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Stepping Back from Speaking

martinfowler.com

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Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#81

Post by sangnoir »

mathattack wrote: post #26
gonehome wrote: post #6

I can relate to the anxiety before something like that which often then disappears when you start. I feel similarly before technical interviews and it’s really unpleasant, the fear holds you back from doing things you’d otherwise want to do. It’s hard to evaluate sometimes or be honest with yourself if you’re making a decision based on what you want or if it’s a rationalization to avoid the fear. I often suspect a lo…

This is true of a lot of things. It also appears in athletics. Most competitors get very anxious. (Even Mike Tyson in his prime!) but once you’re in the zone, the anxiety goes away. We are all nervous in job interviews. The best ones flow once they start.

> We are all nervous in job interviews. The best ones flow once they start.

I've found I'm least anxious in interviews where I don't feel like I need to get the job, e.g. at an org that's not at the top of my list, or when the desire to switch employers is not urgent or desperate[1].

If you have the time, and the experience is not traumatic, I'd encourage everyone to interview once a year (or once every 2 years) even if you're happy with your current position. At worst, you bomb out of an interview for a job you never really wanted; at best, you can a find out that the job is actually interesting (or pays more, or both). You may even get a raise and keep your old job. In any of the cases, you likely come out a little better at interviewing.

1. Which means you shouldn't wait until it's too late to switch jobs. If you see any warning signs, start sending out feelers, if you wait until you can't stand the sight of your manager (or cubicle/corporate logo), then your job search might feel urgent, which is not good if you're not a natural interviewee.

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#82

Post by admissionsguy »

busyant wrote: post #73
admissionsguy wrote: post #27

I dropped out of my PhD because I could not stand the pressure of having to do talks regularly. Even though I was pretty decent at it (I was told my delivery was fine and clarity was superb), and sometimes felt good ("powerful" for lack of a better word) while on stage, I would worry for months before every presentation, then basically get physically sick for weeks before, and take some weeks more to recover. Then on…

Do you find that you give fewer/zero presentations now with your current occupation? I ask because it seems like many of us still need to give presentations even outside of academia. Hopefully, you're in a position where it's no longer affecting your health. Also, was it the size of the audience? For example, are you comfortable presenting to a smallish group (e.g., In grad school, I used to memorize my talks (comple…

I don't have to do any as a web development individual contributor contractor, nor have I had to do any as part of my own company so far. I am fairly certain I can avoid it for the rest of my life, but do not necessarily want to avoid it.

My anxiety scales with the audience size like it does for most people, but in a manageable way. For me, the overwhelming anxiety depends on how much the audience (or the venue!) reminds my brain of my middle & high school.

It's much less of a problem for me when the audience is older. I had no problem presenting/interviewing in front of a panel of PIs, for example, even got some praise for it, nor do I find job interviews particularly stressful. Presenting in front of other students was particularly difficult. It was really difficult if in addition the room resembled my old school classrooms (low ceiling, bright, particular chair design). It didn't help that absent venue information, I would always imagine the setting to be exactly that.

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#83

Post by xyzelement »

An interesting difference between the original post and a few comments here is what people did about their anxiety.

Fowler has powered through it, and although unpleasant he was able to deliver. He says he felt no right to complain because he understood that many people do much more objectively risky and painful things and he was too proud a professional to quit.

I think the above is a good insight into what success looks like. It's not that all the right things are easy, it's that the idea of not doing them scares you more than the pain of doing them.

Then it seems like he finally got to a place where he knows he's accomplished and impactful and no longer needs to do the thing he doesn't like, which is awesome as well. The important thing is that this happens after success, not before.

The important thing is "to do." I think in many cases, anxiety evaporates once you prove to yourself through experience that you can handle the situation (it's hard to fear something you survived a thousand times). In his case, the anxiety continued to be painful but at least he had the intellectual strength to say "I know this sucks but I know it's not real" and power through. Which again, powering through - grit - is really important.

I never had it that hard but I did have massive social anxiety. If I had to be in a social situation, much less public speaking, I'd dread and overthink it. And probably if I stayed an IC engineer i would be able to continue to have this problem forever. What happened instead is I started to do management and recruiting and sales - all of which forced me to talk to people one on one and in groups constantly. I didn't notice when it happened but one day I realized that my anxiety was gone because I had disproved its thesis.

It was funny a few years ago at our wedding, my wife and I forgot to prepare a speech. We realized this with a few mins to go and my wife (who is actually very social) went into "oh shit, can you do this cuz I can't?" mode. I quickly drafted a few points in my head and delivered a speech I was proud of. It was amazing to reflect on this as something I could just do, which would have paralyzed me a few years earlier.

The point is, do things that genuinely scare you. There's a good chance you'll realize they are not scary. Or at least like in Fowlers case you'll recognize that you are able to power through and get success.

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#84

Post by busyant »

admissionsguy wrote: post #82
busyant wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you find that you give fewer/zero presentations now with your current occupation? I ask because it seems like many of us still need to give presentations even outside of academia. Hopefully, you're in a position where it's no longer affecting your health. Also, was it the size of the audience? For example, are you comfortable presenting to a smallish group (e.g., In grad school, I used to memorize my talks (comple…

I don't have to do any as a web development individual contributor contractor, nor have I had to do any as part of my own company so far. I am fairly certain I can avoid it for the rest of my life, but do not necessarily want to avoid it. My anxiety scales with the audience size like it does for most people, but in a manageable way. For me, the overwhelming anxiety depends on how much the audience (or the venue!) rem…

> It was really difficult if in addition the room resembled my old school classrooms

My opinion is uninformed here, but it seems like some kind of therapy (e.g., cbt) might be helpful.

Thank you for the conversation.

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#86

Post by pyuser583 »

Syzygies wrote: post #59
admissionsguy wrote: post #27

I dropped out of my PhD because I could not stand the pressure of having to do talks regularly. Even though I was pretty decent at it (I was told my delivery was fine and clarity was superb), and sometimes felt good ("powerful" for lack of a better word) while on stage, I would worry for months before every presentation, then basically get physically sick for weeks before, and take some weeks more to recover. Then on…

Six weeks before my thesis defense, I gave a talk at MIT's combinatorics seminar on Grobner bases. We came up with an abstract intended to attract computer scientists. I was a bit naive about complexity analysis. The computer scientists came, were quite generous and kind to me as a graduate student who didn't know, but they were out for blood when it came to protecting basic concepts. I was asked to explain algebraic…

Wow. I’m so sorry.

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#87

Post by dilyevsky »

admissionsguy wrote: post #27

I dropped out of my PhD because I could not stand the pressure of having to do talks regularly. Even though I was pretty decent at it (I was told my delivery was fine and clarity was superb), and sometimes felt good ("powerful" for lack of a better word) while on stage, I would worry for months before every presentation, then basically get physically sick for weeks before, and take some weeks more to recover. Then on…

Used to perform live regularly in front of audiences of up to 100+ (piano). Never really got over it. In fact it got worse as I got older. The only thing that ever worked for me is have everything on muscle memory so I could basically plug my brain off. I heard people had good experience with beta blockers tho…

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#88

Post by mathattack »

sangnoir wrote: post #81
mathattack wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true of a lot of things. It also appears in athletics. Most competitors get very anxious. (Even Mike Tyson in his prime!) but once you’re in the zone, the anxiety goes away. We are all nervous in job interviews. The best ones flow once they start.

> We are all nervous in job interviews. The best ones flow once they start. I've found I'm least anxious in interviews where I don't feel like I need to get the job, e.g. at an org that's not at the top of my list, or when the desire to switch employers is not urgent or desperate[1]. If you have the time, and the experience is not traumatic, I'd encourage everyone to interview once a year (or once every 2 years) even…

Very true. There’s a fine line between having a chip on your shoulder and desperation on your forehead.

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#89

Post by mathattack »

dmoy wrote: post #72
mathattack wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true of a lot of things. It also appears in athletics. Most competitors get very anxious. (Even Mike Tyson in his prime!) but once you’re in the zone, the anxiety goes away. We are all nervous in job interviews. The best ones flow once they start.

> It also appears in athletics In precision shooting, any anxiety absolutely destroys your scores. When your heartbeat alone is enough to drop points directly, anxiety is brutal. It wouldn't surprise me at all if a lot of top precision shooters were on beta blockers.

Every sport has it’s Performance Enhancing Drugs. Even chess and eSports.

Re: Stepping Back from Speaking

#90

Post by pbronez »

Syzygies wrote: post #59
admissionsguy wrote: post #27

I dropped out of my PhD because I could not stand the pressure of having to do talks regularly. Even though I was pretty decent at it (I was told my delivery was fine and clarity was superb), and sometimes felt good ("powerful" for lack of a better word) while on stage, I would worry for months before every presentation, then basically get physically sick for weeks before, and take some weeks more to recover. Then on…

Six weeks before my thesis defense, I gave a talk at MIT's combinatorics seminar on Grobner bases. We came up with an abstract intended to attract computer scientists. I was a bit naive about complexity analysis. The computer scientists came, were quite generous and kind to me as a graduate student who didn't know, but they were out for blood when it came to protecting basic concepts. I was asked to explain algebraic…

Organizing an excellent event is hard. There's fundamental uncertainty about what each presenter will say, and what the audience needs to hear. The best you can do is try to think of a high quality theme, get good abstracts from your speakers, and cobble together an agenda tries to cater to your audience. From there, it's a crap shoot.

Don't beat yourself up. You were in a no-win scenario. Honestly, the best option might have been to go COMPLETELY off script. Admit to your audience that they know more than you about the core subject. Just give that to them. Then talk about why you find the subject interesting, and how it relates to your work. Maybe even open it up to a Q&A with the expectation that you'll look kinda dumb but learn a lot.

Of course, I've stayed far away from academia, so what do I know.

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