Alper goes into the three factors causing us to be so stressed when speaking during a presentation, even though we know the chances are pretty low that someone is going to shoot us in the head while we’re doing it, along with some of his techniques for getting around that stress.

Episode transcript:

Matt Krause
Alper today we’re going to talk a little bit about the what was it? You wanted to talk about the psychology of presentations, right?

Alper Rozanes
The, yeah, the psychology that the psychology in our mind that can go on during presentations. I mean, basically, why we experience why we may experience stress during during presentations.

Matt Krause
Okay. And I just wanted to acknowledge that my voice is kind of on the fritz today. Earlier this week, I was sick, and the sickness has left but it took my voice with it. So my voice is gone.

Alper Rozanes
Your voice sounds fantastic. It actually… your voice is actually very, very similar to I don’t know if you’ve watched it. Have you ever seen Larry David shows?

Matt Krause
I’ve seen a few episodes. You’re talking about Curb Your Enthusiasm, right?

Alper Rozanes
Yeah. There was a great character.

Matt Krause
I’ve seen a few episodes. But But I don’t know it well, who was the character?

Alper Rozanes
There was this brilliant character, Marty Funkhouser. Yeah. And I believe he he passed away several years ago, rest in peace. Well, his his real name was I looked it up before before I came here. It’s it was Bob Einstein. Rest in peace. And it really resembles his voice. So I feel like I’m talking to him right now.

Matt Krause
So today’s podcast episode is Alper Rozanes and Marty, what was this guy’s name? Marty Funkhouser? Or the character’s name?

Alper Rozanes
The character’s name was Marty Funkhouser. His real name was Bob Einstein.

Matt Krause
Okay, so today’s episode is Alper Rozanes and Marty Funkhouser. So let’s get into today’s topic, which is, what did you say the stress of of presentations or the psychological stress…

Alper Rozanes
I want to talk about… Yeah, I want to talk about why we experienced stress during presentations.

Matt Krause
Okay. Let’s, let’s talk about that. Take it away. What, what did you find?

Alper Rozanes
Well, well, first of all, I looked at my own experience, and I know from my own unpleasant experiences, how much stress presenting and public speaking can bring on to the person. I’m also well aware that I am not alone in this because in the trainings in the conversations in many environments, where I speak to people who are actively presenting, yes, sometimes they’re comfortable, sometimes they’re less comfortable, and sometimes they are downright anxious and and stressful. So it made me think about why we experience stress during your presentation. I mean, what goes through our minds at the time, what are we afraid of? Because it’s, I mean, presentations are not deadly. But despite and despite all this negativity, and I firmly believe that it’s still a very critical skill in our professional lives. So that’s why I wanted to bring it onto the table and and shed some light onto it.

Matt Krause
Okay. So what did you find?

Alper Rozanes
Well, when I did the research, first of all, I, I wanted to explore what situations we usually experienced stress, I mean, completely independent from presentations or public speaking. And what I wanted to find, of course, I’m not looking for Hey, you’re facing a big bear on the street, you experience stress. That’s not the kind of stress that I wanted to explore. I wanted to explore specifically on experiencing stress in situations that really don’t pose significant danger to ourselves or other people around us.

Matt Krause
You meet me like in a presentation? Nobody’s gonna. Nobody’s gonna stand up and shoot us in the head or anything. Is that what you mean?

Alper Rozanes
Hopefully. I don’t think it has happened before. Yeah. I don’t think it will ever happen. But during this, I mean, during my reading, I came across a physician a doctors named Gabor Mate, he is is a he’s a Canadian, Hungarian Dr. And in one of his videos, something really resonated with me. And he was talking about three factors, three main factors that are sources of stress. I don’t think it’s like the only three. But they certainly make sense.

Alper Rozanes
And interestingly I was able to align them with situations in which we find ourselves during presentations, the three things he was talking about the three main factors are uncertainty, lack of information and loss of control.

Alper Rozanes
So, when we have these going on, it causes stress. And it makes perfect sense, actually, I mean, you’re not certain you don’t have enough information about what’s going on what’s going to happen. And you may be afraid of losing control.

Alper Rozanes
All of which are perfectly applicable to the presentation environment, at least to the ones that I have found myself before. And through so many situations where people I’ve worked with find themselves.

Alper Rozanes
On top of those, I also believe personally, that maybe a fear of making mistakes, or a fear of looking stupid, they can also have a negative impact during your presentation. So three verified factors, uncertainty, lack of information and loss of controls, and my own personal touch from my own aforementioned unpleasant experiences, the fear of making mistakes and fear of looking stupid in front of other people.

Matt Krause
Okay, so the three that you found… Uncertainty, lack of control and a lack of information, is that correct?

Matt Krause
I find the third one lack of information, I find this one the most interesting. So tell me more about that one, lack of information, because you’re like, the person with the most information in the room. Right. So what are you lacking?

Alper Rozanes
That’s a good point. And I will agree with that, to a certain point, I think you will be the person with the most… let’s, what was the amount of information in the room regarding the topic that they will speak about.

Alper Rozanes
But I think there are other aspects going on during your presentation. And I can certainly relate to it through questions like, like, Who are you presenting to? And why should they listen to your? Where will you give the presentation? Is it going to be in a meeting room are going to be standing? How much time will it be given? Will there be other presenters with you?

Alper Rozanes
And I understand that before, especially a business presentation, most of these questions may be answered. But maybe sometimes not. Maybe you don’t know who exactly is going to be in the room, you don’t know who their positions will be.

Alper Rozanes
Or you don’t know what their preconceived ideas about the topics are. So you don’t know whether they’re going to show resistance, you don’t know whether you’re going to face problems during the presentation.

Alper Rozanes
I take it that this lack of information is more relevant to the parameters outside the topic of your presentation, rather than the information that you will be talking about

Matt Krause
Okay, okay. And then you also mentioned, lack of control. And there, I can definitely relate to that. And you mentioned a few things that you don’t control, you don’t control who else is presenting with you. You don’t control so many things, you don’t control the mood of the audience members, when they walk in the room, there are so many things that you don’t control. What are some of the ways you can overcome that barrier?

Alper Rozanes
Well I would say, of course, enough preparation, enough rehearsal, and even so, it could be that all the preparation in the world cannot prepare you for everything to control everything during the presentation. So you still may forget something to say you you still may encounter a difficult audience something may go wrong in the presentation. So these are all factors that can contribute to your stress related to a caused by the sensation of losing control.

Alper Rozanes
I think rehearsal would be the key element. But maybe, I mean, this is my personal opinion. And it took me not even years but generations to come to that point. Maybe to, try to see if you can feel comfortable with the idea of losing control.

Alper Rozanes
I mean, I I experienced this only three weeks ago and before a full day’s event. Everything that could go wrong, technically at least, did go wrong. And I found myself in a nervous situation not knowing what to do.

Alper Rozanes
Of course, I had I had enough preparations, but the technicalities, at least the difficulties in the, in the technical area, went beyond even my own preparations, and I’m a self proclaimed OCD. And I believe me when I say I have a plan B, plan C, Plan D, and this, this hit me with with the letter J, or K or something like that.

Alper Rozanes
And it was a huge loss of control. But after so many years of experiencing a lot of things, I, I had learned to feel a little bit of comfort, even the gravest situation of losing control.

Alper Rozanes
Of course, there was nothing. Again, there was nothing lethal, there was nothing deadly. But it was it was I mean, it was a round of technical difficulties or challenges. And at the end, we took care of them. But during that moment, I think the most important thing to remember was okay, even if none of my preparations are enough to tackle this issue, it’s okay. It will be okay. And stay comfortable in that in that loss of control situation.

Matt Krause
This lack of control, it reminds me of another thing. We’ve been talking a number of times over the past few episodes about nonlinear presentations.

Matt Krause
And one of the keys of a nonlinear presentation, is that giving a nonlinear presentation allows you to walk into the room and see your audience. And basically hand over control of the direction of your presentation to them.

Matt Krause
And so that they become the ones who say, Okay, let’s talk about this first. And let’s talk about that. And then let’s talk about that.

Matt Krause
So, and one of the things that you’ve mentioned here is that to become not afraid, you’re not really becoming not afraid of losing control, you’re becoming used to or confident in your ability to survive through this experience of losing control. So by, by knowing that, by knowing your material so well, that you can deliver a nonlinear presentation, by knowing your material so well, that even that, oh, go ahead, go ahead,

Alper Rozanes
No, go ahead. I have my idea.

Matt Krause
You by knowing your material so well, that you can deliver it pretty much whatever situation comes your way, whether it’s a technical problem, or whether it’s, you know, handing over control in a nonlinear presentation. You’re basically exposing yourself through through repeated expo… you’re solving the problem through repeated exposure that shows you that you’re not going to die.

Alper Rozanes
And again, with the with the lack of information we talked about in this loss of control, I think I could also differentiate between losing control during the presentation due to unexpected events, or giving control to the audience for a nonlinear presentation.

Alper Rozanes
Because I believe, when you’re giving the control of the flow of the presentation on a in a nonlinear experience, I believe you have so much control over the situation that in small pockets of it, like the presentation itself, you’re able to let go of it.

Alper Rozanes
So in this regard, I don’t think I don’t think the presenter if, with enough preparation, with enough courage to give the control of the presentation to the audience. I don’t think they would have any issues with that. But what I was referring to could be anything that can go beyond your preparation or beyond your powers.

Alper Rozanes
And at the same time, remember, it can be very stressful, depending on how comfortable you are with uncertainty, because on top of all these things that we’re talking about, imagine yourself during that presentation, you’re literally putting yourself in front of people for for critical evaluation. So I think it’s quite normal to worry in such a situation, especially if you see things getting out of hand a little bit.

Matt Krause
Yeah. So we’re about to run out of time. But before we wrap up, I’m kind of I’ve been kind of going in reverse order here. And one of the first factors that you mentioned was stress that comes from uncertainty. So since we don’t have a lot of time to cover this, just tell me what kinds of things introduce uncertainty into a presentation, and what are some of the ways that you can deal with that?

Alper Rozanes
Well, some of it we already mentioned between loss of control and lack of information, because they are both of them are related to the the concept of uncertainty.

Alper Rozanes
But in the uncertainty, I was more thinking of, like some of the self questioning or self doubts that you may have on your mind before before the presentation, which can stress you out like, like, do I have what it takes to make this presentation? Or will I be able to make a positive impact on the audience? Is it? Do I have enough time to talk about this topic?

Alper Rozanes
So those kinds of questions can create a sense of uncertainty within yourself towards yourself. And it could be one of the one of the factors that causes stress during your presentation. And of course, it’s not always easy to find, you know, 100%, clear and complete answers to these questions, and they can add up.

Matt Krause
So this you’ve described a sort of self doubt. Am I up to the task? Am I good enough to make this presentation? So if I am about to give a presentation, and I’m being hobbled by the self doubt, what are some of the ways that I can overcome this?

Alper Rozanes
I think we need a whole new episode for that, and we should do a whole new episode toward that.

Matt Krause
Okay. Yeah. Excellent. Well, that yeah, that sounds like a whole standalone episode, or even a series of episodes on just that topic alone.

Alper Rozanes
This episode was just about identifying the problem without any promise of resolutions or, or help or tips and tricks. Yeah. And we will dedicate at least one if not more episodes on the on the solving part.

Matt Krause
So yeah, this this episode was about identifying the problem. And Matt sounded like Marty Funkhouser. Was that the guy’s name Marty? Yeah. May he rest in peace. The character Marty. Bob Einstein. Okay. So that’s it for this week. Thank you very much Alper.