Public speaking and fear of public speaking

Welcome to building better developers, the developer podcast where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We're continuing our season of interviews and we're starting a new interview. We're speaking with Tyler Foley. He is, for lack of a better term, jack of all trade, master of a couple of them. We're going to, you're going to find out he's got a very interesting story. A lot of stuff that we talk about. His focus is public speaking and fear of public speaking, which we'll find out doesn't really exist and how to promote your ideas as more of a, like an umbrella kind of area. We'll talk about his community, some of the things he's done, how he's gotten there. And because he's just so darn entertaining, we're going to jump right into it. So here we are with Tyler Foley. Today we're talking with Tyler Foley and this is going to be an interesting one. He's done it all really. I mean, we'll probably find something he hasn't done and he'll have to put it on his to do list. But otherwise, this is a guy that has done a lot of cool stuff and gotten a lot out of it. So it's going to be, once again, you may have to bring like an extra notebook this time and extra lead or ink for your pen or pencil, because there's going to be a lot of notes. I guess you're going to want to take care of. Now with something is with someone as experienced and has got as deep and broad an experience as you do, I find it's obviously going to be better to let you give a little bit of your like, you know, synopsis, introduce yourself, let us know where you're from and or how you've gotten here and we will go from there. Sounds good, Rob. So yeah, I am an author, bestselling author, which is always super cool. Former child actor, consultant. And I've been in all kinds of industries, given my performance background, because when you're an actor, you're never just an actor. So I've worked in film and television, obviously stage, but I've also worked in aviation, engineering, hospitality. I have been a ski instructor, stunt performer. I have worn many hats, had many name tags and many hair nets to go with them. So I am, as they often say, Jack of all trades and master of few. I've started to focus in on a couple and performance, stage telling and particularly public speaking are my current fortes. But yeah, it was a long and securitist route to get here and I'm looking forward to chatting with you about it today. Excellent. That actually brings us right to one of the questions I had is how have you, you know, looking back now, because you've got this broad experience, maybe throw a couple of pros and cons of having that, especially now as you know, now that you are sort of looking to to maybe focus a little bit more, where are some things that maybe led you to that or some maybe some strengths that you've gotten out of that where you said, hey, I'm having that broad experience has allowed me to dive into things maybe a little faster than other people would have. Well, I think the nice thing about having broad experience is that I rapid failed at a lot of things that were definitely not career choices I should have made. But I had the ability, I have the ability now to look back and say, you know, that that isn't for me. I also have the ability to look back and go. There was a theme between a couple of those that really allowed me to flourish in that. These are where my talents lie. So although they were not necessarily going to be lifelong careers, they were definitely lifelong lessons. And I think, you know, my time in aviation, I'm really good at customer service, but not because I enjoy dealing with customers, but because I have empathy and can communicate well. And that was a thing. And I was also really good in aviation because I enjoy travel. So, you know, you find that little bit. That's what helped me with my working in hospitality, particularly when I was arranging tour packages for very high end ski clients. I could, again, using that empathy, listen to what their needs were and pair them with the package that made them happy. And subsequently, I had more repeat business than anybody else in the agency that I worked for. So it was things like that where as I started to tie them together and see where my skill sets lay, I was able to really start to hone in on how I could as a human being really excel on my own. So things like performance were important to me. And I actually found, too, when you asked what the negative was, when I tried to hide that, because, you know, when you're having a resume and it's when it's diverse like that, you get all the experts who are like, no, you need to tailor it, make it a field and you lose some stuff. One of the things that I tried to hide for a very long time was the fact that I was a performer for 20 years because as a child actor, starting at six years old, you know, they don't most of my work was done in the performing arts. By the time I was 25, I had a 20 year career at that point. And so when in my late 20s and early 30s, when I was trying to, quote unquote, look professional, I buried this 20 years worth of experience. And it wasn't until I started to embrace it, I even actually had a client that I subcontracted to tell me that I as part of my contract, I was not allowed to talk about my time in performing arts, that I wasn't supposed to talk about being an actor because it was unprofessional and reflected poorly on them as a client. And I always thought that interesting because it only took people about two or three seconds to ask why I was doing so good in presentations for them to be like, who is this guy? Why doesn't he speak so well? What's going on? And they Google my name. And the first thing that would come up is my IMDB page, which I don't control. That is the Internet Movie Database that is entered by producers. That is a page on a public thing. It'd be like trying to control my own Wikipedia. I can't. You know, it is a public domain space. And so people would find it. Have you know, it's going to obviously come to the top of the search rankings outside of my control. And then they would ask. And when I realized that that was, you know, what made me interested, what set me apart, that's when I really started to embrace it. And that's when I had the most success, when I was able to say, no, you know what, because of my extensive experience in this field that is unique to, you know, my me, very few people get to do what I get to do. I have a perspective. And this is what I'd like to share with you. And that's when I really started to flourish as a professional. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's sort of sad, but there's a lot of child actors that are not professionals and they really struggled afterwards. So that's sort of like the, you know, it's like congratulations to go on and become a productive human being afterwards. But it helps that I wasn't a famous child. If you had been better, you would have been in trouble, but you like you kept it just to the right level. Right. You know, that is a it's interesting because a lot of people, I think, run into that same situation, maybe not from that breadth and not from something that's that we'll say hard to run from. But, you know, if you get into something and you don't like it, you know, you go five years in a career and you realize, I want to do a change. And now you've got to move on to something else. And so. And sometimes you do you hide that because you're like, oh, if I go, you know, if I put this, they're going to hire me for that thing as opposed to this other thing I want to do. And particularly like technology is a great example of that. Like, you know, you know, word or something like that. And the next thing you know, everybody wants to hire you to do some sort of word stuff. And it's like, no, I want to do Excel. I want to do something. I want to do this other stuff. And so it becomes difficult. So and especially it's interesting that you have somebody that says, hey, I'd like for you to hide that. Was that something that you did you sort of like just sort of flip it at some point? You said, you know what, I'm tired of hiding this. I think I'm going to own it. Or was it more something that just over time became something that was so well known? You're just like, OK, I'm going to go with it. A little of both. They both informed each other. I remember when that client asked me, it felt wrong. You know, and I felt like. I understood the request, but didn't agree with it, but I also was willing to try. You know, I'm always willing to do an A-B test. And I found the it's kind of like the telltale heart that from Edgar Allan Poe, right, the more you try to hide it under the floorboard, the louder that thing beats. So it's better to just let it out. And that's actually one of the things that I teach most of my clients to, because I find that the thing we're afraid to say is usually the thing that needs to be said. And when you find the bravery and the courage to say it out loud, that's when you start to find, first of all, your ideal client set, because they're going to be magnetically drawn to you. And subsequently, and in conjunction, that's when you find your true success, because that's when you get your legs, because you're going to help the people who need the help in the way that only you can help them. That's critical, even from a personal level, business level, is that everybody talks about brand and things like that. And if you go off brand, then suddenly you're not that person. Oprah, there's this picture people have with Oprah. She started doing something that was un-Oprah-like. I don't know what that would be, but she goes off brand. The next thing you know, it's going to be tougher to do that. I guess a good example, like Michael Jordan, known for basketball. He goes out for baseball and he's good, but it throws everybody off because now, hey, this is how we know you. And he wasn't as good. He was a superstar in one area and just a good player in another. Yeah. And that's the thing. He was probably bottom 20% MLB when it came to baseball. That's still really high. That is high level ball. And yet we go, man, Jordan sucked at baseball. You know what I mean? Why? Because he was the GOAT in the NBA. And when you are the greatest of all time, that's what people are remembered for. I saw a hilarious quote because I'm a bit of obviously a movie fanatic. And it was one of those, do you know trivia things? And they're like, did you know that Michael Jordan spent nine years and won three NBA championships just so that he could make his portrayal in space jam more realistic? I heard that. And as an actor who knows every method actors, I died when I heard that. I was like, that's funny. That is definitely good. It's a little bit of that cart before the horse. But I think even if you're not the GOAT, you're your personal greatest of all time. You're the best you that there is. And if you're not doing that, then it pulls you down. It doesn't feel right. Like you said, it's just something where you're like, okay, maybe I'll do this. But it doesn't sit right with me. Well, and everybody talks about that blue ocean and niche and drilling down, etc. And I do believe in the concept, but I think it's taught poorly. And I know that because I am a consumer of education. And it took me a long time to realize what people actually meant by it. And it's not trying to find that underserved group. It's trying to find the group that you serve the most uniquely. And even for me, I struggled for the last couple of years to find a good web developer. I need a web page. I am a speaker. I have multiple intellectual property products to offer. I train. So I have various digital programs. I have the books. I have my live presentations. And I needed a place that was warehouse that everybody could get to. And I worked with so many people and so many web developers and highly recommended web developers from some really large companies. Like I work with a lot of C-suite executives and they'd be like, because I'd help them. And then in that give and take exchange, they'd always say, well, how can I be of assistance to you? What do you need? What are you struggling with right now, Tyler? Get my name out, need my website. And they'd be like, oh, well, here's our developer. And they're Fortune 500 execs. And I'm like, okay, well, let's try that. And they would fail. It wasn't until I found my web developer who was also in the self-help space. So she loves, she's geeked out over coding and just loves it. But she's also invested 20 years and has worked with and volunteered with a lot of the stage producers and the promoters that I work with. So she understands my industry. And it wasn't until I found her that I could really kind of tailor. It was the first time that somebody presented me with a website where I went, oh, yeah, no, that's what I've been trying to describe to people because I'm not a developer. I'm not a programmer. So I had no way of communicating correctly what my vision was. And she just got it because I was able to speak in a different language and she was able to translate it into code. And I think that's that goes back to that. You said that was why you were good in the airline industry was not because you necessarily liked the customers or anything as much as you had that empathy. So you could essentially talk that language. And I think that's that and particularly that when people talk about in the world of side hustles and being successful in niching down to something, I don't think people, yeah, they're like, oh, OK, well, I'm a web developer. How can I niche down? It's like there are industries all over that it's critical to know how they do stuff in order to actually build that website like you ran into. And I think that's one of those things that people don't they underestimate how their specific experience does bring them being that best person. As you're like, they are the best person to serve that customer, not necessarily because of their technical skills or their resume other than those key items. I say you bring out those key items and suddenly it's like, oh, that's a match. That's a match. That's a match. And now you find your perfect, you know, perfect customer, perfect, perfect service provider. Yeah, there is more than just technical skill. And in fact, technical skill is maybe 10 percent of the game. Because, you know, you look at like for me, I'm a public speaking coach now. Like I train people how to be better on stage. But if you were to run an Internet search for, you know, speaker trainers, I bet you and I've got great SEO because I've been on over 350 podcasts in the last year. They're all backlinked to me. I have organic SEO going out the in gang, but I definitely haven't optimized the web page yet for the specific search. So if you search my name, I'm definitely the top. But you search speaker coach and I bet you I would be on the hundredth page. But, you know, serving 10 to 15 unique identifiers each go. And that's, you know, that's OK. But what sets me apart is if people start drilling down, you know, what expertise are they looking for? How are they looking to communicate? And what is their end goal with their public speaking? Because if their end goal is to just be more comfortable on stage, find their story, find their messaging and tell it in a more effective, compelling way as a small business owner to get bring more awareness to what they're doing. Mine, I'm going they're going to identify with me way quicker than they're going to with some of these other trainers who are trying to get you on to the big stages and sell to, you know, 10 million dollars and get your seven figure deals. Eight figure deals and all the rest of that. That's not my promise. That's not my guarantee. That's not what I'm trying to do. And so those people are going to identify with me quicker than they're going to identify with some of the other providers. That yeah, that's exactly it. You find your that goes back to you find your avatar. And if you can talk to them, then they're going to, you know, they're going to want to want to deal with you. Now, that does leave me because we haven't really spent much time talking about the whole public speaking and your book. That is you wrote the power to speak naked. And it's interesting that one of the things that you you mentioned as a talking point and things discussed is why you should never visualize the audience naked. And so that's like a that's like the classic trope. Everybody's heard like that. That's the way to get into it. So now I definitely have to throw that out to you. So why shouldn't you do that? Because it's a waste of time and it is the worst advice that anybody can ever give. Here's the thing. If you are granted the gift that is an audience and it doesn't matter how big that audience is, if you're talking to one other person, you have an audience. If somebody has come to you seeking your advice, seeking your knowledge and you have what is truly a sacred relationship at that point, you need to treat it as such. And this idea that I'm going to gain comfort out of somebody else's discomfort or that somehow I will feel empowered over somebody else by stripping, literally stripping them of their dignity in my head is so counterintuitive. And it's a waste of brain space because really you could be spending your time focusing on how do I serve this person or these people? How do I leave them better than I found them? And that needs to be your focus. And if you can make that your mental exercise, constantly asking what am I missing? How can I serve this person or these people better? How can I provide more value in the situation? You will be sought after. And so this idea of picturing your audience naked is counterintuitive, masochistic, and just doesn't work. I would challenge, I want the best speakers in the world, any one of them. I don't care which one. I put this challenge out to all of them. I will give them $10,000 if they can honestly come to me and say, no, you know what, Tyler, the most effective strategy I found as a public speaker and one of the things that's helped me make millions and millions of dollars is every time I go out on stage, I picture this entire audience in their birthday suit and it is the thing that has changed my life. Find me that person and then I will change my tune. But until then, I've been doing this for 37 years. I have never pictured my audience naked. I've never tried. It doesn't work. That's interesting because it's one, I have never done that either. It's just one of those things. It's always amusing to me that people say that's how you do it. But it's interesting because it's really more self-focused. Sort of as you say, it is basically a selfish thing. I've got this stage fright thing. I'm worried about speaking to the crowd and this is how I ease my nerves. And I notice that's another thing that you talk about in speaking and coaching is handling stage fright. And so maybe is there, especially because in the world of IT and developers, our drawing card is usually not that we've spent a lot of time out as extroverts out on stages and speaking. So maybe if somebody that says, hey, that's great for you, but I don't have that comfort. How do I get myself out on a stage when I do need to? I've got an important message. They want to hear that message, but I don't want my nerves to get in the way. Well, let's clear up a couple of myths right off the hop. A, some of the best speakers in the world are not extroverts. They are most decidedly introverts. And I'm not saying that I'm one of the best speakers in the world, but I'm definitely in the introvert category. I come alive on stage because it's the largest expression that I can find in my introverted nature. Because I on stage and completely alone, even with an audience in front of me, there is a very distinct separate division. And especially if I'm in like an auditorium scenario or a stadium scenario where the audience is darkened and I'm in a well lit scenario, you don't see the people, feel the people. You're the people. You never actually see the people. And so as an introvert, I find stage incredibly comforting because it is me, myself, my thoughts and doing what I was born to do. And that is serve. And so that's where I find it. So you don't need to be an extrovert to be a good speaker. I've had the privilege of speaking on stage with Molly Bloom and I don't know how Molly identifies, but if I had to guess based on my interactions with her backstage, I'm willing to bet that she is an introvert as well. She's very reserved. She kind of likes her own space. Unbelievably pleasant. She is one of the nicest human beings I've ever met in my entire life with truly the most fascinating story I've ever heard in my life. And she tells it on stage phenomenally. But I would be willing to guess and I'll have to ask her the next time I see her that she would identify as an introvert. And so many of the other speakers that I know tend to do that. They shy away. They recharge on their own inside. So you don't need to be an extrovert to be a good speaker. What you need is to have confidence in your message. The next thing is I agree. Stage fright, very real thing. I know I've experienced it. I know what stage fright is like. Fear of public speaking, not a real thing. And so many times we misdiagnosed that, that we have this fear of public speaking. And if anybody has ever ordered food in a restaurant, I promise you, you don't have a fear of public speaking. And you don't have a fear of speaking to strangers either if you didn't know your waitstaff. So if you've ever ordered food from a waiter you didn't know, in a restaurant, you spoke in public and spoke to a stranger. And on top of that, we're able to ask for what you want and get it. So this notion that we're afraid to speak to strangers, we're afraid to speak in public, or we're afraid to ask for what we want is null and void if you've ever been to a restaurant and ordered food. The reality is we're afraid of public judgment because I can hear the audience right now, Rob. I can hear them going, no, no, wait. When I order food in a restaurant, the entire restaurant isn't looking at me while I order my food. And if that is the thought process, then that is an indication of what the actual fear is. The fear is not speaking in public. The fear is people looking at us and judging what we are saying when we do it. Nobody's judging you for ordering a pastrami sandwich when you know full well that the beef dip is the better choice. You get to do whatever you want in that interaction and it's finding the confidence within yourself that you are the expert. And I promise you, you are. Even if there's people who have done it bigger, better, stronger, faster than you, nobody has done it in the unique circumstances to which you do it and to which you can communicate your own area of expertise. So the biggest way to combat the fear of public judgment, which is what you actually have when you're starting to experience stage fright, is to first recognize that the audience is on your side. We don't go to see people we don't want to hear from. Even if you've had so many other people, like think of the last time you went to a movie that you knew was going to suck. Right? Because your friends told you, the critics told you, the box office told you, they were like, do not go see this film. And you were like, yeah, but it can't really be that, can it? The trailer looked okay. So what were you doing when you sat there? Even though full well you knew that this movie was full, you're sitting there with your popcorn, the theater lights dim, the trailers are about to go and you're going, it can't be that bad. God, I hope this is good. No, it's going to be good. Right? It's got to be good. That is the mindset that we have going into any interaction where we're seeing something being presented to us. We never go in, I promise you, nobody tuned in to developerpreneur right now and thought to themselves, man, I hope whoever Rob brings on today sucks. I hope this Tyler guy brings no value. I hope he forgets everything that he's talking about. I bet you there are about a thousand people who do it better than him. So why am I even going to bother listening to this guy when I could go listen to Tony Robbins? I'll just tune into Tony. Nobody thought that. Absolutely nobody thought that tuning in. And yet that's the story we tell ourselves internally, that somebody else is doing it better and they might as well just go listen to them because who are we to tell this side of our story? So understanding that the audience is on your side and want you to succeed and you are the authority, especially if you base the knowledge that you're providing to your audience on your own experience, because absolutely nobody else has lived it the way that you have. No one else is the authority on your life to the degree that you are. No biographer in the future will ever know as much about what you've done as you have. So present it under the understanding that you are the authority, the audience is on your side, and therefore they are judging you, but they're judging you positively because you do the same thing. Nobody wants their time wasted. We are incredibly selfish creatures when it comes to our own wellbeing and we wouldn't be there if we didn't want to be. Even if it's a ball and told scenario like a board meeting where your boss has asked you to present and has told your team that they have to be there for the presentation, at worst they are passively indifferent to your message. They're still there going, God, I hope this isn't a waste of my time. I hope Rob brings it to the table. Because we do not want our time wasted and so the audience wants you to succeed. And if you can go in walking with that and do that kind of mental prep, that's where people really make their big mistake in presenting. They spend so much time trying to memorize a speech which will never serve you. Or worse, they've been told to picture their audience naked and they're sitting in the boardroom going, oh, I shouldn't have pictured my boss in their underwear. Oh, that was bad. I shouldn't have done that. Instead, you can focus on what can I bring to the table? What do I know more than anybody else? How do I present that that way? And if you can focus on leaving your audience better than you found them, they will be grateful for it and you will have an incredible presentation. So it sounds like then not to give away a secret, I think, because we'll talk a little bit more about Endless Stages and that. But so has that sort of become the nut of your focus? It is not the public speaking per se, but it's really about the content that you're providing? Yeah. So particularly with Endless Stages, the nice thing about the Endless Stages, which is my private Facebook group where I go live every Tuesday to train for 20 minutes each day, it's really driven by the group. Like, what are you struggling with? Because I want to be able to serve you because I know what I do and I've been doing it for almost four decades. What I want to know is how can I help you? So it's really community driven. What is the community struggling with? And then I answer those questions. And a lot of it comes around. How do I find my story? How do I tell it effectively? When is it appropriate to use my personal story in a boardroom? Answer, always. Always appropriate, especially if you can tie it back to you. And the nexus of the book and the training programs and a lot of the things that we touch in Endless Stages because it becomes a recurring theme. If you've been given 45 minutes to talk, you should probably only be talking about 25. I'm probably talking a little bit more in this interview than what we should because I want to make sure that I'm serving your audience and get informed through your questions. It's funny with the format, especially being audio only, you need to talk a little bit more. But really, as a presenter, you should only be taking up about 60% of the time and then let the rest of your presentation be informed by the questions that are coming to you from your audience. That's how you serve them. And we will pause there. It was tough finding a pause spot. This is one of those I was really tempted to just let it flow and go all the way through the full hour plus that we talked. That being said, next episode is going to be even a little bit longer. I think we push probably 35 minutes. So you might want to get an extra large cup of coffee when you're listening to the next one or get some extra couple extra number two pencils, maybe a little more lead a longer, deeper, thicker notebook to take notes along the way because he's going to continue providing us with some great value bombs. And I want to make sure that you don't miss those as always. Of course, if you do, you can always rerun it, go back through it again and run at slow speed, whatever you need to do to make sure that you take all of this great stuff that he's given us and look at how you can apply it to your own situation and your own career and goals. That being said, we're going to wrap this one up. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. And great success. Please check out school.developineur.com. That is where we are starting to pour a lot of our content. We've taken the lessons, the things that we've learned, all of the things that make you a better developer. And we're putting it there. We have a range of courses from free short courses up to full paid boot camps. All of these include a number of things to help you get better, including templates, quick references, and other things that make us all better developers.