266. Master Public Speaking Anxiety: Insights from Angel Tuccy

00:00:10
This is happiness solved with America's Happiness coach, Sandee Sgarlata.

00:00:20
Hello everyone, and welcome to today's show. This is your host, Sandee Sgarlata, and I am so happy you're here. First of all, I want to thank each and every one of my listeners for all the five star reviews. And I'm so proud to announce that because of you, Happiness Solve podcast is now in the top 0.5% globally and growing. We just had our biggest month ever with over 85,000 downloads.

00:00:45
So I have a question for you to ponder. Are you reaching your full potential or is something holding you back? I am grateful to announce the launch of the Peak Performance Mindset Academy, where you will discover strategies designed to transform your mindset and shatter your performance ceilings. Envision feeling unstoppable and confident in any professional or personal situation. Don't wait to start living your best life.

00:01:13
Text peak to 26786 and begin to embrace the power within you. So when you text peak to 26786, you will receive access to my new book, Peak Performance Secrets. And as a special gift to you, the first 100 people who download peak performance Secrets will receive a three month trial membership into the Peak Performance mindset mastermind at the reduced rate of only 1995 per month. So don't wait. Text peak to 26786.

00:01:47
Thank you for listening today. And remember, Happiness is a choice, and the choice is yours. Enjoy the show.

00:01:59
Angel, so thrilled to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining me. Oh, my gosh, Sandy, I've been looking forward to this for a really long time. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

00:02:09
I know we're both very busy people and we've had to reschedule a few times, but here we are, and I'm just so grateful. So for those of you who don't know Angel, she is an award winning speaker, radio host, TV producer, PR Media specialist, and 15 times best selling author. Oh, my gosh. And what she does is she teaches you how to do your own PR. So that's amazing, because for anybody that's in business, you've got to make your voice known.

00:02:38
Yeah. You got to wave your own flag. You really do have to put yourself out there and think like a publicist. I think a lot of times, as entrepreneurs, we think like a salesperson. But really, if you want to make a really big impact, reach more people, borrow what I call other people's audiences, leveraging the power of media and PR.

00:02:57
Yeah. Become your own publicist. That is definitely the secret. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, it's so true.

00:03:03
And I've learned that over my journey over the past few years. But before we dive into everything that you do and your books and everything, what is your backstory? I've never really heard your story. Like, how did you get to where you are today? Oh, I love, you know, it's kind of a tale of not expected this to happen in high school.

00:03:22
Super shy, incredible fear of public speaking. Stage fright beyond comparison. In fact, I almost didn't graduate high school, Sandy, because I couldn't pass my public speaking class. And thank goodness my teacher took pity on me and he gave me a D for effort. It was pathetic effort, but it was effort nevertheless.

00:03:42
And I was fine with that. I was behind the scenes. Girl. I'm an introvert by heart. And so for me to be in this space where I'm a published author speaking on stages, top radio broadcaster in the city, it was definitely an unexpected turn.

00:04:02
But later in my thirty s, I ended up working for a public speaker, professional speaker, who hired me as his admin, started doing some presentations and workshops and putting together workshops for him, and did my first presentation with handwritten notes. 45 minutes of reading my pages, shaking in my boots, right? Just absolute horrid on stage, but got a little bit better at it just by putting myself out there and ended up starting a podcast. And that podcast was discovered by our local radio station, and we were invited to come in and host a daily talk show on the AM dial. And it changed my life.

00:04:48
My very first day in the studio, I took my headphones off and I said, this is what I want to do. Because I loved sharing my story, I loved connecting with people. I just couldn't do it in front of a live audience, but I could do it in a radio studio booth. And so that started my ten year career in broadcasting, where I ended up top morning talk show, Top talk show team, most influential woman of the year. It was an incredible career.

00:05:17
And by the time I left, which was five years ago, Sandy, I was hosting two daily two hour talk shows, and they were back to back. A Christian lifestyle show, talking to moms in minivans in the Carpool lane, and a positive business talk show. And I was just living the fabulous dream, right? Top 1% of producers in the country. And then I walked into the studio one day and my producer pulled me aside and he said, Angel, we've made a change.

00:05:48
And five minutes later, I was being escorted out of the building. I had my cardboard box, my disco ball that I put up every Friday in the studio. And in the next 24 hours, they completely erased anything with my name, my image, my voice, and a ten year career came to a screeching halt. Oh, my goodness. Right.

00:06:09
Yeah. So fortunately for me, they say when one door closes, another opens. Right. Six weeks prior to that, Sandy, and you're going to love this because I know you just came out from attending platinum speaker camp with Power Team International. Walsh.

00:06:25
Six weeks prior to this, I had attended platinum speaker camp with Bill. Oh, really? Isn't that wild? Yeah. So he does a speaker course, right?

00:06:36
How to sell from stage, how to put together your whole speaker box, your speaker training, how to do events. And it's a five day, one of the most intensive things I'd ever participated in, partly because of my. I still have that stage fright. But it is an intensive class. Right.

00:06:54
A M to 09:00 p.m. Every day and really learning the speaking business. I had attended that six weeks before. And at that time, part of the package included, if you came within 30 days, he would put you on stage to speak. He had stages.

00:07:13
And he would give you an opportunity to speak, which, if You've done a lot of speaker training, you find that most of them don't have stages to put you on. So. That's right. Was a real value add to the program, like real lifetime, real life training. Right on the spot.

00:07:29
Well, I thought I would get some notice to that 30 day stage opportunity, but I got a phone call on a Sunday afternoon. I was in Arizona visiting my girlfriend, and I get a phone call and there's Bill Walsh on my phone. And back then I was like, bill, right? Calling me. He says, hey, Angel, what are you doing tomorrow?

00:07:53
I'm in Arizona today, right? It's Sunday. I'm flying home in the morning. I've got my radio shows this know, in the afternoon. So I'm working.

00:08:01
He says, if you can be in Vegas tomorrow morning, I have a stage that I think would be a good fit for. I'm like, really? Like, is that how that works? Tomorrow morning I'm going to fly from Arizona to Vegas instead of going back home to Denver, where I was at the time. I had to call my husband, I had to make flight arrangements.

00:08:20
I had to call my producer and say, I'm not coming in tomorrow. I had to make all these arrangements, Sandy, like last minute changes. But the most important thing I had to do was borrow a dress from my girlfriend because at the, like, the malls were already closed by the time I made the decision, there was no time to go shopping and find something. So I borrowed a dress, I borrowed shoes. I borrowed jewelry, packed my little suitcase, went into Las Vegas, and that morning, I did my first speak and sell from stage.

00:08:52
I made $9,000 in a 20 minutes. In a 20 minutes talk, and my life was forever changed. Wow. And then, yeah, six weeks later, they released me from broadcasting my contracts, which was a blessing in disguise, albeit incredibly embarrassing, in a public departure after being on the air for ten years. But my first call was to Bill, and I said, I'm hitching my wagon to you.

00:09:16
Do you think that entrepreneurs and organizations would like to know how to get booked in media, how to get on radio? Because I've got the insider track. And at the time, I was a unicorn. Sandy, there was nobody else who had been in media who was now teaching a lot of people who had gotten some exposure for themselves and saying, this is how I did it. But there wasn't anybody who had actually been on the inside track.

00:09:38
So I spent the next two years speaking on as many stages and podcasts as I could, getting that message out into the I. That's how I ended up on this journey. Oh, my gosh. Angel. I love it.

00:09:51
I love it. I had no idea that was your journey. That's great. And I can't believe that all started with your platinum speakers, because for me, I've been in a corporate job for many years, and I just left my corporate job mid October after being there for seven and a half years. Okay.

00:10:08
And now I'm just full blown into this. And that was kind my. I knew I had that platinum speakers coming up, and I booked on six stages coming up. Good for you. Good for you.

00:10:19
Right? And I remember telling my husband, Sandy, I think I'm going to do this public speaking thing. I had only known one other person in that space who had decided they were going to start speaking as a marketing tool. And she was doing, like, one event, maybe not even one a month. So I thought, I bet you I could find one a month.

00:10:39
We'll fly two or three days. I'll work and I'll 28 days off. Right. The rest of the month, we'll have off, and we'll just have this fantastic life. But turns out you could speak probably almost every day of the week if you really wanted to, between live stages, virtual summits, in person events, workshops, masterminds, podcasts.

00:11:00
For sure. You could keep yourself really busy. Yeah, for sure. And I'm finding that, well, for me personally, it's all about managing that, managing my energy and managing the time and making sure I'm not overdoing it because I'm such an overachiever that I will schedule too. Know, we, we ended up on that go, and I'd be in Boston and they're like, hey, Angel, can you come to?

00:11:28
And I was just, I would be on the road just constantly, and I just learned to pack and travel that way. I took my husband with me, so I wasn't feeling guilty about not going home. So I'm like, okay, baby, we're going here now. Kept a big wall calendar, but this year, Sandy, I took a shift. I made a concrete decision that I was going to travel less, I was going to stay home more.

00:11:54
I'm turned into a real homebody. We moved to Florida and really just leverage the power of podcasting because it's such an untapped marketplace. That's right. Really, there's so much potential, there's so much opportunity. And to get in front of your dream audience and speaking about what you love without having to get on an airplane, it rocks.

00:12:17
So this is what we've been teaching now for really turning my clients. Since the pandemic, we shifted. For three years, it's been all about podcasting and getting on podcasts and leveraging podcasts and training for podcasts. And we're just little podcast lovers over here. I love it.

00:12:37
Yeah. As you know, I've been training people to launch their podcast, which has been really fun.

00:12:46
And I always have to shout out to my listeners, thank you so much, because my downloads are just going up every single month, and this podcast has been really exploding, and I'm just so grateful. And it really has been one of the best ways to just to get out there and improve my speaking skills. And that's what people, I think there's a big misconception about podcasting, and I think a lot of people don't want to launch their own podcast because, well, I'm competing against Joe Rogan or there's so many out there, and people have to just shift their perception about it, because what I learned last week from being at platinum speakers is that having a podcast is just another funnel for your. And anytime you start saying, well, the market, there's already somebody in that. Right, right.

00:13:36
I always remind people, because we used to really talk, even about publishing your book, right? Starting your own podcast, starting your own networking group, starting your own. I remember growing up, my mom had a whole shelf of cookbooks in her kitchen, and a lot of them had similar recipes. But there was always room for another cookbook. If something as simple as we could have 30, 40 50 cookbooks in the house.

00:14:03
We can definitely handle a few more podcasters. Right. Nobody's going to do it the same way you do it. Right. They don't have your energy, your background, your experience, your network, your connections.

00:14:14
There's space. And anytime we start in that journey, I just think that's a story we're telling ourselves. Absolutely. I have this phrase, you find what you look for. So if you want to find reasons not to start a podcast, they'll stack.

00:14:30
Up, because they will totally stack up. Yeah. If you want to find the benefits of starting your own podcast, I promise you the list is long, and it's growing longer every day. That's right. I love that.

00:14:41
And I always tell people, if you own a business, what do you need? You need to get in front of people, and people buy from people that they know, like and trust.

00:14:54
As a business owner specifically. Right. There's three things we need to do every single day. Generate traffic, generate leads, and generate sales. Podcasting puts you in front of your dream audience, and it's a target rich environment.

00:15:08
They're listening to you. They are interested in your topic. 80% of podcast episodes, if somebody starts it, they'll finish it. Even if they pick it up and put it down right, pause and start again, they will finish that episode. And so it's just an incredible way.

00:15:24
In fact, audio is the most powerful way to connect deeply with your target audience. Because of the voice, because of the imagery that they create in their brain.

00:15:38
Hosting your own podcast. Yes. Being a guest on those podcasts, even more valuable, because now you can go and what I call borrow other people's audiences, and that's also what you're doing as a podcaster. Right? I'm coming on, so I'm going to market you to my group.

00:15:55
So we're borrowing each other's audiences, lifting each other up. We're endorsing each other. There's a trust factor that transfers from my audience to you and from your audience to me. It is incredibly powerful. I do think that the podcasting world, that people that start a podcast and are even guesting on podcasts, I think they're playing small Sandy.

00:16:19
I think because they can do it from anywhere, because of the accessibility to it, I think they really are underestimating how valuable and powerful that it really can be for them. Absolutely. Let's shift gears a minute, because you talked about how nervous you were getting on stage. How did you work through that? Because they say public speaking is right up there with people's fears, along with death.

00:16:51
Fears. How did you overcome that paralyzing fear of speaking? Mouth would dry up, right? I couldn't even get words out. Butterflies in my stomach.

00:17:00
I will tell you, even in my platinum speaker camp on the final day, where you get up in front of your peers and you do your presentation with Bill, giving you your feedback, my mouth dried up, like in the middle of it. And of course, you can't speak if you have no moisture in your mouth. Did you know that? You don't know it until it happens to you. There's absolutely no possible way to get any sound out if you don't have any moisture in your mouth.

00:17:27
So my mouth completely dried up. I had to ask for a bottle of water. Bill recommended that when something like that happens to you, you do a little exercise, right? If you're like, okay, say this to your neighbor, ask them this question, give them so that you've got pause to gather your thoughts and drink water. So I learned that from Bill right away, just how to manage that.

00:17:50
But truly, I tell people, even today, I'm still that same, right. I still get nervous every time I get up on stage. I still have the nerves, but I tell myself I'm excited, right, because it's the same emotion, the same visceral reaction in your body. I'm just really excited to be here. And I've just learned some breathing techniques, some ways to just kind of ground myself.

00:18:13
But truly, I think the only reason, the Only way I could do it is that I just did it over and over and over again. And I just faced it. And it wasn't always pretty, but I tell people it doesn't have to be perfect to make an impact. And so I felt the fear, but I did it anyways. And that's just a good recipe for life anyway, right?

00:18:34
No matter what it is that you're afraid of doing. Because I know not all of our listeners are interested in public speaking. No matter what it is that you're facing, if you have that fear, it's that repetition and just keep doing it over and over. Yeah. Right.

00:18:49
And there are breathing techniques and visualizations. There's a lot of different things as far as dealing with anxiety that you can address. I actually just had somebody he was talking about before you get on a podcast to calm your nerves, like the list of things that he was suggesting. And I thought, I don't think I've ever been that nervous to feel like I had to take a shot or there was all these things that are like, I've just kind of just put myself out there. And really, when you get the response and people respond and react to you afterwards and the support that they give you, I promise you that most people would rather be in the audience than up on stage.

00:19:33
So they're grateful it's you, not them. And for most of the audience is really graceful and forgiving and caring and kind. Occasionally you have the idiot that is going to be cruel and criticize you, and they're just not my people. I do nice and I do kind and I lead with love. And if that's not what you're leading from, then check your heart.

00:19:58
Absolutely. Yeah, I love it. Angel, that was such great advice. That was phenomenal. Let's switch gears to what you help your clients with now, in terms of learning how to do PR on your own, what would you say are some of the, because we don't have time to go into all of it, but what are like the top three things that people can do to help amplify their brand in terms of doing their own PR?

00:20:28
I think that the very first thing is just recognize that every day there are hundreds or thousands of opportunities of media journalists, event hosts, podcast hosts, who are looking for stories. And they're not looking for sales commercials, they're not looking for infomercials or sales presentations. They're looking for stories, human interest stories, tips that add value to their audience. Ideas, concepts, theories. And there's something that, you know that people always want to pick your brain about.

00:21:00
You have your thing that you are so passionate about, and we've all seen the meme on social media. If I handed you a microphone, what could you passionately speak about for 20 minutes without any preparation? Like you have your thing. And so just recognize that you do have a voice, you do have a message, and that every day there are opportunities to share that message in front of an audience. The second thing is to make friends with journalists long before you need them.

00:21:27
Yeah. What shows do you want to be featured on? What news shows, what morning shows, what anchors, what hosts? Who do you want to be interviewed by? Follow them, connect with them, reach out to them, comment on their stuff, add value where they are, and build a connection with them.

00:21:46
One of the ways that you can do that is by sending them your most recent press release. A press release is the language of journalism. Even though it seems old school, nobody's reading newspapers anymore. There is still a lot of credibility and reach that the news and traditional media possess. And most small business owners, they've got all their eggs in the social media basket.

00:22:12
And they've completely dismissed traditional media, probably because they don't watch the news and because they don't read a newspaper. But just because you don't watch the news or read a newspaper doesn't mean they don't still have reach impact, credibility, elevation for your brand. So putting out a press release once a month and sending that to those hosts and those journalists and those news sites, because if they pick up your story, those news sites, your local news stations, they're featured on a major media outlet, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox. So your story gets picked up and is featured on their website. Guess what?

00:22:48
Sandy's been featured on ABC, ABC News shared my story. And you can grab that masthead, screenshot, that logo with the logo with your headline, and you can do that every single month with a brand new. Hey, this is what's new in my business. I've launched a course. I've launched a podcast.

00:23:07
I was a guest on a podcast. I'm publishing a book. I aligned with a nonprofit. I rebranded, I hired somebody. I'm doing JVs, like all the things that you're doing anyways.

00:23:17
Create a headline and connect with your local journalist. And then the third thing I would say is volume. Just do more. The thing is, we underestimate how much reach, how much volume, how much exposure that we really need to do in order to get the results. So how many people do I need to be in front of traffic?

00:23:37
Exposure, visibility, in order to get leads and opt ins to move those into sales. We underestimate what it takes. So we don't do enough. And because we don't do enough, we think it doesn't work. So two interviews a week on somebody else's podcast puts you in front of 100 different audiences and 100 stages every year.

00:23:58
Two interviews a week plus one press release a month gives you the secret formula, like, not even secret, the success formula for really leveraging, getting you out, generating traffic, generating leads, and generating sales. Wow, that was some amazing information, Angel. Thank you so much. That was awesome. Wow.

00:24:23
There you go. Right? Well, hey, everybody, Angel knows what she's talking about. And you could easily talk for an hour. We do three day events sometimes talking about this very thing, but less is more.

00:24:41
If you're going to be a podcast guest, being able to be very buttoned up and tight with your answers, to be able to give value and enough value that isn't selling. Even if people don't buy from you, even if they don't opt in, it should still add value to the audience. It should add value to the host, it should uplift the host and their audience. But really being able to be tight and succinct with your message and then just give them an option to follow up with you and to connect with you, then you can give them more, right? Give them more background backstory, give them more implementation of how they can take action.

00:25:17
But as a podcast guest, just being able to be brief with how you describe the value you provide and to have a conversation and a great dialogue with that host is really the key to being a quality podcast guest. I think love it. And I always like to just throw in. It's not about me, it's about the audience. Yeah, always about the audience.

00:25:42
Always about, yes. What can they do if they want to take notes, give them something they never thought of, just shift their mindset a little bit and just get them thinking, because that's actually why they're listening to podcasts. I want to think more. They're probably exercising or walking their dog or commuting. They're doing something else.

00:26:02
So just stimulate their mind a little bit and they're coming back. You said your show is growing more and more downloads. They're probably listening to multiple episodes that you've put out. And so it's such a valuable way to connect with your target audience by being a guest, sharing your message. Show up professionally, show up ready to go, show up with a message.

00:26:30
Take it seriously. Help market it, help promote it. There are a lot of things that you can do to be a valuable guest, but yeah, always show up for the it. Love it. So how can people find out about you and what you're offering?

00:26:47
So a couple of years ago, we started a really valuable Facebook group that helps guests find podcasts and podcasters find guests. Oh, nice. Like my little media matchmaker site. We're always looking for podcasters to join our directory, and we're always looking for those who, if you're looking to be on more shows to join the group, it's a free group. You can find it by going to the URL.

00:27:14
Needaguest.com Needaguest.com when you get there, you give access to the free group. We have some free tools and resources that you can plug into. You can join our directory both as a host and a guest. So then we can play matchmaker even easier when we've got you in a directory. And that's at needaguesdirectory.com.

00:27:36
If you've got a show or you want to be a guest and all of those resources are free. Love it. Yeah. In the course I was teaching two days ago, I've been talking about how to find guests and we mentioned that group to join as well. Yeah, super.

00:27:53
I'm really. I'm really proud of Sandy and Awesome. Yeah. So we're excited. We're excited to offer that.

00:27:59
So offer that to you. If you're looking for guests, Sandy would love to have you on our directory so we can be more intentional about bringing our clients to you. Our clients hire us to help them get booked on shows to actually create their whole lead gen system on the back end to monetize. Monetize their podcast interviews. So we train them up for podcast to be a great podcast guest, match them up with great podcasters and then help them to monetize it with a great lead magnet on the back end.

00:28:29
Love it. That's incredible. Angel, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, everyone, for listening today. And happy holidays, everyone.

00:28:39
Yes, thanks, Sandy. Thank you, Angel.

00:28:44
Quickly.

00:28:53
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled with peace, joy and happiness. Take care.