Evoke Greatness Podcast
Do you have an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge?
Are you interested in hearing the stories of how successful people have navigated their journey towards greatness…all while stumbling through valuable lessons along the way?
My name is Sonnie and I am the host of Evoke Greatness, the weekly podcast driven by my curious nature and fascination with the champion mindset. I am a HUGE book nerd and a wee bit of a "control enthusiast" with an obsession for motivational coffee cups.
On this podcast, we share the ups and the downs, the highs and lows and all the lessons learned in between. It's my most sincere hope you hear something in one or maybe many of these episodes that resonates with you and reminds you that you’re not in this alone.
I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to Evoke Greatness!
Evoke Greatness Podcast
From Stage Fright to Spotlight with Linda Ugelow (Part 2)
🎧 Episode 152: From Stage Fright to Spotlight with Linda Ugelow (Part 2)
Ever wonder why some people seem naturally confident on stage while others freeze? In this powerful conclusion to our conversation, presence coach Linda Ugelow reveals the hidden barriers holding you back and shares revolutionary techniques to transform your relationship with being seen.
Discover:
- The surprising pre-performance ritual that eliminates speaking anxiety
- Three invisible blocks keeping you from showing up authentically (and how to clear them)
- Why your voice is more powerful than you realize - and how to unlock its full potential
- A game-changing body scan technique for staying grounded in high-stakes moments
- The truth about virtual presence - and why "looking perfect" might be hurting your impact
🔑 Game-Changing Insights:
- The real reason you're uncomfortable being seen (hint: it's not about confidence)
- How cultural messages secretly sabotage your speaking power
- Why traditional "manage your anxiety" advice keeps you stuck
- The counterintuitive approach to virtual presence that builds deeper connections
- A daily practice that transforms challenging conversations
💡 Breakthrough Moment: "If you don't feel safe inside your own head, you're not going to feel safe in front of other people." - Linda Ugelow
Linda's Parting Wisdom: "Honor and accept where you are in your journey, because you can't be where you're not."
📚 Resources:
- Get Linda's book: "Delight in the Limelight: Overcome Your Fear of Being Seen and Step Into Your True Performance Power": https://www.amazon.com/Delight-Limelight-Overcome-Realize-Dreams/dp/1989603947
- Learn more about Linda's Comfy on Camera class and the Delight in the Limelight Accelerator: https://lindaugelow.com/
Ready to transform your relationship with visibility?
- Download Linda's Speaker Preparation Checklist at lindaugelow.com
- Get a free chapter of "Delight in the Limelight"
- Learn about the upcoming Delight in the Limelight Accelerator Program
Don't miss this episode if you're ready to stop managing your visibility fears and start eliminating them completely.
A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!
Check out my website: www.evokegreatness.com
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Welcome to Evoke Greatness. We are officially entering year three of this podcast and I am filled with so much gratitude for each and every one of you who've joined me on this incredible journey of growth and self-discovery. I'm Sunny, your host and fellow traveler on this path of personal evolution. This podcast is a sanctuary for the curious, the ambitious and the introspective. It's for those of you who, like me, are captivated by the champion mindset and driven by an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge. Whether you're just beginning your journey or you're well along your path, you're going to find stories here that resonate with your experiences and aspirations. Over the last two years, we've shared countless stories of triumph and challenge, of resilience and transformation. We've laughed, we've reflected and we've grown together. And as we've evolved, so too has this podcast. Remember, no matter what chapter you're on in your own story, you belong here. This community we've built together is a place of support, inspiration and shared growth. Where intention goes, energy flows, and the energy you bring to this space elevates us all. So, whether you're listening while commuting, working out or enjoying your morning coffee, perhaps from one of those motivational mugs I'm so fond of, know that you're a part of something special. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your curiosity, your openness and your commitment to personal growth. As we embark on year three, I invite you to lean in, to listen deeply and to let these stories resonate with your soul. I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to evoke greatness.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to part two of my episode with Linda Ugalo. In this episode she talks about the real reason. You're uncomfortable being seen, how cultural messages secretly sabotage your speaking power and why traditional manage your anxiety advice actually keeps you stuck. Make sure to go back and listen to last week's episode, which was part one, where she talks about the fear of visibility often stems from past experiences. True performance power comes from removing fear rather than managing it. I hope you enjoy part two, so let's go ahead and hop into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my favorite things to do when speaking is to go into the room. That kind of used to be a fear for me is when you're in that room. Then it's go time and my heart rate would start speeding up, and so what I found myself doing is going to the room ahead of time and kind of just standing grounded in the room and taking in the energy and just visualizing the people's faces. What are they there for, what is their intention, how can I serve them? And that, for me personally, had me shift or reframe how I was looking at the room that I was going into. Originally it was this place of not maybe not fear, but definite nervousness, and not that I not that I still don't have kind of my heart rate speeds up a little bit, but it is really truly out of like the ability that I get the opportunity to serve these people, ability that I get the opportunity to serve these people and so it's different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's likely for us to have a little bit of adrenaline rush when we're doing something new, especially if we've never talked about that topic before or if there's something new about it that makes a lot of sense. I love what you did. I do that all the time. I recommend that to all of my clients in my singing group, since we always warmed up in the space that we were going to perform in. We had that opportunity to do it. As I'm doing vocalizes. I'll be looking around the room, looking at the windows and the ceiling and the seating arrangements and imagining people there and imagining looking over to the left or over to the right, and it definitely prepaves Again. It kind of makes more automatic. You are already in relationship to the space. You are creating your relationship, Just like I was describing creating a relationship to the lens. You're creating a relationship to the room. You're creating a relationship to the room, and we can do this also even before we get into the room, and I recommend this.
Speaker 2:I have it in chapter two of my book of mental rehearsal, where you just imagine yourself in this space, even though you don't know what it may look like yet, but you imagine it and you do exactly what you did. You imagine like seeing the people sitting around and maybe they're smiling at you and you see yourself moving just the way you want to move and speaking the way you want to speak and feeling the way you want to feel and seeing the outcome at the end and people smiling and how you feel walking off the stage. I mean, you can do this. Oh, another thing that you can imagine is that the first words that come out of your mouth, you're already in the groove. This is something that a lot of people who are seasoned speakers they'll say well, I'm really nervous for the first 10 minutes and then I get into the groove. Well then, we've got to imagine what does that groove feel like and put that in before you get on so that you start off feeling I'm here, I'm already in this, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've worked with people across different industries and cultures. What have you discovered around, what that universal fear is about being seen and how do you help people move through these fears versus just kind of on the outskirts we're just going to go around these. How do they actually move through them? Versus skating the outskirts of them?
Speaker 2:Well, it's my deep belief that the fear of speaking is not random. It's always connected to something, so whether it's that impacting past experience or messages that we receive from our culture and around the world of course, cultures have different messages that they give in terms of if it's okay to look at somebody in the eye, in some cultures you don't look someone in the eye, you look down. Or there's deference to authority figures I mean, there should be deference here too, but it's a little different and or to older people, to grandparents, for instance. But we'll adopt messages like children should be seen and not heard, or don't stand out, or be a good kid, which means be compliant, and all of these. Silence is golden. Or if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Any of these things that, if we are trying to be good, we're going to adopt and we don't realize that we've taken them on but they're no longer needed. Because again, it's not like we graduate and they say okay, here are all the rules that you were playing by before, but now that you're an adult, you got this whole new set of rules and so just drop that. No, we just carry them with us. And so there are three things that we have to clear away to overcome the fear of speaking these past experiences, the messages we received and the way we're talking to ourselves, because if you don't feel safe inside your own head, you're not going to feel safe in front of other people. So I find, actually, that doing those three things and resolving and clearing those away people feel hugely different when they get out, either on stage or they're leading a meeting or having a conversation wherever it is that you feel uncomfortable. Conversation wherever it is that you feel uncomfortable, that is usually enough to get over it. However, there is more you can do, which we were just talking about peak experience that you can do in order to feel even better, because it's not to me.
Speaker 2:Speaking is our human design. You know we're meant to be good at speaking and we adopt. We know that it's something that we can get better at in our interpersonal communication. Obviously, we can get better at as a public speaker or giving presentations, or stepping up a town hall meeting to share your opinion on a new you know vote that they're taking there. What I have realized most recently that it's funny that it took me so long, since I've been not only in a singing group for 40 years, but I was taking vocal lessons for all those years, every single week that when we also reclaim not just that we have a voice meaning like we have something to say but we actually reclaim our speaking voice as our instrument, that changes everything for the better, because we tend to think okay, I learned how to speak, I know how to speak. I mean meaning, use my voice and that's it. Maybe I speak too fast or maybe I speak too quietly and maybe I need to work on that. But it goes even beyond that.
Speaker 2:I feel like most of us are out of touch with the experience of making sounds, with the experience of producing our words. But when you think about it, it's amazing what we do. We're moving our jaw, we're moving our tongue and using our lips and we're shaping our mouths for these different vowels and they create sounds that have meaning to you and me and all these people who are listening. And not just that, but there are all these languages around the world that are different, that do the same thing. It's pretty mysterious and amazing, and I would love to see people begin to recognize and realize what an amazing thing it is that we have an actual voice to speak with and to enjoy and perhaps rediscover the pleasure of making sounds.
Speaker 2:I mean, when you are making sounds as I'm speaking, I'm vibrating. I can feel the vibration in my body. I feel the vibration, I feel the hum in my throat. It feels very nice, it feels pleasant and it feels good to release my breath. I mean, everyone likes to sigh and exhale. That's what we do when we speak. We are actually speaking our words on the exhale. So there's so many things to explore in our voice and as we do that, as we speak, it keeps us grounded inside ourselves, it keeps us in the present moment and it allows us the possibility of expressing ourselves with a lot more dynamics and color and interest, because we, as the words come out, we are shaping it with our volume and with our tone and with our energy, and it makes it so much more fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, many of our listeners are leaders and a lot of their role is inspiring confidence in their teams, while sometimes dealing with their own self-doubt, right, those own things that are going around in their own minds. In the time when you're feeling a little heated or you're in that situation where it feels like, okay, I have to get out of my own head and maybe be more present here.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, this is a very important technique and skill for us all to have and I recommend that you practice this, not in heated moments, but you practice it daily, just as you're listening to your kids or your spouse or your colleagues, when you're in conversation with anyone. I recommend doing a body scan Just notice your feet on the floor, notice the position of your arms and legs, feel your breath. When you stay connected with your body in this way, in a somatic awareness, you actually keep your brain clear so you can listen better. What we often do is, while someone's talking, we're thinking, oh, what am I going to say next? But if you occupy your mind with staying in your embodied, then you actually keep your mind clear and you would be surprised that you can hear better.
Speaker 2:And even if you had something that you could have said at one point, but they kept on talking like I'm just keeping talking now then you stay present with them and then, if something happens where there's a physical or emotional response that you're having, you will know it's happening as it's happening. Like you'll say oh, I'm feeling my blood pressure rising and maybe I'll just like put you know, feel my feet on the ground, just take a breath, you know, sit back in my seat, let my body be heavy, respond in a physical way to the emotion or anxiety or the hormonal release that's happening as you're in conversation. But if you haven't practiced it, then it's much harder to do when you're in the heat of the moment. But if it's something that you regularly do, then you will be equipped at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, completely agree. It's almost like if you start to implement it into your regular daily interactions and it can be subtle, right? It can be you just kind of checking in with yourself in the course of your workday, your day at home, where you're like, okay, here's where I am, here's how I'm feeling. And if you start doing that regularly, it becomes a little bit more of a natural thing for you to do, regardless of what situation you're in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And the same thing is going to happen if you are someone who's speaking in person, if you are practicing staying embodied, and if you practice staying embodied while you're speaking in a casual way, then you will be able to take that awareness with you into those higher stake moments.
Speaker 1:The pandemic, I think, did some interesting things to us. It really transformed how we present ourselves with many interactions because we moved a lot to be online. How do you think that shift impacted our relationship with visibility and are there any unique opportunities that you see in this landscape where we are online a whole lot more maybe than we had been pre?
Speaker 2:all of that, I do feel like there are a lot of opportunities. I mean, not many of us grew up thinking, oh, I want to be an on-camera personality, but the pandemic kind of turned us all into that right I feel like we could utilize. Now that we are online, we may as well raise our aesthetic, Aesthetic and artistic standards a little bit. So, for instance, like if you are a professional and you are you want to make sure that how you show up on camera, your face is lit. I mean number one, that we can angle the camera so that you feel like you are sitting across from someone at the table rather than your head like at the way bottom. We can lighting, sound framing, maybe having a background, like right now I don't know how many people are going to be watching and how many people are listening, but behind me I have kind of like a little setup that's actually mobile and it's a little place where I can stick my book. So even though I'm on camera, people can see my book. That's a professional setting. So, whether or not you work for yourself or you work in a company, you may put in a little energy into creating a setting, a nice setting for people to see you in and it shows you as the professional that you are. You know, again, it depends on what your brand is and you know what your. You know who is your audience.
Speaker 2:I once had a. I had one client who worked with moms of children who had health issues and they were frazzled and she was very concerned with showing herself with her hair. She said one of the things that really gets me is having to do my hair and makeup. I said why are you doing your hair and makeup? Your audience isn't doing their hair and makeup. They've got too much on their plate. They don't want to look at you and think, oh, marie has it all together. Look at her. I can't possibly look as good as her. I said no, you've got to do it, for you know, be relatable to your audience. So, even though I'm talking about a professional background, I mean, if it's relevant to you for her it's probably was better for her to just show up in her kitchen. You know better for her to just show up in her kitchen, you know, with her hair unbrushed and a sweatshirt, because that was what related to the people who are following her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and relatability is everything right. If someone feels like they can't quite like, the message may resonate. But even if they feel like they can't relate to you and you're the one with the message, there's going to be a sense of separation there, and so I love that. I love that that was the advice, because really guess what People showing up to hear more about that, how much more at home did they feel from the message that they were receiving from this person? Because they felt like they were looking in the mirror, and that's that piece where we almost like lean in and we get drawn in more. Well, as we wrap up, I have a question that I always love to throw out, and that is if it were your last day on earth and, of all you've learned, you could only give one piece of advice or guidance to the world, what would that?
Speaker 2:be. It would be to honor and accept where you are in your journey, because you can't be where you're not. Beautiful advice.
Speaker 1:Beautiful advice. Well, Linda, I would love for you to share where everyone can find you follow, you get your content, find out more about the Accelerator program or your book, and I'll put all this in show notes, but I would love for you to share that.
Speaker 2:Yes, come to my website, lindayugelowcom. That's U-G-E-L-O-W. You can download a free chapter from my book. You can download the speaker preparation checklist, which is my recommendations beyond just practicing what you want to say, so that your voice and your body is open and ready to go and your energy is focused and your mind is in the right place. I feel like I always go through a little checklist myself and it makes life, so I don't forget anything, because I want to bring my best to my speaking. So you can do that too, and in terms of the accelerator, I don't even have it up yet, but you can always message me and say hey, I want to find out more about this and we can talk message me and say, hey, I want to find out more about this and we can talk.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and your wisdom and insights with the audience. There's lots of gold nuggets here, and so we will make sure to have all of your contact information in the show notes so that people can take in more. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Sunny take in more. Thanks so much, sunny. Thank you so much for listening and for being here on this journey with me. I hope you'll stick around If you liked this episode. It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know. Many need to hear this message. I love to hear from you all and want you to know that you can leave me a voicemail directly. If you go to my website, evokegreatnesscom, and go to the contact me tab, you'll just hit the big old orange button and record your message. I love the feedback and comments that I've been getting, so please keep them coming. I'll leave you with the wise words of author Robin Sharma Greatness comes by doing a few small and smart things each and every day. It comes from taking little steps consistently. It comes from making a few small chips against everything in your professional and personal life that is ordinary, so that a day eventually arrives when all that's left is the extraordinary. Thank you.
