Caroline Goyder

They spend half an hour before the show goes up just sitting quietly.

And what they're doing is exactly that, Heather.

They're tuning into mind, breath and body.

They're getting present.

And what that means is when you hit the adrenaline of the audience, your system meets it and it spikes performance.

If you're not centered, if you've been checking TikTok or, you know, watching TV or checking your messages, looking at Slack or something, you hit the adrenaline and your system panics.

It's so interesting, isn't it?

Because I know my editor, my video editor will say, if he's editing YouTube videos, you've got to cut out all the pauses.

People hate pauses on social media.

That's not the same in speaking because a pause, it's like good poetry.

You know, you look at a poem or a song lyric, a film script, there's loads of white space.

And what happens in the white space?

We process stuff because not everything is speaking.

If you lay out speech like a poem or a song lyric, then you create a space for the audience to connect with it.

Whereas if I just talk at you and I don't stop and I keep going because I'm nervous and I'm just kind of on a roll because I can't really, then you zone out because there's no white space.

No one can think that fast to hear you.

No.

And yet people do because we're all so speedy.

Our lives now are so speedy.

And I think there is a movement to all this productivity movement and the emphasis on time and managing time, I think, is coming as a response to the overwhelm.