Hello and welcome to Pivot Points. This is the podcast about the pivotal moments that have shaped our academic,
professional and personal lives and some clear your head of communications at Wolfson College.
And I'm all about creating ways for you to share your stories like this podcast.
This is a special season finale of what's been a really wonderful year of Pivot Point podcast.
Wolfson. I've had ten inspiring and heartwarming conversations with people in our community about the pivotal moments that have shaped their lives.
And now, as I record this on my last day at Wolfson,
I'm also on the cusp of a pivotal moment of my own as I start a new job and move to a different country.
So to round off this season, I'm speaking with my good friend Tom Brennan, who's the creative arts fellow here at the college.
[INAUDIBLE] be forgiven for thinking that you've already heard from him on this podcast because you have.
But this one's a little different with his years of experience in the theatre industry.
He's going to talk us through how nerve wracking nerves can be when we're presenting our ideas in meetings or anywhere,
and he gives us some really great practical tips on learning to embrace them.
Okay, so what do we do? This might require some editing.
Yeah. As we get along. Okay, good. How are you?
Great. Today's my last day. Well, yeah. How you feeling about that?
Um, you know, it's always bittersweet with these things.
It's a beautiful summer's day here, and I think that shows the college in its best light.
It's been a busy day saying goodbye to lots of people, wrapping things up.
And then we have this special edition of Pivot Points, which has nothing to do with pivot points.
Actually, it's to do with nerves.
It's to do with nerves. And it's to do with.
It. Thinking about being president and.
So I teach a lot of theatre workshops.
And the more I think about those these workshops, I think one of the key lessons is about.
Encountering being open to stimulus that arrives at you.
And so strangely, I think a lot of this workshop that I was I thought I did a sort of running of this workshop here at Wolfson,
which obviously wasn't for a fair to making crowd,
but was for a sort of academic crowd, was on a similar notion of essentially allowing whatever chaos that came at you to come.
And so I wondered if today, like maybe one of the a frame that we can use would be around the transition that you're about to go through,
which is about ending this job and encountering a new job. You wrote actually, is that is that useful?
I think that's extremely useful. And I have to say, I was very sad to miss you.
Your real running of the workshop in college.
But I have to say that Tom and I actually did a little ad hoc one on one version of this workshop because I was really
interested in the content of it and some of the tips that I learned through that I've kept in mind since then,
you know, coming in to community meetings and even, you know, just meetings one on one with people and presenting ideas.
And I have to say they've been extremely helpful.
And that point that you just made around allowing things to come at you and feeling like you can actually deal with them.
Mm hmm. So I can I can already see how how useful and beneficial the tips from this workshop are.
And I would love that. I would love to apply that to my well, it might just be quite a useful frame.
I mean, you know, it's always like, yeah, okay, who is this audience?
And I can imagine, you know, whoever's listening.
But for now, it might be quite useful for us to refer to that as a sort of example, even if you know you're great public speaking and all this stuff.
So but it might be a useful sort of framework for us.
In the workshop, before I began with playing the first half of a video,
which is called something like Girl's First Ski Jump or something like that, which is if any of you listening would like to look that up.
And also it's like it's just a little girl wearing a GoPro,
so you just see what she sees and she's at the top of a ski jump and she's incredibly nervous.
And the way she presents at the top of the ski jump is I just recognise every element of what she's going through.
Her breath becomes really shallow. She starts making funny sounds, which is what I do have.
You can see that she's sort of shaking and there's all these people around her going, you know, it's okay that way.
You know, just just go straight. But you look down at this jump for anything that's terrifying for this six year old girl to run to do this jump.
And she's really trying to gear a self up from building herself up and building herself up and building itself up.
And of course, kind of when she goes for the jump, you know,
you think maybe she's going to fall off when she does it perfectly and she gets back to the bottom of the hill and
immediately it's like all of her nerves are disappeared and she's able to put this terrifying experience into the box of,
oh, that was a kind of fun thing. And, you know, she says, like, oh, the bigger jump seems like nothing now.
Yeah. The speed at which she goes, you said that frame of mind and a lot of and so I don't know,
a big thought I was having while watching it again was one of my favourite little tiny short videos online is.
About, hey, the fact that she's really beating herself up at the top of this hill, she's going.
Oh, God. You know. Yeah. You know, she's really giving us a hard time,
and we're often our own harshest critic when we're about to experience something or experiencing a stressful moment in the moment.
A first act is always the judge ourselves. And I think, well, if it was someone else, they would behave differently.
Or at least that's what I'd do anyway. In stressful moments, if I feel like I get something wrong, I'm the first person to beat myself up.
And yet every you know, the automatic insignia for someone else is like, Hey, you'll be all right.
Or that sounds like a lot. That's really stressful to kind of really understand that experience.
So there's that, I think, which is interesting, which is like how harsh we are, want each other.
And then this other thing which is about like practice is the only thing that will make these things easier.
And how quickly practice can shift those experiences.
And, and so what are the ways we can kind of frame these experiences in a way that's more useful for us and push them from exciting,
from sort of terrifying and crippling to thrilling and mysterious and exciting is a sort of big idea, I think, for me.
And I think that's really important here at Oxford.
In this university setting because I think the expectation is so high.
And I felt really nervous at Lowe's at different moments being here because.
But it's for me, it's always been like the weight of the world.
Like, you know, Oxford, University of Oxford. I have a huge weight in my head and I always did well at school and all this kind of stuff, but.
Man. I sort of look to that world and what I got, you know.
That's where the really smart people go.
And so whatever level you are, whether you're, you know, the graduate level or you're, you know, deep into your research or whatever it is,
it's like you're going to be just carrying a lot of weight around the prospect of being here, or at least I do.
Maybe, maybe, you know, this is become the most natural thing in the world for you here.
So it feels like it's going I would say just from from doing this podcast, the number of people I've spoken to who will relate to that is huge.
Everybody feels imposter syndrome when I hear. Yeah.
And I think also because of that pressure, the attitude of the people around you,
you feel you don't really allowed to have this basic human experience,
which is to feel nervous and to feel terror like you have something, cover it up somehow.
Exactly. It feels like we should be beyond it when actually at any level, you know,
I think one of the things we have to get away from is the idea that authority in intelligence
has anything to do with the ability to present all the abilities and not feel nerves.
Often that's the case. Okay? The more I do things, the easy to become.
But one of the really interesting ones I think about is Judi Dench. You know, Judi Dench, the famous actress.
She's had such a huge, long, illustrious career and she gets so nervous before every performance that she vomits,
she throws up every time because she gets so nervous.
You'd think, okay, so the entire world knows your name and considers you to be a good actor,
and yet you have such tense self-doubt and such terror about that experience.
So. We sort of need to get out of our heads.
And the idea that, you know, you feeling nervous has anything to do with your abilities or intelligence.
And often the fact that you are feeling nervous is.
A reflection of how sort of emotionally in-tune in a way you are.
I love the story of Elvis, and he had this song that every time he would sing it after his mother died or something like that,
he'd he would just choke up and he would forget the words and he couldn't sing it.
And it was like rather than thinking, okay, Elvis can't sing the damn song, can't remember his lines,
it was like a reflection of how in-tune he was to his own emotions that he would really like,
you know, connect to every word he was singing, which is really interesting, I think, you know.
That was a bit of a bit of a ramble for me, wasn't that?
So a lot of today is a be about like in a way it's a lot of the stuff I think is about acknowledging
the vulnerable parts of ourselves and sort of letting those things be and acknowledging them.
I think we sort of deal with them slightly better. Yeah.
So that's that's the sort of general focus. And I mean, I don't think today I've got any like mind blowing tips really.
It's just a reiteration of some sort of simple truths really.
And also they're not mind blowing to you, but to somebody who really struggles with nerves, they will make a huge difference.
Sure. Or at least maybe it's good to like, hear them again and give yourself permission to hear those things again.
Mhm. Um,
so I've worked in the theatre for quite a long time and that process is very intense because your under pressure always really in very short bursts,
whether you're teaching or directing your acting, there's lots of potential for humiliation and you get sort of judged in this very public way.
And so I think that's probably the reason that I have an authority here,
is because I'd put myself up for potential humiliation many, many, many times.
And I told tell the story of last summer I was associate director on this big Western show of Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,
and there was about 1200 people in the audience that night in this preview and that morning,
the morning before this other preview, the director called me for breakfast and we went for breakfast early in the morning.
I said, Well, I've just heard that one of the actors isn't going to be in tonight's performance, so you're up.
And I thought, Well, I'm up, you know? And suddenly I had to learn about three pages of text.
I had to be fitted into a costume I'd never worn before.
I had to wear these different shoes that I've never worn before that didn't really quite fit me.
And I had to do the quite elaborate journey across the stage in the performance of that of that show,
which included riding a bicycle around the stage, this huge stage, and also the biggest stage I'd ever performed in, you know, 1200 seats.
And it all worked out.
But it was, you know, quite, quite intense and thrilling.
But I have to say, like some of these environments I found myself here at Wolfson have been more terrifying.
And in a way, it's I think everyone goes, oh, you know, how do you live with lines or how do you how can you perform in front of that many people?
But actually, there's lots of architecture around the theatrical experience which support that.
So they don't have to feel those experiences. So, for example, you know, I know exactly what I'm going to say.
I'm not improvising on all my lines, or at least I can try to here in my in the day I had to learn them.
But also geographical that, you know, I know exactly where I'm going to stand.
Someone's told me where I'm going to be.
The stage is built so that the lights are shining in my eyes, so I don't really have to look directly into the eyes of the audience.
I'm sort of slightly blinded. So really, it's just about sort of you're walking around in a void trying to talk, you know,
whereas actually in the academic scenario and often you might be across someone at the table looking directly into their eyes,
you might be talking about some of the sort of Veeva settings often that's terrifying.
And also it's your own work that you have to sort of riff around.
I mean, I find that prospect much more terrifying whenever I give a speech as myself rather than as a character, it's way more terrifying.
Suddenly it's like I'm on the line rather than my character being on the line somehow.
So there's all this architectural performance experience that kind of makes the sort of alleviates pressure for for you as a performer.
And in a way, I think it's probably useful for us to thinking about how can we take some of those ideas,
some of these little tentpole structures and architecture into our academic experiences.
So in a way, we're looking for sort of scaffolding.
Really. That's the sort of main principle I'm thinking in a way for for this sort of stuff.
And one of the ideas of scaffolding is to think about an idea of circles of energy and attention.
So Patsy Rosenberg talked about this idea of there being three circles of energy.
First circle, second circle and third circle. And in the first circle of energy, it's with you're really focusing on yourself.
And so the voice becomes quantum.
When you think about myself, I'm looking down, I'm looking, and I'm I'm just obsessing about every little thing I'm doing.
So often that's a very nervous experience, isn't it? Which is you're completely worried about your self.
And so perhaps you write about would talk about that being of the past. So it's all about the Internet is what?
Me? Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh, what am I doing? And you completely lose sense of the context of your current situation outside of yourself.
Absolutely. But also, we enter that space often.
If I you know, if I don't want to connect with the world around me, I retreat to my phone.
You know, it's like I just got in. That's about me. That's about returning to my self.
The opposite of that, the third circle is, which is a space in which I think, you know, aggressive politicians, for example,
or by Shakespeare, where you go beyond your audience, you fill the space, but you're not really having a dialogue with your audience.
So, you know, Hawk, bring me my horse or whatever it is.
It's like you're going like you're attacking something and you're filling space, but you're not really being responsive and listening.
It's like a false bravado. Exactly. Which is weirdly so lots of people retreat into first circle energy when they're really nervous,
whereas I actually think like push out into third circle of energy so often.
I mean, it's not all the case at all,
but you could say generally that's a tendency for a lot of women to retreat into first circle and a lot of men to like push forward into third.
And there's more. We don't like having particular judgement around this audience because it's, you know,
it's like it's still a defence mechanism to attack and to go beyond your audience and passive until we talk about that being of the future,
just like sort of forward. And I'm like, I'm worried about what's going on in the future to impress that.
Mm hmm. And so she talk about what you're really after is this second circle in which I'm just
allowing myself to be present with the room that I'm in and with the people that I'm in,
because that's so much easier said than done. Is it just. Isn't it just to be present?
Just to be present. Easy. But I think it is a useful concept because so one of the things in relation to that
is the idea of allowing yourself to be seen and allowing you to see other people.
And someone once told me in an audition prep class, which was, How could I prepare for auditions,
which is you're entering spaces that you've never been in before,
and suddenly being tested, which is a very stressful experience, is to walk into the room,
make sure you're breathing first of all, but then to look at the four corners of the room.
And that's a really simple way of just orientate yourself in space, because often I think this the other being when you're nervous,
you become detached from your body, but you become detached from the other people around you.
You become detached from space. And if you just take a second to look at the four corners of the room and then look at
the people you're talking to and really try and acknowledge them and let them see you.
It can feel very artificial and very terrifying.
But the sooner you can make that jump to do that,
the more your search of reducing mysteries from the whole experience and you're allowing yourself to be aware of where you are,
which is it seems kind of abstract, but it's like I find it so easy to slip away.
So I don't know. I just I think I find that such an important point is so like the temptation for me at least, is really to block everything else off.
I just want to get through what I need to say and say is, Yeah, but in doing that,
I closed myself off from the other people to the extent that it feels the thought of
them looking up and making eye contact feels more terrifying because I haven't done it.
Yes. Whereas if you actually just do it in the beginning.
Yes, obviously you realise it's not very scary and then suddenly you're more connected and you're more present.
But but also sometimes people are scary, right? So I think we got a question when I ran the workshop where someone said, Well, you know,
that's all very well and you know, good like us all looking up at our audience and really seeing them.
But what happens when I have someone who's like.
Doesn't like. You're sort of already against me in some way.
And you get that sometimes in a workshop of a lot of people is you have one person who
essentially has already made the decision and they sort of want to sabotage the thing.
And that's very relatable for an academic sense as well,
because you'll have someone in your audience who does not agree with what you have absolutely said.
Absolutely. And the tendency then is to sort of like not to want to acknowledge that person in the room, but weirdly,
the more you can look at that person and acknowledge that difference and say that kind of that's okay.
So which is very different when you're trying to defend your own work in it.
I work a lot with I used to work a lot with teenagers,
and one of the best things someone told me about those environments is when you have a disruptive person in in a group of teenagers rather than,
you know, berating them or attacking them. Again, it's a similar idea, which is like make yourself present with that person.
So for me, it was always about saying, Hey, are you okay? Are you okay?
And really asking the question? Not really meaning it, really mean it.
Are you all right? What's going on? Whatever. And a really simple question.
When I was really looking them in the eyes and really making sure that they understood that I was really asking the question.
I wasn't trying to play game with them, but I was really asking them, Is everything all right?
Because they were really disrupting my class, you know? And it's amazing what a difference it makes for people to be heard and see in that way.
And so the tendency is, of course, to like, run away from contact.
But the sooner you can allow yourself to be seen and allow yourself to see other people,
the more you can actually just get to work and have a more honest moment with people.
So I would say that the only I wonder how that translates in the academic context if you're presenting your visa, for example.
Yes. And and you're getting a grilling basically about your research, it wouldn't really be appropriate in that context to stop and say, are you okay?
Are you okay? They'll be like, Yes, this is my job. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
Like, yeah, So you can't really do that in that context. But how do you deal with your nerves and your feeling of being attacked in that context?
Well, maybe parts and parts of that.
Are you okay feelings about saying, okay, I'm going to really like see you without the baggage of, okay, this person being the naughty kid.
Let's send hey, like let's not brand you as the naughty kid.
Let's brand you as. I could be heard for a brief moment.
And of course, like the architect, you are academic superiors and not needing to be heard in the same way.
But there is a dynamic between you. The more I hear about those sort of settings, the more terrifying they seem to me.
But I think there's nothing. And maybe I'm getting this absolutely wrong.
It's okay to say. Maybe or I don't know, but to to take on board the point that someone is making.
I mean, I think one of those things in terms of active listening,
which is that someone attacks you or your let's not call it attacking critiques or academic ideas.
If you feel pressure in that moment, you can repeat the ideas that that person said to you and they will feel really hurt by that experience.
So rather than like, No, that's wrong because I'm in third circle.
So you're saying that this, this, this and this. That's a really interesting point there.
But I also think this, this and this in my work or even I didn't really cover that in my work here,
but this is how what I'm doing here and by repeating their argument back to them,
it also gives you time to exercise before you start coming out with a it's not a race.
It's not about it's not about pushing away any flaws in your own academic work.
It's about hearing hearing that because actually that's useful if you're being and you're being a good job,
being a good academic, a good student, if you're able to take on new information in that way.
Yeah, I think that's right. Which is the same in terms of being on stage, which is what happens when something chaotic happens.
When something doesn't go to plan, when you forget your line, for example, you have choices.
I stay in character, I try and breathe through.
I tried and figure it out, or I run from the moment I freeze or I run offstage or I go, Oh God, what have I done?
You know, there's as many options. But the most superior option is to take a second.
To maybe repeat the last line. Mm hmm.
Just give yourself your brain some space and to try not to judge it.
As soon as you start judging yourself and beating yourself up, you're in the past or you're in the future.
I had an experience where I forgot a line. No, it was.
Oh, someone else forgot a line on stage. And I was suddenly so concerned for them and for what was going on and what was going to happen to the show.
That when it came to my line, I wasn't ready and I forgot my line.
And suddenly it snowballed and the whole scene was chaos instead of That's got that line.
That's okay. That's in the past. Let's move on know, let's be present to this moment.
And often I think this snowballing feeling is the worst, right?
Is that I enter a space. I'm nervous for that moment.
I feel like I mess up my beginning. And suddenly I'm judging myself.
Everyone hates me, and I can't get out of that rut, too.
So I would say that we'll come onto this a little bit later, which is just about like.
Do repeat the first thing. Just practice the first thing you're going to say out loud.
When I was doing this presentation to these people, I only really rehearsed the beginning so that I could set myself up on the right foot.
And it feels weird to also walk down the street and say the first lines of your whatever that thing is.
But where do you want to begin? And again, you know, in an academic context, that might not be how you're able to begin,
because someone might begin your visa, for example, with a completely leftfield question that you're totally unprepared for.
But even the process of setting yourself up for here's how I might begin.
You're just giving yourself a bit of scaffolding and a little bit of structure.
Mm hmm. So I think that structure, I think, is really important. Hmm.
So also in terms of this idea of, like, how do we access this second circle?
Because you wrote in OP, I talk a lot about life really taking this out of second circle in loads of different ways,
particularly modern life is like, okay, my phone takes me and you know, so many elements, I'd feel combative and that would push me into the third.
It's like, how can I just remain in this like non-judgmental, open listening state?
It's really hard and it's a lot of meditation.
Well, great. This idea of meditation and meditation, a big part of that is about breathing and allowing yourself to breathe.
And in stressful moments, our physiology freezes up.
We stopped breathing really in a very shallow way. Our body becomes tense, and then, of course, we're going to able to express ourselves.
Horrible, isn't it? Why, of course. You know, we have less oxygen going to the brain, so we can't process information very well.
But also our entire bodies are tense. And so actually our voice gets really weird, our mouths get clammy.
It's like all of these. And then you hear it and feel, Oh, when we start thinking about it, it's happening.
Your heart beats racing because your breathing quickly.
And so let's talk about you know, I'm up here and and then suddenly my voice is a little bit higher.
And it sounds it doesn't sound very confident and of where things are happening to my voice.
And so suddenly I'm judging myself of that. So actually it's a training and vocal warmups.
I would really encourage everyone to look up some simple vocal warmups and always really every vocal ever done.
It started with breathing. It started with the idea that to power a voice in a confident way, you need breath for that to happen.
It starts in the breath. So really and you think about, you know, people who are really relaxed, like babies, for example.
They're completely physically relaxed and they'd make an amazingly large sound.
So it's like the more we can relax our bodies and remove tension from our bodies, which yoga,
meditation, stretching this kind of thing, it doesn't have to be really rigorous,
but you're trying to get yourself back to sort of almost like a baby state because amazing, you know,
babies like make this absolute racket from this tiny body and it's because their bodies are so relaxed, they're able to make that huge sound.
And so the more confident we can become with filling a room with sound.
And that's also I would look up a little bit of work on resonators.
We have all these amazing holes in our face and all that.
And if you can start to become a bit more familiar with using those spaces in the way that you present,
you'll have a much more resonant, pure and powerful sound.
We get all trapped in different parts of our faces and in terms of these resonators.
So, you know, some people are like really stuck in this like nasal resonator.
And that's one of the assets where you can sort of, you know, this sort of sound or like back here,
if you look at the throat, it's like a slow terror of like pushing forward.
But it's like right at the back of my throat.
And I'd often sing this talk about singing into the mask as you're trying to push that sound forward into the front of your face.
So actually, if I'm talking now, I'm just pushing that sound slightly forward into the front of my mouth.
And that's a really subtle shift. But if you can start to become slightly more conscious of where your breath
is and what sort of where your voice is and where you're pushing that voice,
you can sort of make you can have a bit more control and you can find a slightly richer sound for yourself because again,
nerves push us into this tightness.
If I rise into my shoulders, I'm compressing all this space in my neck and my face, and suddenly it's a much less confident sound.
And that's just from me rising up my shoulders. So a little bit of like language around that.
I would really just encourage you to look up some vocal warm up techniques on YouTube and
embed that into a process of meditation and breathing and yoga and that kind of thing.
I think also is volume. I don't know which comes first, but I find that when I,
I know it takes a bit more confidence to kind of come out of yourself and speak a little bit louder,
not getting all the way into that third circle, but just projecting your voice in a confident way.
It takes confidence to do that.
But I also find that once I do it, I feel more confident as well, because I'm really aware that, okay, everyone can hear me.
So that eliminates one worry of people not being able to hear me. Yeah, I can hear that.
I'm articulating myself properly. So it kind of eliminates the worries around clarity of communication.
But I know that it takes confidence to get there.
But it's almost like if you have that little bit, then you will find more once you that it's the same with pace.
My feeling is that generally people talk too quickly and that it takes if you see a really,
really experienced actor, someone like Mark Rylance, for example.
He doesn't talk that quickly.
And you see a little young actors and they're filling it with all this stuff that sort of like gesticulating all over the place.
And they're talking really quickly.
And it's really and it's always energetic and it takes a lot of confidence to say, this is enough, My voice here is enough.
And that's the same in regards to projection, which is like it takes it takes practice and confidence to be able to fill a room.
But once you can do that, then you're not overdoing it.
You're saying this is enough and I know what to do. And again, I think this idea of practice is so vital.
Of course, if you're finding yourself in a state where the idea of public speaking in any form or sort of,
you know, even one on one talking is so terrifying, you know, it's easy for me to say, oh, just practice.
But actually, there's lots of ways that I practice, you know, walking in the street and,
for example, preparing for this presentation, just saying my words out loud to the street.
The worst that's going to happen is that someone passes me and thinks I'm insane.
I'm sure, as I'm sure it has, but I'm not going to see them again.
And it doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter. But it's amazing for me how our lives and our life particularly, I'd say,
like all teenage years, can really mess up our connection to our voice and our physiology.
I had such terrible posture by the time I was 18,
and you could hear it in my voice and it shifted the way I was able to and the sounds I was able to make.
Yeah. Is there a lot of practice that you're able to. It's about having options, really, isn't it?
And I can fill a room if I need to or I can say, you know, I'm going to take time to say this sentence rather than racing through it.
Maybe I'm talking too quickly on this podcast. I don't know. You know, I don't think so.
Maybe I'm just used to your cadence. Mm hmm.
The other thing I would suggest is.
Having a little mind for imaginative moment before you start your stressful experience, which is about giving yourself a little dress rehearsal,
which is about saying, Before you're going into this stressful moment, just imagine yourself from the third person.
Almost imagine watching myself going into the room where you're going to sit.
What those first lines are going to be. Essentially, just give yourself a bit of permission to imagine that experience rather than saying,
I just got to get through, I've got to get through it, and racing through the experience.
Just give yourself permission and time to imagine those first few moments of that experience.
Again, it's just a safe way to like, prepare.
Yes, I was just going to say it's a lot harder when you don't have.
You know, a spare 30 minutes directly before you have to go.
For example, you know, from a into a back to back meeting or something.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes stressful moments can surprise you.
I had an experience recently where a meeting sort of came out of the blue and I didn't think it was going to be stressful at all.
And suddenly it was. Yeah. And again, the only thing I could do was write slap bang in the middle of this meeting,
and I think I was even halfway through a sentence is just take a second and take a breath.
And instead of imagining that suddenly everyone's going to hate me for that.
Because that's what we imagined, isn't it? Isn't it funny, though, what's going to happen if I stop for a second?
It's so interesting the way that if it was anyone else, you'd be like, Oh, they're just taking a breath.
Oh, they're just taking this, I think twice about it.
The worst thing you do is you go, Oh, that's kind of bold move, or That's a long pause, or it almost exists.
I hope they're okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's all right.
Yeah, that's probably fine. It was fine when someone else does it.
I met a really successful theatre actor a few years ago with my company, and.
It was extraordinary because it was the most extreme example of this, where he would take, you know, minute long pauses between phrases.
And it was kind of unbearable. But also it was quite it did exude a level of confidence around that space.
I don't need to fill it. I'm just going to take a second to think of what it is I want to say.
Yeah. Fascinating. Hmm. Really interesting.
Yeah, we agree to. I at this point in the workshop, I just going through my presentation is becoming slightly useless because I.
Again. I'm just giving myself a minute. Yourself a minute? Be confident with it.
Right. I might just talk briefly a little bit about structure.
Which isn't really that appropriate. Like, I'm not really giving you that much structure in this in this workshop at all.
But I like to think and this is more about presentations, I would say,
but it's about what are the questions you're setting up at the beginning of your presentation and how are they being answered or concluded?
When we're building one of our plays, we often just talk about setups and payoffs and sometimes.
The set ups and payoffs can happen immediately. For example, who are you?
I'm Hamlet. Thanks for. Okay, great. As a set up, who are you? And there's a there's an answer there, which is I'm Hamlet.
Great. Okay, that's not a line in Hamlet, by the way. Who are you?
Okay, but if we think about structurally Hamlet, first scene goes off.
Hamlet's father. The proposition of this first couple of scenes is.
Hamlet. I've been murdered. Avenge my death.
The question is, is Hamlet going to do that thing? That's what's going to happen in the last scene.
A better answer that question. And it does, but not in the way that you expect.
So I love this idea in terms of any kind of storytelling, any kind of presentation,
which is the journey can be long and meandering and strange, but we have to answer the questions we're saying at the beginning in some way.
In Romeo Juliet. They tell us the entire plot in the first.
Few lines. We know that they're going to die right at the beginning of the play.
The interesting thing of watching the play is how does that happen? How do we get there?
So really being clear about your sort of mission statement at the beginning of a presentation and then allowing
yourself to go on a journey is a really fabulous about making sure that you always return home at the end.
I think it's really useful and that idea can happen across an entire presentation or entire narrative or an entire story,
but can also happen in very small ways throughout the the piece.
I was, you know, what's this? It might be essentially almost saying like, here's my big question, and that's going to be answered at the end.
But within that, there's lots of different questions that are going to be answered again and again and again throughout production.
It's a very simple idea, but the idea of setup and payoff. You might also talk about in terms of tension and release.
Chekhov's gun is an idea. So if I put a gun at the beginning of the next one, it's going to have to be fired in for it.
In storytelling terms, I think that's really useful. I might not even know what the question is specifically.
I'm not might not make that very clear, but I want things to be paid off.
That's a sort of natural rhythm we will have as human beings if we like things to be completed and paid off.
If I tell you the first half of a story, the beginning of a presentation to sort of humanise the subject,
and then I don't answer, I don't complete that story. It was going to be feeling really weird by the end of the presentation.
It's a simple idea, but it's useful. And again, that kind of architecture is quite useful for us if we're feeling nervous.
Just to know I've got a few little bit structures here. First couple of scenes of When Harry Met Sally.
Can men and women truly be friends? It's like it's a question, and we spend the rest of the film trying to figure that thing out.
I'd like to talk a little bit, just as a sort of last thought about improvisation.
And Miles Davis has this quote, which is it's not the note that you play that's wrong.
It's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong, which is a really simple idea.
It's that maybe we mess up. Maybe we don't have an answer.
Maybe I cough or sneeze or stop sweating profusely in improvisation.
It's yes, it's a very well in improvisation.
It's about what do you do with that stimulus? What do you do that information?
Are you brave enough and confident enough to embrace the calamity of each moment and embedded into the to what you're building?
So we have this idea in improvisation, which is. Yes. And is a kind of core idea.
How's your wife? She's really well. She went to the shops.
Yeah, she went to the shops and she bought this thing. I'm taking the information and I'm building on it.
If I say it, how is it? I don't have a wife. The scene, it is over.
I'm in the same way. Whether it's a conversation with yourself or with someone else.
You're really trying to build on that information. So. Going back to where, for example.
It's it's really important that you take on the information someone's giving you as opposed to defend and reject, to take it on.
Think about how that might interact with your ideas.
I think it's something that really stands out to me, though, is the idea of trusting your own brain.
Yeah. Like trusting that you do have the capacity to think on your feet.
Yes. That you have. In every case, you've done the relevant research.
You might not know the specific answer to that question.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that you can't talk about it. Great.
And is like you said. Exactly. If you can try and improvise around that thing that's useful.
I mean, a big principle of improvisation training, it's about being okay with failure.
So we play these games and in this these classes where if you mess up, everyone points at you and goes, loser, loser, loser, loser.
So you can feel that humiliation, so you can feel that momentary failure and then quickly move on.
And in the same way, it's like maybe there's a point in which you really mess up.
Maybe you totally fail. But if you've done that research and you've done all you can ahead of time,
that's the sort of crutch, that's the architecture that surrounds that experience.
You. Hey, you know, maybe something can come out of nowhere and destroy your thesis.
That's. That's an awful reality. But we also have to face it. It's like maybe something that someone says one day will destroy a lot of work.
You know, we have to be open to that as well.
We have to be open to the possibility of failure.
I think that's something something that I always try to think about with that is if I'm coming into something that I'm extremely nervous about.
And I, I it sounds a bit counterintuitive, but I try to play out the worst can, right?
Yes. Like, what is literally the worst thing that's going to happen to me in the situation?
Generally speaking, the answer is not I'm going to die or yeah, something awful like that.
It's okay. I might feel a bit embarrassed or I might not know the correct answer to this question, but I'll be okay.
I'll say something like, I don't know, but I'd love to work with you on that.
Great. Which kind of relates to what you were saying about and what was it and Yeah.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. It's like, I'll give you an answer and I'll build on it.
Brilliant. Exactly. And how much energy do we normally spend on things that we can't control?
Yeah, I can't control if the person opposite me suddenly has this idea that, you know, brings this completely new territory into the field of vision.
I have no idea what I can control. Doing as much research as I can.
For example, I can't control all the research stuff. I can't control the fact that it's raining and my suit is soaking wet.
I can't control the fact that the room is really cold or whatever it is.
It's like. I think that's such a such useful point. Focus on what you can control.
What can I control? And just breathe through the stuff you can't control.
Yeah, it's really a lesson. And this idea of improvisation, again, like going back to his ideas, like control and control,
it's like that doesn't mean a lack of knowledge and preparation as well is that I can be open to that experience and I can be open to fight.
It doesn't mean I don't sing it.
It's like improvised Shakespeare, which is this sort of genre of, you know, improvised everything really, but improvised.
So it's very different. Very interesting, because not only are they generating a whole new narrative every night, every time they do the performance,
but they're also trying to do that within the structures of Shakespeare and in iambic pentameter that is often rhyming.
So they built, but that seems like an impossible task.
But to build that, they always have structures around that that makes it easy for them.
I know exactly how to I've got I've got really good at rhyming.
That's one thing. We all understand the structures and how a comedy works or tragedy works.
We've read all the plays so I know how they function.
And also a really basic level going back to this idea of say, how do I begin?
Is we're always going to be in the show the same way we're always going to be.
Well, welcome to the improvisatory Shakespeare and it isn't is like there's always this script to the beginning of most improv shows,
and it's just about settling everyone down and understanding the rules of the game.
And then we can kind of go go crazy from there. So I think again, it's like what crutches can we give ourselves to just help that process?
And, you know, we just like never want to look like an idiot to me.
I mean, that's just the worst. That's the same to not look like an idiot.
So how can you prepare yourself for looking like an idiot?
One way for anybody local to Oxford who wants to prepare themselves for looking like an idiot.
Somebody told me about this thing recently called Toastmasters. Okay, what is that?
So I never heard of it before. And I was talking to my SO my friend about, you know, all of this stuff.
It was shortly after we had talked about your your workshop and nerves and presenting.
And he was like, Have you ever been to Toastmasters? And it's like, never heard of it.
Basically, it's it's a worldwide club, not a club basically, for people who want to practise presenting in public speaking.
There's a place in Summertown where people go and they do this every week.
And basically you go and whoever's presenting it, you know,
and you either get called up or you volunteers go up and you just have to stand there and answer a question.
And the question is completely random. Could be any you know, could require any kind of structure of it.
And so you have no idea what it's going to be. It could be something like talk to me about the advantages of, you know, cheese over butter.
Yeah. Like something that you that you don't know anything about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But then it requires you to just dig into your brain, think about what you do know.
Think about what you might be able to spin in the right way. Yeah.
And just think on your feet for a minute and say stuff. But also, what's great about that is no one really cares if you succeed or fail.
And sometimes the most successful moment in that would be the the terrible failure.
Like, that's the one will enjoy. Celebrating with you on stage.
And it's like all comedians, we talk about that thing, which is like you have to get out there and die.
You know, you have to like over and over again really fail to be able to be prepared for that experience.
I think that sounds really fun. Yeah. And excuse me, it is.
It's all over the world. So when I moved to Nairobi, I'm going to join a club there, and it's really nice.
So I decided to go. Let's go. Is there anything specific?
This is very leading question in relation to your new life and your new work that you're sort of feeling a bit nervous about.
So something that I do find difficult. So for context, I'm moving on from Wilson starting.
I've already started a new role with a climate communications agency.
It's a completely new company. So what we're doing right now as a communications agency is trying to get clients and the clients that we want.
Start-ups in the climate action space of all different sorts.
So something that we're doing a lot of right now is pitching. And pitching requires confidence, belief in your ideas,
a kind of relentless ambition to build a relationship with this person and essentially build a business partnership with this,
with this person, with this other company. So pitches I find really hard.
Yeah. And I was thinking when you were talking before about structure and coming home to something,
I think that's super important in pitches you have to start.
This is literally just what I've been thinking about and learning as I've been doing them.
You have to start with whatever that problem is.
And as a communication agency, generally speaking,
the problem that potential clients and partners are facing is that they don't know what the story is,
or at least they don't know how to articulate it. So if you think of their organisation as a person, they don't know who they are.
So we kind of present that is the problem at the beginning and then we talk through all of these ideas around who they are,
who they think they are, where they might go or where we might be able to take them.
And we present them these ideas, these different directions, and then we kind of try to bring it back to that original question.
So it's like we take them on this journey and then at the end we say something like, Do you feel that that answers your question of who you are?
So we pose the question while we go on this huge, you know, soul searching journey together.
And that's just the pitch and that's just the pitch. Wow. And that that requires preparation and research because we have to think through what
we know about this company and the people who work there and why they do what they do.
We have to develop. Stories.
So kind of vision stories, purpose stories, mission stories.
And so we developed those sort of written stories, but then we also developed the visual stories visually, where might we take this brand?
Where might we take this company and not?
It's on one hand, it's a lot of work to do before you've already started working with this company,
but you're not going to get there if you don't take them on this journey and try to do something together.
And I think it fits quite well with your architecture.
I think that's really good. Everyone like, Yeah, we all want to come home.
Don't like I think that's that's not we all want to be sort of taken by the hands.
Yes. Well, your listeners want to be taken by the hand and brought home.
I think a lot about audience and. Who you're making things for.
Because I suppose that experience, I think going back to this thought, it's like things we can't control.
Is that you might do all that work and it's just not for that.
Yeah. And they still say no. Yeah. More often than not. And it's just not for them.
Yeah. That doesn't mean that you've done a bad job or that the whole idea of this pitching concept doesn't work.
Like Bryan Cranston would talk about auditioning and being like, Well, it's just the chance to show someone what I can do.
And if they don't like that, that's fine. It's fine.
They're not buying my product or whatever it is, but it's like you have to be able to sort of detach yourself from that experience.
So here's my thing. You know, new do acting is what these kind of things are very personal, but you have to go, Here's what I do.
That's what I do. Don't like that. Thanks very much. Great to me. And it was really a joy to have the chance to show what I can do.
Yeah. And in the same way it's like. In this age, I think this idea of control is really useful, which is like.
Sometimes I can make the most beautiful show in the world.
And no one wants to see. I've had that. Well, I think if only we had a big crowd in tonight that everything was there.
Performances were on fire. The writing was electric. And we just had three Grammys and and we just couldn't, you know, how could we ever be able.
But this is not this is all going to flop. This is how, you know, you have to be able to celebrate those things.
Yeah. Whether they succeed or fail. So.
Yeah. Yeah, I it sounds like a really interesting way of like, I mean,
that's a lot of work for just the pitching stage and it's sort of it is, but it's also it's just about building relationships.
Like you can't, you can't work with somebody who.
You don't trust to take you by the hand and yes, bring you along this journey,
especially when we're talking about things like brand identity and communications.
What is my story? Yeah. You know, these these are Start-Up founders.
They're very, very invested in what they're doing. And they do it because they're passionate about it.
And it's frustrating to them that they don't have the to the tools or the skills.
To articulate that passion necessarily in the right way.
Yes. But how valuable it is for them to feel heard as well, if you can articulate what they mean back at them.
That's unbelievable, isn't it? I mean, I would say the most I think the most important part of that journey is actually before the pitch.
In order to get to that point, you have to have a relationship.
Somebody doesn't want to hear a pitch if they know, you know, if you're just some cold caller.
So what I actually do is have research calls with people.
So and it's not under any false guys.
I can explain it to you. No, no.
I genuinely want to ask you questions, hear your answers, and find out if we could be a good fit and find out if it's even worth suggesting a pitch.
So we do these research calls, and I think they're really interesting because.
One. It gives me an opportunity to find out about who this company is, what they're doing, you know,
what their priorities are, what direction they're trying to go, what their objectives are and everything.
But the other thing that it does, which is maybe a bit more subconscious,
but it gives them an insight into what it would be like to work through a kind of identity process with me.
These are the types of questions I would ask you. This is how I listen to you and I hear their answers and I repeat them back to them.
Wow. And I add questions based on their answers, which requires a lot of thinking on the spot and true present.
Listening. Yes, because I can't I can't do that job if I'm not present.
And how powerful is that for them to have that kind of conversation?
Well, I think it's because it's so rare, isn't it, to have an experience with someone where you really feel like they're listening to you?
Yeah, exactly. It's really interesting.
I think it's a crucial part of building trust in both directions.
And sometimes we get to the end of that conversation and the other person is very much like, Thanks.
No, I'm good. Yeah, we're good. Yeah.
Like they you know, maybe they enjoyed the conversation, but they're not interested in developing the storytelling any further.
Yeah. And like you said, at that point, I'd say, okay, that's fine. I know we did a good job, we had a good conversation, and it was fine.
Well, maybe we didn't have a good conversation, but that also doesn't necessarily mean I didn't do a good job.
Very sometimes if we don't have a good conversation.
Maybe they maybe they're just actually not interested in storytelling, brand identity and all of these things.
And. And that's fine. Then we're not a good match anyway.
Absolutely. And it feels like, you know, in all these like environments, high pressure environments,
like we're not really allowed to sort of think about the most basic stuff, which is like human beings like to be heard.
You know, human beings like to be told this story and these kind of things at some.
It's that's really interesting. It's very it is very, very human.
Like, you really just have to.
Remember how to relate to another human being in order to build those relationships and even get to the to the point of the pitch.
Yeah. Do you watch couples therapy? I have watched episodes of it.
Yeah. I think it's great. One of my favourite TV is on BBC, so BBC iPlayer people watch it.
American show and it's just people. Couples therapy.
I mean, it's real couples. I don't know quite how they do it, but it's so.
What a basic idea in therapy is to just repeat back what someone said.
Yeah. And. How rare it is for someone to just hear what's coming out of there and externalising this thing.
And I suppose another thing in relation to this conversation of nerves, it's about like.
The expression of your stuff and allowing yourself to hear it in relation to nerves.
So, you know, the little girl is nervous on top of the ski jump.
And we're all able to go, Oh, that looks really terrifying. And to validate that experience because it really is scary.
And often when when people academics who I've met here at Wolfson talk about,
you know, or you talk about your new job, I mean, that sounds absolutely terrifying.
It's all completely natural for you to feel terrified of that experience.
I do feel terrified at it. What I'm doing it right. Not so much the research interview part, but the moment.
Yeah, I'm sure the pitch part of I feel very nervous. But how often do we go through life in going like what other people seem to be doing it?
So, like, you know, what am I getting myself worked up for? Yeah. And yet there's loads and moments in life that are completely stressful.
Yeah. And it makes us so much worse when you think of it. So and so.
Yes. I should be good at talking about you. Feel any better?
Yeah. I always say that to resolve acknowledging, like, the sticky, gooey parts of yourself.
Yeah, I think it's odd. And the more you can do that, the more I can engage with something openly and honestly.
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I'm just I think, you know,
you've done a lot of these these pivot point podcasts and you've been such an amazing host for them because
you really are very present with people and really listen to them and and you ask really pertinent questions.
And I think you're going to be just in the context of this podcast can be really sorely missed.
And don't cut the span. So it's like a big celebration of you because you've been really amazing.
So and it's been a real joy to get to know you over these past couple of years.
Thanks, Tom. It's very kind. It's been a pleasure as well.
Wishing you all the best. Love, I think about this podcast and particularly like how like, you know,
it's all about being present, but how much are we also like putting on our podcast voices?
I mean, I know. So I.