Help Your Audience Transform with Peter George

Today I'm visiting with Peter George, public speaking coach and author of The Captivating Speaker: Engage, Impact, and Inspire Your Audience Every Time. We will talk about how becoming a better speaker can positively impact all areas of your life, including health, relationships, your career, and your overall confidence.

Peter struggled with a lisp and stutter when he was young. As a result, he did as little speaking as possible growing up, but he found that his lack of presentation skills was holding him back in his career. Now he coaches others to become better speakers so that they can move the needle in their careers, foster better relationships, and build the confidence to do the things they want in life.

Learn more about Peter's book and get your free 52 week speaking lessons right to your inbox: https://petergeorgepublicspeaking.com/public-speaking-book/

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Transcript

Magic Barclay: 1:00

welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host, magic Barclay, and today I'm joined by Peter George. Peter believes that everyone should be able to confidently share their knowledge and experience as a public speaking coach. He specializes in helping professional speakers, authors, consultants. And executives to become confident and credible, and he'll tell us more about that in a moment. Every time you speak, whether you're speaking on stage, presenting in meetings, or selling to prospects. Now, throughout his childhood, Peter dealt with a lisp and a stutter. Consequently, he grew up shy and introverted, avoiding communicating with others as much as possible. When he got. Into the business world. He quickly realized that his lack of presentation skills kept him at a disadvantage. After seeking help, he now credits his public speaking coaches for much of his business success. Over the past 17 years, Peter has helped professionals from around the corner to those in Fortune 100 companies develop into speakers who understand how to craft and deliver presentations that engage, persuade, and inspire. Ultimately helping them increase their impact, influence, and their income. Peter's book, the Confident Public Speaker, how to Calm, confident and Credible Every Time You Speak Is Out Now. Welcome Peter.

Peter George: 2:33

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Magic Barclay: 2:35

I'm so excited to have you here. We haven't had someone in public speaking on the podcast And communication is just so key and so important. And as an extroverted introvert, it's something I had to learn to get myself out there. And I'm sure many of the listeners, whether in business, whether they're entrepreneurs, whether they're at home, whether they work for someone else, can really develop their communication skills and better their lives from that. So I'm really excited to have you.

Peter George: 3:07

Thank you so much.

Magic Barclay: 3:09

Now I always ask my guests the same three questions and everyone gives me a really different answer and kind of really excited about how public speaking is going to influence your answers. So here's the first one. What can your expertise do to accelerate health, not just physical, but also emotional and spiritual health

Peter George: 3:30

when people are. more calm, more confident about themselves when they're speaking. Then there's a lot less stress and we can go from how much stress it puts on them and is ultimately relieved. Or just the lack of sleep most people have before they have to present because they're nervous about it or they fear it. And by becoming more effective at it, not only does it affect their jobs and their revenue and the like or has the opportunity to, but it also helps them on the physical and mental level of, just being able to relax more and enjoy what they're doing and actually looking forward to it.

Magic Barclay: 4:09

I think that's really important. Stress is such a major thing, and when I talk about the P N E I of trauma, I actually use public speaking as one of my, I guess examples, you know, that people can feel hot and sweaty and clammy and have random pain leading up to a talk or a presentation, and then all of a sudden they get the sniffles like the day before, or a sore throat. It's kind of the body jumping in and really understanding how to bypass that stress, how to make it eustress rather than tress. When you're speaking is so key, and I'm so glad that you're here that you can share some tips with that a bit later. Now, we talk about wealth. People think that's just financial, but also personal and emotional wealth. So what are your top three tips to creating wealth and how can public speaking

Peter George: 5:03

help when people become more effective at public speaking? They have that skill of course, and, and they may still be nervous. They'll, most of us are to one degree or another. We have an energy that we might not experience otherwise, a type of adrenaline rush. And that's a good thing. And they learn that that's a good thing instead of fearing it. And why is my body doing this? Why is my mind doing this to me? And when we learn to have better public speaking skills, the residue of that. The benefit of that is that level of confidence that they have that can permeate other sides of their lives. So whether it's personal interactions with others on a relationship level, or it's being more confident to go out in public or meet people or whatever it might be, that's a type of wealth. That's having relationships, building relationships, getting to know other people. To me, that's probably one of the highest forms of wealth a person could have. And it allows them to do that more effectively. The thing I love most about what I do is not just helping people get those skills, but with just about every client I've ever had. At one point, you can see it in their face. They're actually changed, and you can see in their face a level of confidence they didn't know they could attain, and you can't buy that.

Magic Barclay: 6:24

I think that's just wonderful. Now, just to go back to your bio for a minute. Mm-hmm. You had a stutter and a lisp. Yes. How did you work around that? what was the tipping point to getting around that and how did you do it?

Peter George: 6:39

Starting in the fourth grade, every Tuesday morning for four years, I. I was sent to a so-called therapist, and I'm sure she was, but I'm in my sixties, so we're looking back in the 1960s and I'm sure it's a lot different now, but it was torturous. She made me stand there for an hour at a time. Nine year old kid and do tongue twister after tongue twister, after tongue twister, and then do exercises with my, tongue, my jaw, my lips. And it was humiliating and I hated her. And I hated it. And I hated Monday nights cuz I knew Tuesday mornings were going to follow that up. I hated to go to bed on Monday nights. however, in about four years, they were both not completely eradicated, but. They were for the most part, gone. Even to this day. They rare, their ugly heads every now and again, but that's okay.

Magic Barclay: 7:31

So that's something quite major to overcome as a child. Did that pop back into your mind as you developed your public speaking resume or portfolio? Like did you ever look back and think. Wow. Look how far I've come or what if that pops up again? Or like was there any kind of resurfacing in your, your mind?

Peter George: 7:56

The, there is. You know, you look back and go, wow, I'm probably one of the more improbable public speakers and public speaking coaches you'd find, because I had the two speech impediments. But as a kid you find a way to work with them. Kids are pretty resilient and I found a way to work with them and most of it was keeping my mouth shut. I didn't talk other than to my close friends, family, and the like, I didn't talk in public. So to be doing what I do for a living and have done it for so long, you couldn't have written that script. It, it would've been an unbelievable script. So, I just look back and say, you know, it's, it's ironic. It's, it's funny in a way. and I had a great childhood. It's not like I had a, a bad childhood because of my speech impediments. I had a wonderful childhood. So, I don't know, it's just, just the way life took me. I look at it being at me that it was nothing great or fantastic. Just ironic.

Magic Barclay: 8:52

I love that. That's just such a great way to put it in the box and just go done, dealt with, move on. I love that. Now, look, we talk about weight loss here too, and many people battle their weight quite needlessly. We know that stress is. A key indicator in weight issues whether it be weight gain or weight loss. So have you ever battled with your weight? If so, what was the trigger to changing that status quo? And how can public speaking help people with their confidence?

Peter George: 9:27

To answer the first part of that, yes, I was an athlete till I was 24. And then of course you continue to eat when you're 25 and beyond, like you did when you were exercising and working out and playing all the time. And you don't have that type of exercise anymore. Well, you start to pack on some pounds. And then I also traveled a great deal when I was speaking regularly, I traveled a lot. So it was easy to have the excuses of, well, hotel food and this food and that food, and it's not good for you, but it's all you got and you have so little time and the like, all the excuses. And I put on quite a bit of weight and I lost it the old fashioned way. I had to have an operation and I was in the hospital for five days and I lost 44 pounds.

Magic Barclay: 10:16

And how can public speaking help people with their confidence? Because we know that maybe if you are not the weight that you wanna be, maybe you are lacking confidence. That could be one of the keys. Maybe you can't express yourself properly. Like there's a lot of indicators behind that, rather than just the weight coming on.

Peter George: 10:37

Yeah, like I said, you know, to me the greatest aspect of becoming a more effective public speaker, even beyond being able to communicate more effectively for other people, for their sake and yours, is the confidence that comes with it. And when you have that, uh, as I said before, it, it moves into other parts of your life. And it's, you know, when I wasn't traveling, I lost the weight cuz I had didn't have an excuse anymore. When I would start traveling again, I gained the weight back. So, and those were just excuses. But when you have the confidence to do things, you can put that in other aspects of your life. Of course, if you want to, a lot of us have that confidence, gain that confidence, but then we don't use it.

Magic Barclay: 11:22

Great. Now I'm gonna keep this going because there's so much I wanna ask you. Sure. So tell us about your trademark. Calm, confident, and credible.

Peter George: 11:34

Those are the three things that I believe people become after working with someone like me. Whether it's me or. Someone else like me or a major company like Dale Carnegie or the like, is that you become more calm when you're speaking. Cuz you learn how to control or at least manage what's happening to your body and mind. And it's the same thing, just about the same thing with everyone you speak to, anyone who says they fear public speaking or really nervous about it, their heartbeats like it's coming out of their chest, they're. Blood pressure increases. They get sweaty, they might stutter a little, they get dry mouth. They forget what they were going to say. These are all the same things that happened from one person to the next to the next. Most stories are very close to being the same. So learning to manage those feelings, that energy, and I really don't believe it's fear. I think it's nervousness, but not fear. No one's ever died of. Public speaking and fear is usually fairing danger, but you can become calm. And when you can become calm, you can. Manage things much more effectively. When you listen to an athlete, when they say they're in the so-called zone, they say everything slows down. They're calm, their heart's calm, their eyes are watching something, and everything slows down for them and they can perform more effectively. And that's what calmness gives you the confidence we talked about. And we can talk about that for eons because that just brings everything to another level. But when you can present well, Your credibility increases when people can write well and speak well, and I'm not saying speak without an accent or speak, where their annunciation is perfect. I'm talking about communicating with other people. When you can do that, your credibility increases. There's a lot of people who don't get promotions and they think it's because. The other person, plays golf with the boss or whatever it might be, and they don't realize it's because they lack communication skills. And when you do, you only hit a certain level and then you'll no longer promote it. Because in most positions, as you go up the ladder, you have to present and present well. And if you don't have those skills, they can stifle your career.

Magic Barclay: 13:49

So for someone that might be reinventing themselves or someone that might just want to get more out of their day every single day, what are some key exercises they can do to help them with their confidence?

Peter George: 14:07

Take most opportunities to speak in front of other people and understand you're not gonna die. Are you going to make a fool outta yourself? Probably not. But even if you do, and let me tell you, 35 years on stage, I can tell you all the things I've done that we're embarrassed. You can't come up with something that hasn't happened to me. Other than falling down on stage while walking out on it. But I have friends in the industry who have, other than that, I've had just about everything ha happen. And you know what? Years later. They're your best stories. They're your funniest stories. You wanna die a thousand deaths when they happen, but most people are very forgiving. Most people in an audience wanna see you do well. And an audience can be one person across a desk, 10 people in a conference room, or a thousand people in an auditorium. People want to see a speaker do well. So when you have the opportunity to speak in front of other people, take it. No one's going to die. Nothing horrible is going to happen. Even if you forget what you're gonna say or stumble on your words or whatever it might be, you'll survive. You'll laugh about it maybe 2, 3, 4, 5 years later, whenever it might be. But my biggest gaps are my best stories. No one wants to hear about the time that it went great. They want to hear about the time where something messed up and I have a blast telling the stories because they're funny and at my expense, so I don't have to worry about harming Anybody else Take the opportunity to speak.

Magic Barclay: 15:41

So someone that might just be going down the street to do their shopping and they feel kind of nervous cuz there's a lot of people in the store, or at the market or whatever, they don't know any of these people rather than to say, Hey, how you going? Or nice weather, isn't it? Or something really benign and boring. Is there something they can kind of say that's comfortable but memorable? Like an icebreaker, something fun.

Peter George: 16:09

There can be, and depending on how much stress they're under at the time, sometimes the simplest is the best just to get used to it. Just saying, Hey, isn't this great weather? Or, you know, what a, what a wonderful day it could be. Do you like that cereal? Have you been eating that long? Do you like it? When people are in a place like a bank or a grocery store, anything like that, where we're standing in line, we all are there for the same reason. So we all have something in common. And I'm one of the more introverted and shy people you will ever meet in your life. And a lot of people who are introverted, not necessarily shy and vice versa, but I am both. But there was a time that I had to learn. To hold chitchat whatever you wanna call it, small talk with people I didn't know. So now I say hello to just about everybody because that keeps me sharp and wanting to communicate with people and it's just not me. That is not the normal me, but it's something I force myself to do. And I'll tell you how I got in that habit. I would speak somewhere and then be on that, in that hotel or in that resort or whatever it might be for the next couple of days. And there would be people who were in the auditorium or the room listening to me speak, and then we'd be in the elevator together or pass each other on the walkway and I wouldn't say hello and they were offended. Now, I never saw them, depending on how many people there were. I never saw them individually. So, I really wouldn't be expected to, recognize them, but people feel like you should. So I got in the habit when I was speaking that if I was in an elevator, I'm the one who wanted to crawl into the back corner. That would be that me naturally and stare at the numbers going up. So you didn't have to look at anybody. I learned that I'd go walk into an elevator and I'd be, hi, how are you? How's it going? You're enjoying your stay, whatever it might be. Pass someone on a walkway. Hi. It's great morning, isn't it? And just keep walking. And my wife and I hike every weekend and we see people on the hiking path and I'm, hi, how are you? Great hike, isn't it? it's just something you can get yourself into and it takes time, it takes effort. It's not easy for everybody. If you're outgoing, it's fairly easy. It's built in. But for those of us who are shy and or introverted, Especially Shai, you have to force yourself to do it. And again, you learn, you know what, no one died when I said hi to someone in line.

Magic Barclay: 18:38

Fantastic. Now, is there something we haven't covered today, Peter, that you think the listeners can benefit from hearing?

Peter George: 18:46

when you get nervous. two things here. One is just breathe. You have to breathe. So just breathe. When we get nervous, we hold our breath. It's just like when someone, you know, your kids are around a corner and you're walking into the kitchen and they go boo. And you jump a mile. And first thing we do is go and we inhale and hold our breath. And that stresses our body. Cuz our body wants to know what's going on is trying to protect itself. It's stressed. Breathe. Just breathe. And if you do yoga or have had a baby, you know it as a cleansing breath. I know it as, diaphragmatic breathing, but breathe deeply. Don't hold it in through your nose, out through your mouth, as if you were blowing out through a straw. Slowly do that three or four times. That not only calms your nerves, but it sends oxygen to your heart and your extremities. So your heart relaxes a little more. It's not beating like crazy. Your blood pressure can go down a little bit and it also sends more oxygen to your brain, which certainly helps. You can think more clearly, say things more effectively. So breathe, You need to do it anyway. Just breathe. And that's incredibly important, just continuing to breathe. It's a

Magic Barclay: 19:57

great tip there. Now for people who may want to get into public speaking or just may want to get a job promotion or a new job, or join a new community group, what are some key tips you've got? Like if someone starts working with you, what are the first things that you're going to say?

Peter George: 20:20

First thing we're going to talk about is nerves and I, I try to get away from that word. Nerves or fear. It's energy. We are just labeling it incorrectly. Let me put it this way. If, if you are nervous about something going on, rollercoasters, jumping out of a perfectly good plane, jumping off the side of the cliff, driving motorcycles at 150 miles an hour, if that stuff makes you nervous, I get it. But there's a lot of us. Who love things like that, but we have the same thing happened to our body, and I'll tell you about a, client of mine. When she came to me, she'd say, you know, I'm, I'm a bit nervous about public speaking. She was actually an excellent speaker, but she was a bit nervous. And I said, what happens to you? And she says, well, my heart races, my blood pressure goes up. I forget what I'm going to say. I get sweaty. I get this odd feeling about me. And I said, well, that's called an adrenaline rush. I said, you jump out of planes, right? And she said, yes, I do. I said, how do you feel before you jump out of the plane? She says, well, my heart races, my blood pressure goes up, my memory goes away, and I have to concentrate on the checklist and all, all those things. I said, so it's exactly the same thing. And she said, yeah, as a matter of fact, it is. The only difference was how she labeled it. When we don't like it or we're uncomfortable, we, we call it fear or nerves. When we like it, we call it an adrenaline rush and excitement Your body and mind are just getting you prepared to do something exciting. So label it as exciting, and here's the reason you want it to be exciting. When you are speaking, it's not about you, it's about the audience and how they're going to be transformed in one way or another. You're either going to give them tools to do something, motivation to do something, you might affirm their beliefs so they have even more confidence in what they believe. You might challenge their belief and opened up their thinking, but they were transformed. And if you did your job correctly, they were transformed in one way or another. So stop thinking about you and start thinking about them, and what you're actually doing is helping people. And when we start to put it that way, how can you go wrong? You can't make a mistake to help people. Not in this way anyway. The most you can do is muff up your words, forget exactly what you're gonna say. That's fine. No one's going to discount that. They just look at it, even if it's speaking or speaking to a young lady today about speaking to her board, her board of directors, and she said, I'm not helping them. I said, sure, you are. You're giving them information. You're, you're helping them run the company more effectively without that information and how you're conveying it to them. They might not construe it correctly and that could harm the company. This is a large company, so when you get to help people, that's a pretty cool thing, and that's a pretty cool thing to be excited about, not fearful of.

Magic Barclay: 23:19

I think that's really important as a message, and we mentioned this a little earlier off there as well, and that is that it's not about you, it is about the audience and that you can help people transform their lives by sharing the information that you have. So I really love that message.

Peter George: 23:37

Yeah, and I, I tell my clients and I write articles about this or have it in my. Podcast or whatever, don't speak to inform, speak to transform. And when you think about it that way, now your content's going to be different. You're not just blabbing information on them, but you're going to help them see something that's going to help them in the long run. And again, when you're chosen to do that, you have the opportunity to do that. You didn't win a lottery to go up there and speak at work. You were chosen to do it because you're either in the position and you didn't win a lottery to get that position. Either you were put in that position because of your capabilities, but for one reason or another, you're the person up there speaking and that's for a reason. Accept that reason, relish that reason, and help others transform their lives in one way or another, even if it's your bosses.

Magic Barclay: 24:30

Great. Now, Peter, we love freebies here. We love giving the listeners something to walk away with after they've heard this episode. So what can you offer as a freebie and where can the listeners find that

Peter George: 24:43

they can go to Peter George? Public speaking.com and there they can find out everything that I offer, everything about me. But the freebie that'll be there will be 52 public speaking tips, one a week. It'll come to, to them. They just sign up and they get each of those once a week nice and easy. That's

Magic Barclay: 25:04

terrific. That's like drip feeding wisdom. How great is that?

Peter George: 25:10

Yeah. And it gives them time to work on it if they want, if they like something, they say, Ooh, I'll try this over the next few days. Instead of, I used to send all 52 at once or all, I sent 50 at once. And then someone said, you know, you do that and that's just giving them a drink out of a fire hose. It's way too much. So I started doing one a week.

Magic Barclay: 25:31

I love that. Thank you so much. Now that website was Peter George public speaking.com. Thank you so much for joining us. I've really enjoyed this episode. And listeners, look, I have to tell you about what I'm seeing behind Peter. Because it was just so touching when we spoke about it off air. There is an old fireman's helmet there and it's a bit battered and bruised. But Peter, quickly tell us the

Peter George: 25:59

story. My father was a firefighter here on Providence, Rhode Island. And if you're not familiar, where Rhode Island is and most people in the US aren't familiar with where the state of Rhode Island is. We're in New England, so the upper right hand corner of of the US and he was a firefighter here in Providence and. this was in the early sixties, back when they had metal helmets, a ceiling fell on his head during a fire, and that's fire helmet saved his life. And I have all his helmets, but that's the one that matters to me. so I, I put it up on the shelf proudly.

Magic Barclay: 26:33

And I'm so glad you did because it looks gorgeous. I wish the viewers could see it, such a great connection to the past. Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate all the wisdom you've shared with myself and the listeners today.

Peter George: 26:47

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a blast.

Magic Barclay: 26:50

And listeners, thank you so much for your time. This was your episode 2 0 6. Coming up we have Keegan Hadley, Tracy Shor, and many, many more joining us. But for now, go forth and create your magical life.