Update
We have more merch! New mugs for the Four Tendencies, Happier t-shirts, hats, airpod cases, and more. Now through October 11th, Happier listeners get 15% off when you enter promo code HAPPIERPOD15 at checkout in the Happiness Project store. These items make great gifts as well.
Very Special Episode: Hacks, Tips, and Strategies for Performance
We share many suggestions from our own experiences, and from listeners, about how to approach and improve our performances.
I mention Livingston Taylor’s book Stage Performance (Amazon, Bookshop), which I highly recommend.
My new book Life in Five Senses includes many suggestions for harnessing your five senses to make being in the spotlight less stressful and more fun.
If you’re curious to read or listen to the commencement address I gave for my daughter’s high-school graduation, it’s here. If you want to hear Elizabeth give a pitch, listen to episode 320 of Happier in Hollywood.
Resource
Take a look at the new items in the store!
Now through October 11th, Happier listeners get 15% off when you enter promo code HAPPIERPOD15 at checkout.
What We’re Reading:
Gretchen
Hello and welcome to Happier! A podcast that gives you ideas and strategies for how to build happier habits into your everyday life. This week is a very special episode. Every 10th episode is a very special episode, and this is a very special episode about performance. getting up and performing. The timing is very appropriate because today, if you’re listening when this goes live, is October 4th, the sense of Hearing Appreciation Day.
Gretchen
And many performances involve our sense of hearing. I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, the five senses, human nature. I’m back in my home office in New York City. And joining me today from L.A. is my sister, Elizabeth Craft.
Elizabeth
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A.. And Gretch, hopefully I’ll be performing a pitch soon because the writers strike is coming to an end.
Gretchen
Yes, we talked about the strike ending in the more happier episode, Elizabeth, because that’s definitely something making you more happier.
Elizabeth
Yes, making me ecstatic.
Gretchen
Before we launch and we have a few updates, Eleanor writes about the 100 day countdown.
Elizabeth
She says, Thanks for this reminder about the 100 days remaining in 2023. I realized recently that New Year’s Eve this year will be 12/31/23 or one, two, three, one, two, three and that made me think about the polka. I have no idea how to dance the polka. But I figure that 100 days is enough time to learn.
Gretchen
And a couple of listeners wrote in to talk about more things that we can check out from libraries. Libraries are about so much more than books. Rebecca said that her local library has bike repair tools and assistance, and Kristen said that her local library lends out board games, Nintendo switches, Nintendo Switch games, DVDs, outdoor games and coding kits, book clubs, knitters clubs.
Gretchen
There’s so much waiting for us at the library.
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
And also we have new merch. Yes, there are tendencies happiercast.com/store and you can find it all there. And through October 11th, listeners can get 15% off when you enter promo code HAPPIERPOD15, that’s one five. At checkout, we got a lot of great stuff there.
Elizabeth
Nice. And these gifts, Gretch, I have to mention, we’re about to head into the holiday season. Great gifts.
Gretchen
Yeah. Don’t be surprised if something is coming your way. And now we’re turning to the issue of performance for this very special episode. We’re talking about ideas, hacks, habits, mantras, everything related to the challenge of performance, because we all have to perform, whether that’s giving a toast at a wedding, making a presentation to coworkers, giving an announcement to a parents group, making a formal speech in front of a huge crowd.
Gretchen
We all often have to get up and perform in front of other people.
Elizabeth
Yes. And Gretchen, we’re not going to talk about content, so we’re not talking about start with a laugh or end with a tear or tell stories or make your first words count, all of which are great ideas. But that’s not what we’re talking about today. We are talking about the action of performing. So that’s stage fright, blanking out memorization, those types of things.
Elizabeth
Yeah.
Gretchen
How do you handle the performance part of it? So how about you? How have you thought about performance in your own life?
Elizabeth
All right. Well, Gretch, this really came up for me when you and I did our Happier Live tour. Yeah, So I have been traditionally very afraid of performing major stage fright, shaking voice, shaking hands, feeling sick, having a hard time breathing. So I really was in it. And so once we decided to perform and do our live show, I knew that I really, you know, was going to have trouble.
Elizabeth
So a few things. The first thing I want to say is the more you do it, the easier it gets, right?
Gretchen
This is what people always say. But in fact, you did find it to be true.
Elizabeth
Yes, I went through this. And so I can report back that it absolutely gets easier. And it’s something that I forced myself to do because when we were talking about it, of course, I was tempted to say, forget it. Yeah, but I really wanted to do it because I always take to heart what you say, which is live in an atmosphere of growth.
Elizabeth
And I didn’t want to limit myself because of my fear of public speaking, public performance. So I just said, I’m walking off the cliff, I’m doing it now. I do want to mention a hack here, Gretchen, which I’ve talked about on the podcast before, and I’ve talked about unhappier in Hollywood, which is that if you have what I have, which is the shaking, you can use a beta blocker, you can get this from your doctor and it blocks adrenaline, so it does nothing to your brain.
Elizabeth
It doesn’t mess with your ability to think. All it does is control the shaking and your voice and your hands. And it was enormously helpful for me when we started doing our shows. And I also used it in pitching, and it was enormously helpful for me because I also would get very nervous when pitching a show, although that was in front of fewer people obviously, than when we were doing our live show.
Elizabeth
And ta-da, Gretch, I don’t even need the beta blocker anymore.
Gretchen
Recently we were in Kansas City. We did an event together and it was you and me in conversation and you realized that you had forgotten to bring a beta blocker because it had been a while since we’d been on stage together and you were like, You know what? I don’t really think I need it. And you didn’t need it?
Elizabeth
No. And I was totally fine. I wasn’t even that preoccupied beforehand with the fact that I had to get up in front of people. There was about 500 people. So yeah, a lot of people. I felt fine. My voice wasn’t shaking. So if you do it, it gets better. Another tip, though, Gretchen, for when you are nervous and I still feel this way just in case, is that it’s always better if you can have a mic that is not handheld.
Gretchen
Oh, if you’re susceptible to the shaking hands.
Elizabeth
Yes. Because nothing worse than feeling like your hand is shaking with the mic. Yeah, we love mics, mics are your friend, but if possible, don’t use a handheld. I’m so glad, like at Jack’s school, they make them start performing in front of people from a young age. And I’m so glad because I do think it’s just that skill that we all end up meeting at some point or other, and it’s great to get comfortable with it as early as you can.
Gretchen
And I have to say, I don’t think that I realize just how nervous you were about it when we started because you were just like, Yeah, that’d be great, Let’s do it. And so I really admired the fact that you did just say, Oh, I don’t want this to limit my sense of possibilities. Let’s do it. And you found a way to make it work, and it was great.
Elizabeth
Yeah. Now I feel like it’s a new skill, which is great. Yeah. So how about you, Gretchen? I mean, you perform a lot. You are up in front of people talking very often. So how have you dealt with this?
Gretchen
Well, for me, I think that the most helpful thing is to really figure out what I’m going to say in advance and practice. That really, really lowers my anxiety. It makes me feel like I know exactly what I want to do. I know the timing of it. Pacticing, it makes me feel more in control. And I like doing it without notes.
Gretchen
Because if you have notes, then you’re dependent on your notes or if you’re dependent on your slides that if you’ve got it memorized, it’s you just know that you’ve got it. And so that’s the way I like to do it when I can. And one thing that really helped me just in the performance aspect of it, it was funny because our father happened to meet Livingston Taylor in sort of a random way, and he was so impressed by Livingston Taylor that he came home and said, Oh, you got to check out this guy Livingston.
Gretchen
Taylor and I did. So it turns out Livingston Taylor is a renowned teacher at the Berklee College of Music, which is a very big deal. He teaches a class called Stage Performance. He’s the brother of James Taylor, the singer, and he has a book, a very short book called Stage Performance, which I bought, and I highly recommend it.
Gretchen
It’s really aimed at people doing musical performance, but you can use a lot of the ideas and many of the ideas really resonated with me. And the ones that I think about the most are the main, his main principle is you must connect with the audience that is the most important. Everything should be in terms of how you can connect with the audience.
Gretchen
So for instance, Elizabeth, if I said to you, Hey, you’re going to perform, should you perform at the outer limits of your skill and really push yourself out of your comfort zone? Or should you do something you’re really comfortable with? What do you think Livingston Taylor would say is the right answer?
Elizabeth
His answer is perform in your comfort zone so that you can pay attention to the audience.
Gretchen
Yes, I think going into it, I would have thought, oh, you know, you’ll be more lively. It’ll be, you know, more spontaneous. You want to push yourself. And he’s like, no, everything is for the audience. So you want to be able to concentrate on the audience. And so you need to be able to not have to use all of your attention on your performance.
Gretchen
Similarly, here’s a hack, never shade your eyes, because if you shade your eyes, you’re showing your audience that you’re not seeing them. So never shade your eyes even if you can’t see them and look for reasons to engage. And I have to say, this is one of the things that’s hardest for me. Maybe it’s my upholder self that wants to just start and then execute till the end.
Gretchen
But it’s good. Like ask people to raise their hand if somebody shouts something out, you know, every once in a while somebody will yell something out from the audience, acknowledge it is something’s happening in the room to acknowledge it. Show that you are present with them in the moment. Mention things that you know, Oh my gosh, did you smell the smell of popcorn when we walked in here?
Gretchen
Because that makes the audience feel like you’re present with them. And that’s that is the most important thing, according to Livingston Taylor.
Elizabeth
Yes. Great tips from him that we definitely talked about when we were practicing.
Gretchen
Yes. Yeah, I quoted him all the time.
Elizabeth
And then, Gretchen, you have some five senses, tips and hacks for performance. Of course, you think of everything through the five senses now.
Gretchen
Yes, yes. Everything leads to the five senses. And there are many more hacks like this in life, in five senses. But here are some of the ones that I found most useful with performance. One is, if again, if you’re feeling anxious or uneasy, I hold a pen. For some reason, just holding a pen makes me feel calmer and more grounded.
Gretchen
A lot of people said they would hold a cold water bottle for people who feel sort of flushed and hot holding something cold. So they’re holding something in they’re holding something cold that kind of cools them down. So that was a good thing. Another thing and this is especially true if you are susceptible to that shaky feeling is beware of high heels, because if you have shaky knees when you’re standing there in high heels, you will feel much more unstable and that can make you uneasy.
Gretchen
And it also makes it hard to move easily. I mean, Elizabeth, watching the Academy Awards more than once, people have tripped on their high shoes and the Academy Awards, right?
Elizabeth
Yes. And Gretchen, I have to bring up here Adam’s one of his favorite lines.
Gretchen
I know what you’re going to say. Let me.
Elizabeth
Because I’m not great at walking in heels. And at one point he said to me when I was teetering along in heels, he said, Whatever you’re trying to accomplish in those heels, I don’t think you’re accomplishing. Yeah, sometimes we love our high heels, but you want to be able to walk across the stage easily.
Gretchen
Yeah. Another thing is hands. We use our hands to help us convey abstract ideas. So if you want to say, like on the one hand, on the other hand point to one side and then the other or the past in the future, that helps people concentrate on what you’re saying, but you don’t want to distract them. So within reason here is a good one.
Gretchen
If you need to quiet a crowd, let’s say you’re speaking to a bunch of parents who are all busy catching up after the summer and you need everybody to be quiet. Use a harmonica that works like magic. We’re all like kindergartners, you know. Know what that means? You’re gaze matters. And so if you are not alone on stage of someone else’s speaking part of the time, don’t use that time to look out at the audience or to review your notes.
Gretchen
If someone else is speaking or your attention is on them and you are modeling the behavior. So if someone’s speaking and they make a joke, you show that you think it’s funny or you know they’re saying something, you’re nodding along because people will be looking at you as well as that person. And if you look inattentive, that will undermine their performance.
Elizabeth
Yeah, and that can be a tough one because I think it is tempting to look at your notes when the other person is talking. Yeah. So if you have to just glance down and then look back.
Gretchen
Up, you want to show the audience that your attention is caught as well. And then the final thing is take the microphone. If there’s an opportunity to use a microphone, take the microphone. I write about this in life in five senses. Not everybody can hear as well just because the people in the front say, Oh, we can hear fine, doesn’t mean everybody can hear.
Gretchen
It can feel sort of vain or self-important to take a microphone. And people think it seems more grounded not to have it, but it really is better for everyone if you speak into a mic and if there is a mic, pay attention about speaking into it. Don’t wave it around like a prop. Don’t step away from it for emphasis.
Gretchen
And you might want to ask the person who’s who gives you the mic, how do you speak into this microphone in the best way? Because sometimes it’s like, hold it like a cigar. Some people are like, Hold it. There’s all different kinds of ways and you don’t have to overthink it. Most microphones, you don’t have to use them.
Gretchen
Exactly. But I think that they can make the listening experience much more pleasurable for the audience.
Elizabeth
Absolutely. Okay, Gretchen, we asked listeners for their tips. And coming up, we’re going to hear what they are. But first this break.
Gretchen
We got so many great suggestions from listeners about performance and we’re just going to go through these pretty quickly so we can cover a lot of ground because there were so many good ideas. Beth wrote, My stage fright ended when I was eight years old. I was practicing for an on stage reading at school and my father asked me if I was nervous.
Gretchen
I told him I was and he gave me this advice: Hold your head up and find the friendliest face in the back row and then just talk to that person. I did that. I always have, and I’ve never had an issue with speaking or performing on stage.
Elizabeth
Malia says, If I practice before giving a toast or certain events, that actually makes me more anxious and I end up feeling less prepared. Usually I just think about a few key points, run through a couple of ideas in my mind. Then the morning of I might make a few notes on paper. I greatly enjoy public speaking, even as a shy introvert, and this approach has worked well for me.
Elizabeth
However, I’m also a private tutor who doesn’t follow her own advice. I make my public speaking students practice, practice, practice.
Gretchen
Okay, so she’s giving two kinds of advice. Your mileage may vary. Yes, Jennifer says building some sort of audience engagement or transition in between your points. Good point.
Elizabeth
Jolene says. For work presentations, I make a script in presentation mode on my PowerPoint slides. I underline italicize or bold the text so I know when to emphasize certain words, etc. It can find my place easily if needed. I write the script as if I am speaking in my own voice. I try to speak in a casual manner as if I’m just having a conversation with the audience.
Elizabeth
I practice by reading it out loud, over and over and over again. I tend to gesture a lot with my hands too much in a nervous habit. So now I hold something like my laser pointer and that really helps.
Gretchen
That’s a good example of knowing yourself and sort of working with your own particular issues. Yes. Meghan writes I’m a musician and music teacher, and a previous teacher taught me this tip to prepare for performances. Before doing a run through of the piece of music, do 30 jumping jacks. Getting the heart rate up helps to create the experience of nerves in that moment and helps me train my body to calm down, focus on my breath and the music ahead rather than my accelerated heart rate.
Gretchen
This is the best way I found to try and create the physical sensation of nerves before a performance and has been so helpful in my career and for my students graduate.
Elizabeth
We would do ten jumping jacks before we went on stage just to get our energy out.
Gretchen
Yeah, yeah. Love the Jumping Jack.
Elizabeth
LeAnn says a cast member from a storytelling show I was in said to breathe out. We often breathe in and in and in when we’re nervous, which makes us sound out of breath, he said, Take a beat and breathe out.
Gretchen
This is really important for me. I do this and I find this invaluable. It also calms you breathing out, calms you breathing, and can kind of make you feel almost panicky sometimes. Melanie has several. One, always speak more slowly than you think you should. I need that one. Two, Memorizing can produce anxiety, so I think it’s always helpful to have notes.
Gretchen
But if you don’t want to be reading everything, the tip is to write out the speech, then highlight the key words in each one or two sentences of the speech. Take those key words and write those on a card. If you’re familiar enough with the speech, seeing those key words will spark the thought. And you can say it in a way that’s natural, but you can still look up at the crowd.
Gretchen
I use this strategy for the biggest speech I’ve ever given that I was super nervous about, and it worked like a charm. I still felt the comfort of having my notes, but I wasn’t worried about seeming like I was just reading from a paper. Number three, you never do as bad as you think. And I will just interject here.
Gretchen
There is a phenomenon called the Spotlight Effect, where we tend to overestimate how much other people are paying attention to us and how much they notice our flaws and mistakes. So she’s right. They are not paying that close attention. And number four, remember your audience. This mantra helps me cut out a lot of fluff while writing the speech.
Elizabeth
And Chrissy said, I like to remind myself that people want me to succeed. No one wants to be sitting there watching a speech go horribly wrong. They actually want to enjoy it.
Gretchen
Stephanie writes, Reframe nervous as excited, both manifest with the same physical response, such as an elevated heart rate. I think that’s right. Saying that you’re excited feels different from saying that you’re nervous.
Elizabeth
You know, I love to reframe.
Gretchen
You love a reframe. That’s a great reframe.
Elizabeth
Celeste says, Going in with a service mindset, beginning with an outward How can I help you rather than a How does this benefit me? Mindset makes a world of difference and connecting with the audience.
Gretchen
Well, that’s bringing it full circle back to Livingston Taylor on the idea of connecting with your audience that if you keep your audience in mind, that’s going to boost your performance.
Elizabeth
Yes. Okay, Gretchen, great ideas from listeners. Coming up, I’m going to share some Hollywood pointers, but first this break.
Gretchen
Okay, Elizabeth more performance suggestions and ideas from our own experience. And do you do a lot of performing as a Hollywood participant, shall we say? What have you learned from your experiences?
Elizabeth
Yeah, so I’ve talked a lot about pitching and that’s when Sarah and I are trying to sell a show, and that’s the main time when performing comes up for us. So one thing, if there’s more than one of you giving a presentation, which is often the case, know who’s going to say what. Yeah, I think Sarah and I have learned that just mark down who is saying what sometimes will think, Oh, we can just go back and forth and it’ll be obvious, but then we’ll both be talking over each other, thinking, Oh, I should talk now.
Elizabeth
So we’ve just learned, decide exactly who’s saying what we’re types like to write out exactly what we’re saying. Just because it helps us. And then along with knowing who’s going to say what, another tip, know how you’re ending, what is the last sentence? So even if you’re not writing it fully out, we’re hearing from some people like things to be written out.
Elizabeth
Some people don’t. Even if you’re somebody who doesn’t just know the last sentence so that your presentation or your performance doesn’t just trail off, which is often happened to me and I’ve heard happen.
Gretchen
Well, and there’s interesting research that our impressions of an experience are often disproportionately affected by what happens at the beginning and the end and kind of the higher low point. And so an ending, especially for something that’s dramatic, you want it to have a big ending so it feels like it ends with a flourish. Yes. And again, I can imagine this is like you would want to know who’s going to say what, like who’s going to do that?
Gretchen
And you want to both be attentively paying attention to each other as this is happening so that you’re modeling. Wow, this is such an engaging pitch. I wrote it and even I can’t help but listen raptly to every sentence that someone is talking about.
Elizabeth
And then Gretch, here’s one of the staying in the moment tips like Livingston Taylor was talking about, let’s say the big wig especially, but really anyone who’s in the room is reacting, let them react. Don’t just keep plowing forward. Yes. Stay in the moment. Allow laughter to happen. Allow a question to pop out. You know, if it’s that type of environment because you’re doing it for them.
Elizabeth
So their enjoyment of it and their absorbing of it is the most important thing. And I know it can be tempting just to keep going, but try to stay in the moment. I mean.
Gretchen
I think this is what’s so hard, at least for me, is like once I start, I really want to get to the end. Yeah. And so anything that requires pausing, staying in the moment, listening to reaction feels like it’s slowing me down or could potentially distract me from what I’m doing. But that is really what’s important. If somebody is laughing and you want them to be laughing, don’t not let them laugh.
Elizabeth
Absolutely. And then, Gretchen, we’re not getting into visuals now because that’s content. But in terms of performance, if you do have visuals, considering having someone else be in charge of them running through them. And Sarah and I always do that because we just want to concentrate on what we’re saying and not on having to click the button. Yeah, but we make sure that we practice with whoever is in charge of the visuals so that it’s smooth.
Elizabeth
Yeah.
Gretchen
Yeah, that makes sense.
Elizabeth
For Zoom, pay attention to your background. You’re going to be more confident if you like your background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Gretch, speaking of Zoom pitching episode 175 of Happier in Hollywood, Sarah and I talk all about pitching specifically for Zoom, which I’ll get to one little hack about that. I like to get a blowout that’s just for pitching in general, but it holds true on Zoom.
Elizabeth
I think hair confidence is a great thing.
Gretchen
I love that phrase hair confidence.
Elizabeth
It’s not terribly expensive to get a blowout, but for me, it really puts me in the mindset that I’m going to be performing. It’s like suiting up. Yeah, right now if I’m on Zoom, I don’t have to worry about what I’ve got on like my feet. But I like my hair to be on point.
Gretchen
It’s kind of a signal to yourself, like, This is my A-game. I’m bringing like the highest level to my performance. And that’s sort of a thing to do. It occurs to me, Elizabeth, because we’re talking about the pitching, if people want to hear what a pitch sounds like in episode 320, you and Sarah give the pitch for the show Before I Die.
Gretchen
Yeah, so people are just curious about hearing this. Like, well, what is a pitch that you can listen to an actual pitch there? It’s a stressful part of what you do.
Elizabeth
Is I would very excited to do it, to be doing it again.
Gretchen
The only thing worse than pitching is not pitching.
Elizabeth
Exactly. How about you, Gretchen? What other tips have you gleaned? Okay.
Gretchen
So one thing is do not go long. No one wants you to go long. Leave your audience wanting more. And so part of that is you may need to time it out in advance, especially if you’re speaking by yourself and like you’ve got the microphone and no one can stop you or steer you. You don’t accidentally want to give a 25 minute wedding toast because you just sort of get up there and start talking.
Gretchen
I was at a conference once, like a huge conference with one of these, like minute by minute agendas, very tightly packed, and they could not have been more insistent over and over and all the communications. You have to hit your mark. We’ve got a lot of speakers. We can’t go long. Everything has to happen at a certain time.
Gretchen
And I was backstage and I could see the guy slides and I could see like what number of slide he was on. And when his time was up, he was halfway through and the people back there were going bonkers. They did not know what to do. He was clearly riffing. You can tell when somebody is just like, Oh, something just occurred to me right now and I’m groping my way to how to express it.
Gretchen
They tried dimming the lights, they tried turning the music up, and then he started speeding up. But then finally they just had to go out there and say to him, We’re sorry, we need to move along. He was they felt really embarrassed. He felt really embarrassed. Everyone felt really bad. But it’s rare that you’re in that kind of situation.
Gretchen
But, you know, respect your audience. Most people, they want you to get up, have something to say. And then.
Elizabeth
My heart is racing, just hearing that story, I would have completely blown my performance because I would have been so frazzled listening to that.
Gretchen
Well. And then I said to them, Do you want me to cut mine in half or something so you can make up the time? And then I was like, Oh my gosh, can I do that on the fly? Like, that is very next level. And they were like, No, no, no, don’t worry about it. But anyway, it was not it was not good.
Gretchen
I learned that lesson from seeing him. Another thing is dramatic pauses. And this is again about my desire. Once I start, I want to go to the end. And I do speak too quickly. One of the listeners said, Oh, slow down, I need to slow down. And dramatic pauses are very effective. They help the audience know what is emphasized and they help them build a sense of drama.
Gretchen
And I’m really trying to do a better job of that. Another thing is turn up the energy. Sometimes you can kind of bring it down because you’re focusing, but actually you need to fill the room and hold people’s attention. So bring up the energy. And here’s a hack somebody told me, and this is especially good if you’re on Zoom or TV, if you’re on camera, sometimes you’re making eye contact with an audience or with a person or with a camera, and you need to look away.
Gretchen
There’s an intensity to that of like gazing that you want the relief of looking away. Don’t look up, look down, because looking up looks inattentive and kind of wild and looking down looks more thoughtful. So if you feel like you need to break your gaze, look down. That sounds like such a minor thing. But I think about it all the time.
Gretchen
And here’s the final thing. And again, a listener pointed this out about mistakes. So there’s two parts to this that I think about all the time. One is, think ahead about things that can go wrong because things can go very wrong, but don’t let that stop you. There is a wonderful story from when I wrote a biography of Winston Churchill, 40 Ways to Look at Winston Churchill and early in his career in 1904, Winston Churchill was giving a long speech in the House of Commons.
Gretchen
He usually memorized his speeches. He was in the middle and he just blanked out. He lost the thread. He just stood there. He never regained it. He sat down. He said it was the most embarrassing 3 minutes of his life. Did it stop Winston Churchill? No, it did not. It was very embarrassing. But it didn’t stop him. So remember, even if you screw up, that’s okay.
Gretchen
And I will also say to your point is, the more that you do it, the more you get comfortable. And when I was first speaking, I think on my first book tour, I was in a huge ballroom in an icily air conditioned hotel ballroom. All of a sudden they could see that something was happening in the audience, and I couldn’t really see from the stage, and I didn’t really know, and I had no idea what to do because I was new to speaking.
Gretchen
And I just kept going and kept going until finally people were like, You have to stop. It turned out that what had happened was that an air conditioning pipe or duct or something in the hotel ceiling had somehow opened and ice water was dripping down, like gushing down essentially on a good portion of the audience. And so they were getting up and moving and everybody’s like, What’s going on?
Gretchen
And now I would be able to be like, Wow, something’s happening in the audience. What’s happening, guys? Let’s stop. Let’s figure it out. So you want to think ahead and just if something happened, just roll with it. You can be flexible.
Elizabeth
Gretch, I have to mention at this juncture, the time that you fainted on live TV.
Gretchen
Yes, I did. I fainted. I was not on camera at the moment. There was a loud thump, apparently, which was my forehead hitting a hard surface. But I got through it.
Elizabeth
And I mean, that didn’t stop you from doing it again. Yeah, in the future.
Gretchen
So, yes, it was. It was terrible in the moment, but I got through it and it’s fine. And I thought this was interesting. So there was an interview with Matthew Knowles, who is the father of Beyoncé and Solange. He managed their musical careers. And in an interview he said one thing I taught Beyoncé and Solange was to practice failure.
Gretchen
We would practice how they’d respond if their microphone got cut off, if their shoes broke on stage, if the wrong song got cued up in their performance set. Anything can happen so that you don’t want to catastrophize. I think of all the millions of things that go wrong, but I think it can make you feel more confident if you’re sort of like, What would I do?
Gretchen
That’s okay. If my microphone went dead, I would just say, Hey, who’s managing AV? I think my microphone is going. That might make you feel more comfortable.
Elizabeth
Yeah, I need to do that. Sarah and I were giving a presentation to like 75 people, and it was on Zoom.
Gretchen
Oh, yeah. Wow.
Elizabeth
And our Internet just cut out, and suddenly we were gone, and I was in no way prepared, my gosh, I was running around freaking out. So I think next time we have something, I do want to sort of prepare for what can go wrong because then even when we got back on, I was all frazzled and so rattled and sure what to prepare because that can happen on Zoom.
Gretchen
Yeah, I thought about this because in June during the huge Taylor Swift the Eras concert, she was in Chicago and she was talking during and she was introducing some performers, I think and she started to cough and something had gone wrong. Let’s hear a clip of it. We have a band member here on the Eras tour and we’re so lucky to have.
Unknown
I swallowed a bug. I’m so sorry. So they’re fine. It’s just so stupid.
Elizabeth
Oh, she’s.
Unknown
Oh, my God.
Elizabeth
Is there any chance none of you saw that? Yeah, she swallowed a bug, Gretchen, Which is probably happened to her many times. She probably knew how she would respond if it happened and has probably done it before.
Gretchen
Yeah, she thought about it in advance. I mean, one thing I think about in advance is I have the countdown clock curse. So many times a countdown clock has not worked for me, I feel like. So I warn the organizers, I say everything goes wrong with me and countdown clock. So make sure it starts. Make sure it’s got the right time on it, because this is something that for some reason seems to go wrong for me a lot.
Gretchen
But it is true. We don’t want to get ourselves so worked up about the things that go wrong. So this is the kind of thing where if it makes you feel more confident and comfortable to think about in advance, do it. And if it makes you feel worse because you’ve thought about every single thing that can go wrong and that just fills your imagination in a bad way.
Elizabeth
Don’t do it well. And Gretchen, you recently gave a commencement address at Eleanor’s high school graduation.
Gretchen
Yes. So if anybody wants to listen to that or read that, I will post a link to that. That was a really interesting performance to give, very full of emotion. So I had to think about managing my emotions as well as what I was going to say.
Elizabeth
Well, you did an excellent job.
Gretchen
Oh, thank you. It was so fun to do it. So let us know how these tips for performance work for you and what you would add to these tips. We can all learn from each other. Let us know on Instagram, Threads, Tik-Tok, Facebook. Drop us an email at podcast@gretchenrubin.com or as always, you can go to the show notes.
Gretchen
This is happiercast.com/450 for everything related to this very special episode. The resource for this week, as I mentioned, we have new merch, check it out. It has our logo, there are tote bags, t-shirts, new tendencies mugs, airpod cases, all there. Very five senses. And through October 11th, happier listeners can get 15% off when you enter the promo code.
Gretchen
HAPPIERPOD15, one five at checkout. And these are great gifts, as Elizabeth mentioned. Go to happiercast.com/store. Elizabeth, what are we reading? What are you reading?
Elizabeth
I am reading Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.
Gretchen
And I am reading The Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgård. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. Remember to try this at home. Try these hacks for performance. Let us know if they worked for you.
Elizabeth
Thank you to our executive producer Chuck Reed and everyone at Cadence 13. Get in touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram and Threads and Tik Tok at Gretchen Rubin and I’m on Instagram and Threads at Liz Craft. Our email address is podcast@gretchenrubin.com.
Gretchen
And if you like this show, please be sure to tell a friend. And if you have a friend who has a performance coming up, you might want to email them this episode, which is very easy to do right from your podcast app. Do it. That’s how most people discover our show.
Elizabeth
Until next week, I’m Elizabeth Craft.
Gretchen
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and Upward. Elizabeth I really didn’t realize how nervous you were. I knew you were kind of nervous and I knew you were taking the beta blocker, but I don’t think that I, I don’t think I really knew quite how nervous you were before the tour. You seemed very calm.
Elizabeth
Oh, I was dreadfully nervous. I’m so glad I don’t have to go backward, you know. Yeah, Glad I’ve moved through that. And now I’ll never be that nervous again, I hope.
Gretchen
And like you said, that’s why it’s good that kids do it. Because once you’ve gone through it, it just gets easier.
Elizabeth
It really does.
Gretchen
From the onward project.