re trying to avoid. So I began working with you. I would go into meetings after our meetings and try to focus on the adrenaline and the anxiety and what it felt like, what it was doing to my body. Now I was reacting to it. And by going through that process, I started to gain a little bit of control over it.
I began to realize that it wasn’t always that bad. One scenario may be worse than another one. So then it’s looking at those underlying issues. Why is one meeting or talking to one group more anxiety inducing than another one? So as an example, for me, talking in front of senior leadership was a major issue, whereas it wasn’t quite as bad if I was just talking to my direct report. Okay, so now you’re identifying your hierarchy. Where when we systematically did your hierarchy one through ten, relatively speaking, your fears, which I would do with anybody who had a similar profile that you did, would you say that you were proactive in going after the hierarchy, meaning going back to the football reference, did you quarterback opportunities, did you create them so that you would have the opportunity to implement the adrenaline acceptance technique, or did you tend to wait for the situations to come to you?
So yeah, that’s a key thing. So working with you, trying to understand some of those underlying issues and the root causes is certainly key. But the bigger key for me personally was then taking that and practicing. Having every single scenario as an opportunity to practice, so being in meeting, eventually joining Toastmasters, engaging my natural child, sort of riding the adrenaline wave instead of running from it, I began to realize that most of the meetings were no longer really causing high levels of anxiety, but for me historically that’s a key point right there, which is then I would stop and those wash, rinse and repeat cycle would kick in, working with you something that I didn’t do was give up, so I didn’t let up.
In the past I get to that point where I was better or feeling better and stop. For me here the key was to keep pressing on, identifying what was still causing me. Yeah, because I was the quarterback coach like Bill Belichick and I would not let you escape, but you did try a couple times, right? Absolutely, and then getting into those situations to practice. At the onset it’s difficult to do that once you start to see yourself make progress, you start to beat on it and you realize that getting into those situations with your controls on it, your rules that your changed mindset on it, you really start to gain some control on it and you can go after those things that you’re most fearful of.
Alright, but let’s nail something down. There was an episode that you had, you went to Toastmasters, you did a very good job of integrating Toastmasters into the therapy and there was one bad episode you had. You had a panic attack in Toastmasters, right? And it got to the point that you stopped your speech prematurely, right? Okay, not a pleasant memory. That was an example of the adrenaline getting the best of you. So now here you are and you’ve recovered. Talk as specifically as you can. This is where I really hope that the listeners are going to get some clinical impact and knowledge from this versus here’s just another testimonial. I’m really trying here.
So talk as specifically as you can regarding what you exactly did to gain control over the adrenaline. What? I thought you did to gain control. Yes, yes, it’s a hard question, but you are an expert and the more that you can be specific, the more that you can help people who are hearing this. So for me, I guess the… Wow, yes. So exactly what I did was, number one, it’s really accepting it, feeling it, acknowledging it in everything that I was doing. A lot, for me personally, a lot of what I was feeling in terms of anxiety, I was not acknowledging.
There were so much anxiety in my life that was caused by this and ancillary anxiety that I wasn’t acknowledging it and I wasn’t accepting it and I wasn’t trying to do anything about it. So acknowledging it was the first and most important key, physically trying to work with it. So being in a meeting, knowing and feeling the anxiety, understanding that I’ve got it and trying to physically work with the use of the term of riding the wave. So trying to change my mindset for me personally, the biggest piece of that is engaging my natural child. So changing my ideas around anxiety.
So in the moment, I’m having an adrenaline rush with anxiety inducing situations. Now today, what happened to acknowledge that? I feel it. I try to change my mindset about it. How can I use this to better my immediate situation? And I’m rolling with it. It’s hard to say any one point that helps me to overcome that. But through all of the steps I’ve built up, I would say a tool set or a little treasure chest on the side of things that I can apply towards my anxiety to overcome it.
And for me, one of the biggest items was engaging my natural child. I was not looking at any anxiety inducing situation in a positive light. Everything was stressful. Okay, so when you don’t go here and I appreciate it, let’s just clarify one thing. The natural child is a mind state. I do mind state work with patients. The natural child mind state is the energy of exploration, discovery, creativity, the development of ideas, risk taking, healthy sexuality, joy, happiness. How did you apply this question then? One last one. But how did you apply your natural child mind state to the adrenaline control challenge? Yeah, so here it’s saying it’s actual self-statement to myself.
So going into a meeting and saying something like, what can I do to provide something positive to these people in this meeting? Or what can I do to help these people in this meeting instead of, oh God, I’m going to be anxious in this meeting? Saying something like, it’s enjoyable to meet new people, let them know about myself, my group, my company, my family, whatever it is, as opposed to, oh God, I’ve got to go and meet new people and I’m going to be nervous. Saying statements and believing these statements, they have to be realistic. So when they, beyond set, it may not have been those statements. These are things that I’m saying today as I’m going into meeting and it works. So when I’m going in, let’s say a real example would be I’m looking forward to presenting the success that my organization is having and having an interactive discussion around it.
Back 28 sessions ago would have been, why are these people asking me to talk about my organization? Can’t they just see what we’re doing? So it’s a totally different mindset and approach that I’ve taken and what was happening was I wasn’t having any fun. I wasn’t enjoying it. I was not engaging my natural child at all. All right, let me just comment and then I want to end this with a final question. One of the things that I want the listeners to understand is that when Eric references natural child mind state exploration discovery, that’s being in motion. He learned how to quarterback being in motion. When that process does not happen, the result on very deep levels of consciousness is recycled anger and rage, which drives the problem, the obsessive worry and the anxiety.
So in other words, if you’re not doing what you truly want to do or should do, be in front of that group, do that sales call, whatever it is, and your desire is there and you don’t do it. That becomes an investment at a very deep level at what I’m referencing as anger and rage. Okay, last question. A lot of people, the majority of people who are looking for, who have profile similar to you, and they’re looking for help with performance anxiety, public speaking. I know that they are looking for a quick fix, some magic, and the work that we do is antithetical to that. It’s hard work. You’ve got to feel that, what you’re going to control. You have to feel that adrenaline, which is totally paradoxical or opposite if you’re going to learn the skills of controlling it. So these people who are shopping for an answer, they’re asking themselves, is it worth it?
So just talk for a minute about how your life is different given what you have accomplished. Yeah. So in the grand scheme of things, 28 weeks is not a long period of time, but there’s been a lot of change in my life and that’s on set. So today, in my professional career, I’ve recently taken on a new role within my company. I started back in April, and I’m now actively participating in several senior leadership teams and committees. I’ve got visibility in the organization and in my professional life that I never, ever would have been able to attain or achieve just that 28 weeks ago.
I can see in my personal life that I’m much more engaged at home because I’m not pressing and worrying about every meeting that’s coming up. My wife has noticed that. I’ve certain my kids have. My patience level has grown dramatically. So my ability to deal with adversity and challenges has grown as well. I was at a point when we started where I was frustrated because I was passing on opportunity in my life, in my career, that I really wanted to do and be active in, but I didn’t do them because I knew I may have to do more presentations or have more interaction with senior leadership.
And now I feel like that’s no longer a challenge for me. So anything is an option for me at this point in time, and that’s a very empowering feeling. Perfect place to end. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.
