Podcasting Made Simple
Podcasting Made Simple is the premier podcast about podcasting! We’re here to help podcast guests and podcast hosts reach more listeners and grow their income so they can change more lives! Join Alex Sanfilippo and other podcasting industry experts as they share how you can level up on either side of the mic! (Show notes and resources: https://PodMatch.com/episodes)
Podcasting Made Simple
From Fear to Confidence as a Podcast Guest | Evgeniy Kharam
As podcast guesting increases in popularity, more trained public speakers and former radio experts enter the space. It can be intimidating hearing the caliper of guests going before you on podcasts. But this doesn't have to stop you! In this episode, Evgeniy Kharam shares his own journey of transitioning from feeling fearful about his own voice and performance on podcasts to becoming fully confident. Get ready to elevate your speaking skills so you show up in the best possible way as a podcast guest!
MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/320
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Journey of Self-Improvement
01:57 Overcoming Communication Challenges
05:21 Understanding and Managing Fear
08:44 Techniques for Effective Speaking
Takeaways
I had a problem that turned into an opportunity.
The journey of self-improvement is ongoing.
Your accent is part of your identity.
Understanding your voice is essential for effective communication.
Fear can be a sign that you care about your performance.
Breathing techniques can help manage anxiety before speaking.
Filler words can be replaced with pauses for clarity.
Recording yourself can help identify areas for improvement.
Transitioning fear into excitement can enhance performance.
Everyone has a unique speaking style that should be embraced.
MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/320
📊 This month's Independent Podcasters Report is now available! To see podcasting industry insights that matter for indie podcast hosts and podcast guests, please visit https://PodMatch.com/Report!
You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple. He will just eat the end of the sentence from time to time. He will also be quite anxious before he needs to go and speak somewhere. This particular client wanted to be a guest on podcast. This particular client wanted to speak more on conferences and to the customers. And guess what? This client is me. Around five, six years ago, I realized I had a problem. I realized I want to achieve much more. Then I changed my problem as a statement to become an opportunity to work on myself. I started the journey of improving myself, you improving how I speak and I communicate. And I can tell you it wasn't an easy journey, but it's definitely a journey. And it's still a journey right now. And I'll share a story about Yevgeny. I'm Yevgeny. I'm a solution architect. I've been around for 20 years, helping customers, enterprise customers with solution architecture and consulting inside the security space. But in the same time, Evgeny wanted to have his own show. Evgeny wanted to speak at the conferences. Evgeny wanted to write a book. So right now I have two podcasts. I have my own conference and I also released a book about soft skills in technical sales. But the important part started the journey of what to do with myself, how to improve the voice, how to find Eugenie that will be the true Eugenie and not someone on TV, not someone we'll see on LinkedIn or Facebook. And it took some time. And the beginning of this journey was by me going and trying to remove my accent. It didn't really work well and it still has. moved from Ukraine to Israel quite long time ago, and then moved from Israel to Toronto. So my accent is mixed between Russian and Israeli languages. When I was doing the training for voice development around three years ago, my dear teacher told me, Evgeny, leave the accent. This is part of you. You don't need to remove it. You can leave it because people will remember you with your accent. and the way you speak. And I do have quite a low voice. I know about that. So we change the focus. We accept that the accent will stay, but we spend more time on slowing down. We spend more time to articulate different words better. We spend more time to project my voice, to be able to speak to the audience, to be able to communicate with the audience much better. Apparently right now, When I have a microphone and I speak at a conference, people hear me very well with microphone and without a microphone as well. But this is good and I really, like it. We also spend time on understanding how to use the voice better. If you're very low, medium or high pitch, I have a low pitch and a high pitch and I was missing the part in the middle. And what I'm going with is everybody is unique. Everybody's different. And the same way, if you want to analyze your eating habits or you have a sore back, you're going to go to a doctor and you're going to understand what's happening with you. You'll do a gut assessment to your own voice or your own health. I suggest you to go and analyze your voice if you want to become a guest on podcasts and you want to enjoy this more. And if you already been on shows, or recorded yourself, you probably know that none of us like the voice from first time. It took me about eight months to be okay with my voice. Now I'm totally fine. I listened to myself hundreds of times. I edited many videos and audios with me being there and I'm okay with that. It was part of acceptance and understanding that I am okay with where I am. But part of the voice, it's not just one part. I mentioned I was quite anxious to appearing on the shows. I was quite anxious to do public speaking. I will be afraid. I will sweat. My hands will come wet. My breathing will come in some cases faster. And I realize it's a problem because if I am focusing on being afraid, I'm less focusing on delivering the information. Now, is being afraid it's a problem or not a problem. I think it's good and bad. So let's think about this. You see a kitty cat on the street. Do you afraid? Probably shouldn't, but you don't know. Maybe this kitty cat is a bit crazy and it's gonna scratch you. It will survive. You see a lion on the street, depending on the street. Should you be afraid? I hope you will be afraid because the lion not just scratch you, the lion probably eat you. We have this expression in Canada. What doesn't kill you make you better only if it's a bear. The bear will kill you. So think about that. Now, why I'm thinking fear could be good because fear may keep you out of trouble. If you're going on a bike very, very fast and you're not breaking and you're not having any fear, you may get in trouble. But if you have fear, you may be break, look around and understand there's potential dangers around you. When you're going and speaking, when you're going to be on a podcast and you're afraid, It's an indication that you care. It's an indication that something is happening. Now, part of the solution of the problem is to understand you have a problem. So if you know you're being afraid to be on a show or you're afraid to speak and you're able to catch this, now you can do something about it. So one, for me, I know I will be afraid. I was actually afraid to record this video. I was looking and going back and forth around the house until I sit down. I started to record. It actually took me like two months to come and sit down and record this video because I was finding something else to do. Now, if you can understand that you're scared or you're not sure, you can also transition this energy to excitement. You can transition this fear to something else. So it's okay to understand that you're afraid and it's okay to do this. And you may ask me, how do I just do this? Do I just pull on the switch and move on? No. Not just that. First of all, it's understanding, as we already mentioned. Second is you can use techniques, like breathing techniques, to slow down, to understand what are we afraid from, how we can move this on. The breathing technique is the one that helped me quite a lot. One of them calls box breathing. You probably heard about this, or if not, just type box breathing. It started in the Navy and many, many other systems as well. and Y box because we inhale for X amount of seconds, hold for X amount of seconds, exhale for X amount of seconds, hold and repeat. So if we do the square for five seconds each, it's going to be 20 seconds for one in and out. Basically it's going to transition to three breaths per second. Now, if you look on statistics, usually we are from 12 to 15 breaths a second. When you're panicking, you can go to 20, 30 or even more versus three. So by slowing down your breathing, by slowing down yourself, you automatically slow down your nervous system, your heart rate, and you will be much easier going to the flow or to the zone to present. This is an important part that I think you can use every day, not just for speaking. Another part. We mentioned this quite a lot when we talk to other people, it's filler words. And somehow people think magically, if we tell you don't use filler words, we will stop using them. But in reality, what's happening in our mind, I believe we think if we're not going to continuously create the sound or speak, people will think we're stupid or people will cut us off. So when we say like, hi, hello, I'm Yvgeny, you know, Like today we're to talk about, you know, the AI system that will, this doesn't really sound well and very quickly people will lose what we're trying to talk about. I actually remember a presentation when we came to a customer and my salesperson was saying, you know, you know, you know, every second word. And I stopped him and told him, dude, they don't know this why we invited here to explain to them how it's going to work. So what I suggest is instead of trying to remove filler words, try to replace them and replace them with a short pause. So you can say, hi, I'm Evgeny. Today we'll talk about how to improve in your voice. Now, it's not as easy as I say as well, but you need to kind of turn on a CPU in your brain and slowly start watching which filler words you are using. You can also record yourself, it in many, many tools that exist in the internet, will transcribe your voice and show you which filler words you're using. And then one by one, you can start to remove them and unplugging them and replacing them with a box. I also know for myself and other people, and I recorded more than 300 different episodes already, when people nervous or under pressure, they use more filler words. So by using the unfeared technique like box breathing and put yourself in a zone, it will automatically remove the amount of filler words you can use. And by creating the combination of using the fear correctly, slowing down how you speak, understanding how not to use filler words and having a pause, you will become a better speaker. And don't forget, also project your voice. hope you will become a better host, you will enjoy what you do, and you will be in many, many, shows. Thank you very much. For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com forward slash episodes. Thank you so much for listening. Hey, Alex here. I wanted to give you a gift as a way of saying thank you for staying around till the end of this episode. I put together a list of five things that you can read in less than five minutes that will help you level up as a podcast host, guest, or agency. To see the five things with no email address required, please visit podmatch.com forward slash free. Thanks again for listening. I hope these five things serve you well.
